I'm @andrarchy, the Head of Communications for Steemit and in the following video I talk about the vision I have for Steem in response to this great post by @llfarms.
Human Technology
For me, Steem isn't really a "blockchain" technology, it's a "human technology." We use a brand new technology (blockchain) which enables new kinds of features (cryptocurrency, pseudo-anonymity, immutable data storage, crowdsourced stake distribution) to construct a platform that can support the creation of sustainable and scalable communities.
The underlying technology may have drawn me to Steem, but I think what really sucked me in was the fact that for the first time in history I saw a technology that was truly bringing together like-minded people, but in a neutral way. But fostering the formation of a community is only the beginning because maintaining a community is the hard part. It takes hard work and dedication, which is why so few online communities (and online community platforms) have managed to survive. Eventually people get tired of working for free. Steem's solution to this problem is not as much one of incentivization, as much as stake distribution.
Community Stake
Everyone should have the ability to earn a stake in the communities they add value to and in order for that community to be sustainable that stake has to be proportioned to the value they add. Steem certainly isn't perfect, but it certainly is the blockchain community that is doing the most to develop technologies aimed squarely at those problems.
With Stake Comes Responsibility
But with stake comes responsibility, and I believe that it is this responsibility that often confuses and disheartens people. This is an open source platform that anyone, anyone, can acquire a stake in, not just miners. The people who maintain the infrastructure of a blockchain are not a large or representative group. Any blockchain where the people maintaining the infrastructure are the ones capturing the majority of newly created tokens is the definition of centralized.
On Steem, everyone with stake has influence over the direction of the protocol, which means they have a responsibility to try to make it better. But that was never going to be easy, least of all because people are always going to disagree on what constitutes "better." Everyone is going to have different visions of what Steem should be.
That's why my vision for Steem is an ecosystem capable of supporting all kinds of communities, with all kinds of visions for the future. As long as they believe that everyone should have the opportunity to earn stake in the communities they join, we can always work together to make Steem better and better.
You all at Steemit Inc. are not doing a very good managing your company. Tell Ned he should have hired me a few hundred million ago. Thanks :)
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Someones managing things? ...fuck!....I never noticed
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Yes, you have to try pretty hard to f*ck up a billion dollar company with no debt .... in 1 year....
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🎁 Dear @dreamryder007,
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When our started the development of SteemBet Dice game, we couldn’t imagine that our game would go so viral and that SteemBet would become one of the pioneers in this field.
In order to give back to our beloved community, we’ll distribute 4000 STEEM to SPT holders immediately after Seed sale. Plus, investors in this earliest round will be given 60% more tokens as reward and overall Return on Investment is estimated at 300%!
Join the whitelist on SteemBet webiste now and start investing! Feel free to ask us anything on Discord https://discord.gg/tNWJEAD
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I have to be honest and say my experience with @magicdice has soured my opinion of these types of en-devours. It seems like most are hit and run operations.
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Sir. We are different. Steembet is the open right platform to everyone. And we will develop Steembet with investors.
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Are you a bot?
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So much virtue signaling, so little concern for sustainability.
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I think that this will become more apparent when SMTs are able to be applied and amass value on them in varying ways, depending on the communities they empower - not just speculation.
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And yet we run the risk of creating multiple competing social silos with SMTs. Single shared token is a solid foundation for achieving combined network effect across multiple communities.
Steem is a great foundation for new businesses, new products and services. At first, we are matching functionality of existing closed social systems, but as rapid permissionless innovation continues, it will bring forward previously unimaginable things and qualities which will set it apart from all of the current-day competition.
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The risk for silos is not really a risk as itessentially already happens. What is possible is that those siloed can still be successful in their own right by leveraging the Steem blockchain. If you consider that an SMT might service a language or topic group, it could be very interesting. Some SMTs will be used just to track product movement perhaps, who knows.
It is going to be very interesting who and how they populate the token economy.
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Agree with this central point.
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Agree 100%
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Hi
Thank you for this post. I really think that this comment hit the nail on the head. It resonates with me and is really a paraphrase of my explanation when I tell people about Steem.
All of us who joined Facebook and Instagram in their infancy contributed to the growth of those platforms by providing content and recruiting people to join the platform. Our use of the free software helped build the business. But we were consumers only and we didn’t think of our selves as promoters of the platform which is what we were. I think Steemit is our second chance to be a paid promoter and participant in what may be the next big social media platform.
We can work a little and earn a little or we can work a lot and earn a lot. Or we can alternate between these two extremes or simply earn passive income. It’s our choice. This is a very flexible and varied user determined opportunity.
We are not “all powerful” and participants influence is limited by stake, but that’s how life is in general and I think it isn’t a bad thing. You influence in any venture should partially be determined by how much skin you have in the game and how much work you are willing to put forth. Personally, I think we have more influence here then other platforms.
Lastly, I am very optimistic about the future of the platform. People with different skills are stepping up and creating the things they want to see and being the forces for changes they want to see take place. The variety of talents on the blockchain is very diverse and the acceleration in development is astounding. For example , I think the current applications which provide graphic user interfaces which attract different skill level platform participants are very important.
And the surge in gaming and gambling applications is also encouraging as they represent additional use cases for the blockchain.
Remember Facebook is a great social media App but millions use it just to play “Candy Crush” LOL 😂. I think usage, usefulness and just plain fun drives adoption and growth in many instances.
Those are my thoughts.
Shortsegments.
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Agree with the main theme here, those who are providing content and recruiting user should have a way of getting a stake in the business. I am also impressed with the number and popularity of DAPPS coming out. Some may not like the gambling, but America and the Blockchain are all about choice!
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Thanks.
I understand what your saying about the games.
But I agree it’s all about choice and free will.
😊
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America? This is a lot more then just Americans ...
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I agree with your point about users, who are in fact helping build the business being able to buy a stake! Your other points are also valid and I share your optimism for similar reasons.
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Thanks. It’s nice to know I am not alone in thinking this way.
Happy Easter!
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Has Steemit Inc seriously considered raising curation rewards to actually encourage humans to curate manually like the system would need them to for Steem to actually thrive, rather than sell their votes to bots? The above statement would indicate so, but I've not seen any discussion about this change, that's been asked for by many in the community, ever since the bid bots were introduced to the system, from Steemit Inc employers. Other than Ned pointing out that bid bots are "interesting"...
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I want to see Steem achieve its potential to change lives. For that we need to build up the community and lessen the influence on some who just take. I'm not sure this needs changes to the algorithm, but it does need a concerted effort to bring in good people who add value.
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Ah, stake based systems.....the Achilles heel of the steemit ecosystem... trying to sell on merit, when it isn't a merit system...
...and those with 'the power' will never give it up - not when anonymous owners of 1000'a of accounts can spread their wealth around to make it look otherwise..
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I think your vision for Steem is in large the correct one. I think the tricky thing is going to be creating cohesive user experiences that regular people want to use though. Most crypto projects aren't that reliant on "regular"(not technically inclined, not crypto literate) people using them, but Steem is, so I think one of our greatest challenges will be creating elegant and focused user experiences in a decentralized environment.
My vision is to help foster this by putting more of an emphasis on donations on the different Steem frontends and having that be the on ramp for new users. They can start by donating and commenting to help build their stake and gradually transition into a larger stake where the majority of their support can come from upvotes.
I wrote a lot about it here
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This post has been included in the latest edition of The Steem News in 10 posts - a compilation of the key news stories on the Steem blockchain.
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Thanks for this post! I took a break after blogging on Steemit for a few months last year (before this new team took control of Steemit) and I left because the bots were just too much! Any solid posts or articles on diving back into the platform after a break? I write mainly about current events and simple living. Thanks in advance.
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Steemit should be used much more in schools. Each school has its own account and what is created in the art class you can easily post and rate.
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If this is the focus of what marketing wants to do with the ecosystem then I feel we are a little behind as others have taken the hype first approach, then build; and it seems to be working. Word of mouth is great but how do we visually gets this out and promotr these alternatives which are strong in engaging community growth? I hope we can get there as this is the vision I could live with and bring more people to. Thanks for sharing!
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How the communities be different from, say, contests where a moderator or a group of moderators curate and reward contest entries?
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Why are you using only 2 tags? A sort of understatement?
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''we can always work together to make Steem better and better.'' Is a good ending!
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I may not be very good with all the tech stuff but i do like hanging around in Steem. Its not easy but im sure Steem can make it.
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