Steemit markets itself as a social media blogging and content curation platform, and that's fine. It's nice to see content creators rewarded with tokens for contributing, and I support Steemit by keeping a balance here. But blockchain immutability is not optimized for blogging and social media applications. Social media exists to fulfill more ephemeral purposes. For most social media, creators will want the ability to delete or edit published content anytime they need to. Steemit and Steem are not designed to permit post-publication editing. That's a feature not a bug.
It's an underused feature. Immutable public ledgers supported by a thriving community have great value for commerce, governance, identity, reputation, and other social assets. For example, what I wrote about in Blockchain Faith: how public ledgers can be used to resolve any type of social conflict peacefully, and reward people for building honorable reputations within their communities. Steem and Steemit enable basic principles of Blockchain Faith to be practiced by anyone able to use Steemit. It does not yet support more advanced features like encrypted records and key sharing. It's OK to experiment with an unencrypted promise ledger, but the full potential won't be achievable until more advanced features are made available.
Nothing we can know is truly immutable. The blockchain is immutable only in the sense that records can't individually be deleted or altered, once recorded in the blockchain. Each record stays unchanged for so long as the blockchain exists. It's hard enough to remove unflattering or private information from the Internet, even with laws such as the EU's right-to-be-forgotten laws. Blockchain makes it impossible. We should all be careful about what we post here, knowing our posts are "forever."
Some things we want to be immutable, like promises, oaths, what our identity means to the people around us: the things that define us, are under our own control and help us to connect with others based on personal honor. People are not using Steemit for that yet, as far as I know. It would be a very compelling application, if enough people made immutable promises and stuck with them. Before you did business with a stranger, you could check their promise tags on Steemit to see what they stood for. You could check their feedback tags to see who has given positive or negative feedback about how well their behavior matches their promises. You could use their social promises as a tool for working with different people productively, resolving conflicts, solving community problems, and encouraging positive social change. If you are interested in more detail, follow me here or read my book.
Let's use Steemit for meaningful social activities, things immutable ledgers actually are optimized for, and see how far we can get before we need more advanced functions. I'll get started, encourage my friends to join in, and report on my experiences here. If you're already using Steemit as a ledger for social promises or would like to try it out, let's get in touch. If you're a developer looking to improve Steemit or any other blockchain interface for user-created content, I have ideas I would be happy to share!