We're now in the 9th year since Bitcoin came into existence. So what's are some of the most successful eyeball-grabbing cryptocurrency-related web applications at the moment? The most prominent is Coinmarketcap.com. It's now coming close to the Top 100 websites in the global arena. To my knowledge, runner-ups are:-

• Binance at ~#200
• Coinbase at ~#300
• Bittrex at ~#400
• Poloniex at ~#900
• Steemit at ~#1000
  _{*according to alexa.com}

As someone who's into Steem, naturally I'd want to see more (web) applications leveraging this piece of technology. It works, and in my opinion, has the potential to solve problems with monetizing web traffic and user activity. Today I'd like to focus on Coinmarketcap.com because I'm fairly confident that it's a path of least resistance to perform the following:-

• Decentralising power and control. Becoming too large and centralised has always shown not to be a great idea as it becomes disproportionately profitable for exploits, usually at the expense of users and supporters (re: the recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica fiasco). For Coinmarketcap, there's also a case to be made for replacing the Twitter / Reddit segments in the social tab into Steem-based community applications, while including actual social content functions that tap into the Steem ecosystem.

• Getting rid of predatory advertisements with functional, battle-tested token economics. Applications built on Steem don't have to rely on the notion of ads at all, at least traditionally, as already proven on websites like Steemit and D.Tube. You just need community activities and votes. While advertising is not entirely a bad thing, I think we can all agree that advertisements ought to evolve into something more non-invasive, non-predatory. Let word-of-mouth and peer-to-peer communication work the magic of entrepreneurship and discovery.

Personally, I think utilising Steem in getting rid of predatory advertising and improving applications of such nature is one of the better solutions out there. There are others as well with useful and differentiated crypto-economic models such as Substratum and Oyster Protocol. However, they're still just not as intensively battle-tested as Steem, and not even available for mass use at the moment so it's hard to recommend at time of writing.

So if you're faced with a Coinmarketcap with ads versus a clone without ads, which will you go to? The ad-free one that works similarly like the original ad-based one, of course. Unless you really don't mind pesky advertisements. The same can also be said straightforwardly for just about any websites and applications from Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and such. The Steem protocol and its applications is making such a convenience possible. App entrepreneurs and developers should just focus on the integrity of content and information.

In the near future, web users could all be co-owners of the applications they use through the power of Steem and Smart Media Tokens. Quoting myself from a recent private Discord channel recently after wondering about the store / marketplace function previously suggested back in 2016 - "In the end, I guess users will need some dashboard populated with apps for different things on the Steem ecosystem. Steemconnect V2? Or maybe V3.."

So if you're a developer, entrepreneur, or have family and friends with such skills, perhaps it's time to starting building on the Steem ecosystem! Spread the word.

Resources

Steem Whitepaper: https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Steem Bluepaper: https://steem.io/steem-bluepaper.pdf
Smart Media Tokens Whitepaper: https://smt.steem.io/smt-whitepaper.pdf
Steemit Winter Update: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemit-winter-update-2017-reflection-our-vision-statement-and-mission-and-a-look-forward
Steem Apps Listing: https://steemprojects.com/
Steem Dev Portal: https://developers.steem.io/

---

_{Note: I'm surely biased about ads, as I'm sick of seeing scammy or annoying crypto ads on Coinmarketcap, about 2 or 3 in every page that I go through! Even on Youtube multiple times a day.}