I joined the STEEM blockchain in August 2016 and after intensely using it for a few months in 2017 I felt I had a good enough understanding of it from an investment perspective to publish some thoughts on it's strengths and weaknesses in the form of a simple SWOT analysis. It turned out that there was a whole lot about the economics of STEEM that I didn't know at that point - I didn't even know about the ninja mined tokens! Let's take a look at what I got right and what I missed...
A SWOT analysis looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing a business project - based on the available information at the time.
Strengths
All of the strengths I recognised were legitimate strengths, but as it turned out they were all undermined seriously by:
- Bid bots.
- Facebook/Google's crypto ad ban.
- Large stakeholders thinking that they had some kind of concrete 'right' to exploit the rewards pool without putting in any proven brain of their own. Many larger token holders openly stated that since the value of their tokens would drop unless they got post payouts, it was right for them to just post garbage posts. They denied that in doing so they devalued the network's public image, post quality and market value. Proof of brain requires proof of brain!.
All of the strengths still exist in potential, but we need to overcome significant hurdles for them to be realised. Maybe the Hive fork and the class action lawsuit against Facebook and Google being run by @jpbliberty will help out.
Weaknesses
The value of SBDs can fluctuate quite wildly when it is intended to remain fixed at being equal to $1USD.
I correctly pointed out that the price of SBDs could fluctuate wildly and since they are intended to be a 'stable coin' that this would bring the system into disrepute and again it would lose value in the public mind. Several times I have suggested just removing SBDs completely - I still think that might be a good idea, though I am open to other alternatives that are designed to truly create a stable coin.
Posts and information can be difficult to locate via the existing interface at steemit.com.
This is still a problem today - several years later! Communities and the better features at steempeak and peakd have helped, but none of the steem/hive powered sites I have used have yet developed a great search tool or really nailed post discoverability.
The financial rules of the system leave the door open to purely financially motivated voting and posting, resulting in an un-natural amount of low quality posts receiving large payouts and traffic/engagement.
Free downvoting has ironically improved this situation a fair amount and is one part of why the community has mostly been sceptical of Justin Sun's insistence that downvoting be removed completely. The inability to regulate payouts is not really something that benefits smaller stakeholders.
Opportunities
Competing cryptocurrencies and social networks are currently lacking the edge that Steemit has, so Steem has a window within which to become the largest cryptocurrency on Earth and to lead the way into an entirely new economic and financial period in Earth's history.
I realised very quickly that the development speed of Steemit inc. was WAY too slow for them to fully capitalise on any kind of 'first mover advantage' as a social networking cryptocoin. I suspect this was due to a combination of lack of experience of running such a team among the people involved and also that they were solving new challenges too.
People are looking for ways to break free of censorship and online control, so truly delivering a reliable and robust technology to meet those needs will make big waves globally - also further accelerating steemit's growth.
For the most part this is still one of Steem's strong points, but with the recent censorship from Justin Sun on steemit.com - it is probably now only a selling point of the HIVE blockchain and not one for STEEM.
Threats
Existing social network operators could copy the idea of having their own cryptocurrency and rewarding their already massive userbases - capitalising on the power of their ability to retain their existing users due to the daunting thought of them having to move their data and relocate to a new site.
This appears to be exactly what Facebook was planning with their Libra coin. They even copied the STEEM logo!
The value of Steem could drop so low that the value added to the system by being paid using and interacting with the site would be minimised.
This happened and to some extent this did occur. However, since the alternative is to use censored, corporate sites that pay nothing - many users continued to find value in STEEM.
The design of the Steemit service might not evolve in an agile enough way, resulting in stagnation.
This absolutely did happen with Steemit.com. However, Steempeak has picked up the slack.
A significant negative shift in just one aspect of Steemit can cause a chain reaction which devalues or removes many of the other strengths of the system - for example, if the currency is greatly devalued or if freedom is limited in some way then the other aspects may be unable to maintain enough excitement in the userbase for them to continue to use the system.
This has occurred imo for STEEM too. Hive is looking to be the main way for the sullied image of STEEM to be recovered at this point, though there are apparently other chains in development too by other development teams that might become the long term 'winner'.
Operators of competing systems may actively use social or financial/economic means to imbalance and derail the system for their own reasons.
This is something I have seen happen with tribe.net years ago and I am sceptical of the intentions of Justin Sun regarding Steem for this and related reasons. Since he has been censoring dissenting voices, I have to question what his intentions were all long - he clearly had no interest in understanding the culture of STEEM and helping it evolve in it's own organic way.
Is it possible for a competing group with large finances to ruin the steemit project due to it's dependence on Steem - using purely financial mechanisms?
It sure looks that way!
Will Steemit become such an influential platform in the future that the world's wealthiest people will be buying huge amounts of steem power to attempt to shape the thinking of steemit users to their preference - as they have essentially done with the mainstream media already? How would this hurt or benefit other users?
What do you think? ;)
At some point I might come back and create a SWOT analysis for hive too - let me know in the comments if that's something you'd like to read.
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
Originally posted on my HIVE Blog. HIVE is DECENTRALISED and the ONLY Social Networking Blockchain I Recommend.
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Interesting, but incomplete, analysis.
DPoS as implemented is governed by money alone. Nothing but financial assets backs the witnesses, and the savagery of acquisition of financial assets has long compelled the largest holdings to be possessions of the least civilized parties. DPoS creates a situation where the most savage financial predators have the greatest ability to govern.
That's currently the situation here, despite that governance presently being at Sun Yuchen's sole option (they clearly aren't the least civilized and most ruthless of financial competitors. They're just the least civilized and most ruthless of those interested in governing Steem. Perhaps if Warren Buffet preferred Steem to lunch with Sun Yuchen he'd take it), and on Hive the oligarchy of old @ned had long allowed to run Steem rules the roost.
With such an obvious and fatal weakness that enables absolute control of every aspect of the blockchain, including total and complete censorship through all publicly available dapps, there isn't much to any argument it has any strength at all.
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Your position is really just the observation that the entire concept of capitalism is dysfunctional and heartless - which it is. I am absolutely moving towards reality where imaginary money and corporate fronted machine guns aren't the underlying structure of our survival mechanisms.. But for now, we have hive/steem!
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Myriad mechanisms for effecting governance besides stake exist. It is facile to claim it's all just 'capitalism', which governance clearly isn't otherwise. Polities everywhere have always undertaken to govern via mechanisms that enabled the society to create rules that seemed best to them, and none of these mechanisms openly and blatantly were just contests between those with the most stake. Ubiquitously, stake interferes substantially with all governance mechanisms, and is almost as ubiquitously surreptitious and obfuscated as much as possible.
Clearly, it is undeniable that societies seek to effect governance other than simply by obeying the largest stakeholder, and are constantly undermined. DPoS itself continues to be replete with rhetoric that the blockchains are decentralized, that the community controls itself, and the merest examination of what actually puts consensus witnesses in position to exercise governance reveals that an oligarchy of the largest stakeholders completely and totally controls DPoS blockchain governance.
On Steem that's Sun Yuchen alone. On Hive it's the usual suspects, that were in control of Steem before @ned sold Stinc.
We are only allowed to participate. All my tokens are worthless if the governors decide they are.
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No, not facile. You highlighted that DPOS is savage due to it's reliance on financial power. Capitalism itself IS the same idea. Those with the most 'capital' call the shots.
Yes, not openly, but in reality they are. Money and land titles create a situation where those with the most get to apply economic pressure to everyone else and if the scales are tipped sufficiently, they become defacto rulers.
I agree that DPOS is imbalanced and tends towards oligarchy - this version of it, anyway, has been designed that way and I have always spoken out against it. The reality, though, is that if we don't like it, we can fork it - which is by design. The idea is that the coders worked hard to make it and if anyone dislikes their creation enough then they would prefer those people to put their own hard work in and stop bitching ;)
I am in the middle, in that I can see from all angles and I recognise that the most important ones in terms of being signals that are likely to lead to success/failure of the chain are those perceived by the most people - which means 'average users'. However, the world is made up of such a wide array of 'similar' and also differing perspectives, that there may be no way to please everyone and so forking naturally follows.
That's not entirely true. If the witnesses decided to fork you out somehow, it is highly probable that the community would either vote them out or fork - ensuring that you and they maintain their tokens.
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DPoS is literally just the golden rule: who has the gold rules. On Steem Sun got the founders stake @ned had refrained using to govern Steem with, and on Hive that stake is now folded into the HPS, leaving the formerly lesser stakeholders to @ned now the governing stakeholders.
All that governs either chain is money.
However, many other governance mechanisms exist, and simply claiming that they only conceal the effect of stake isn't factually based. Egalitarian tribes of Bushmen in the Kalahari demonstrate that for the vast duration of human society, stake probably had little to no effect on governance.
Regarding forking out stake or such, which I note is just a form of censorship, the situation @joe.public is in demonstrates that no outrage from the community issues when one of the herd is singled out and ejected.
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The HIVE KINGS are censoring (with "global blacklists") just as much as they were when they were the STEEM KINGS.
Sure they love to point out examples of "bad actors" that most people can agree on, but there is a pervasive "guilty until proven innocent" mentality that encourages SILENCING anyone who disagrees with their point of view.
For example, people getting downvoted for saying things like, "I tried veganism and it made me sick, so I started eating meat again".
Other exemplary accounts that spent a lot of time helping the newbz got blacklisted by marky and the vigilante crew for upvoting an account that was later determined to be a "bad actor" and they wouldn't even give specific details about which account they were talking about!
They make-up their own rules and I was repeatedly threatened (with walls of expletives) simply for asking a few questions.
Members of the vigilante crew are also apparently "whitelisted" and immune from retaliation for "low-effort" posting and for posting copyrighted material without proper attribution.
They don't even follow their own "rules".
And they're not accountable to anyone.
And many who tried to "speak-up" were simply obliterated with downvotes.
You probably haven't heard much "dissent" because they're invisible.
You probably haven't heard much "dissent" because they're all assumed to be "bad actors".
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I don't speak with the top 20 witnesses much and I haven't heard them talking about blacklists. Only Marky runs one that I know of and I have had my own problems with him and his project. I don't generally agree with blacklisting in terms of mass downvoting on the say so of a centralised group - it mocks the entire idea of an uncensored blockchain.
I just tried to search the blockchain for the example you gave about veganism but I wasn't able to find it. I have replied in depth to various people making such claims but I don't remember ever downvoting anyone for it. :)
I'd appreciate anyone seeing such abuse by the 'hive cops' to send me links - I am very busy at the moment and not able to freely roam to check this kind of thing out of my own accord.
cheers
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I'm looking for the "vegan wars" post, but I remember finding it after reading and resteeming this,
https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@crypto.piotr/enough-is-enough-let-s-all-step-back-and-figure-out-what-can-be-done-to-stop-losing-steem-users
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Transisto absolutely has anti social tendencies. I think the comment from Neil sums it up. There are some other revealing comments in that thread from others, thanks for sharing. I'm not aware of him running a witness btw.
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No problem.
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Here's another post about downvote harassment over "opinions" (not-"abuse"),
https://steemit.com/bloom/@chrispreilly/shut-up-bloom-argued
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Yes, downvoting does occur over disagreements and bloom is a common actor using that approach. Also not a witness though.
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Waytruthlight quit posting two years ago because they were getting unfairly downvoted. Now they just downvote other people out of spite.
This is an awesome model.
Downvote people so they stop posting and just stay mad for two years downvoting random accounts so they get mad and stop posting and just stay mad for two years downvoting random accounts so they get mad and stop posting...
This BOOSTS THE REWARD POOL which gets scooped into the hands of the TOP EARNERS.
It's a WIN-WIN!!!!
nOW, how do we onboard new users..?
Oh, yes, tell the newbz some evil people are posting nasty stuff on steemit and they need to open an account so they can DOWNVOTE them!!!
100 million new steemians practically overnight!
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https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@crypto.piotr/q4uy8q#@crypto.piotr/q4uy8q
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Not sure what the discussion is here but I'm guessing pitor was downvoted by curangel and ocdb was trailing them.
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That sounds like a reasonable hypothesis.
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I have personally never been impressed by ocdb's approach and i have never even seen curangel before. I don't who is involved with ocdb other than acidyo. OCD do operate a witness on hive and I agree that their approach is concerning regarding downvotes. Their defence would probably be that downvoting is an inherent part of the blockchain and voting process - so get used to it.
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"downvoting is an inherent part of the blockchain".
So, basically an "appeal to ignorance" (false premise/bald assertion).
Marky's "blacklists" actually made downvoting obsolete.
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It's not really a false premise, in that downvoting IS an inherent part of the blockchain that is intended to allow stakeholders to remove payouts for their own reasons. If they make bad decisions then they have to face the consequences, which might be a loss of community support, damage to their investment and the community or even being forked out totally (which shall henceforth be known as a justin fork ;) )
I personally am only likely to use downvoting for bot use or really malicious activity - I rarely use them now.
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This statement is provably false.
Downvoting CAN be removed from the code (THEREFORE) it is NOT "inherent".
And even the argument that downvoting is "necessary" is not and should not be treated as some sort of "foregone conclusion".
The blockchain itself could screen all content for 85% similar posts and comments and block them all.
If your concern is about people posting controversial (or illegal) images, the blockchain itself could screen out all image files, and the front-ends could simply display images from 3rd party (free image hosting) links.
If your concern is about people posting hateful messages and or "dangerous" lies and "conspiracy theories", then set the blockchain to automatically screen-out all logical fallacies and mean words and expletives.
(IFF) you require vigilantes to police your platform (THEN) you need to FIX the platform "in CODE".
Can you imagine a game, (like an MMORPG) where, instead of code fixes and updates to the rules and mechanics of the game, the devs just gave every player the ability to silence and or ban other players for "breaking the rules"?
Who would want to play a game like that?
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by 'inherent', i meant 'hardwired' and 'by design' - sure it can be removed - but i was speaking in the context of 'guidelines' for how it is intended to be used, rather than whether it should be removed altogether or not.
I agree that downvoting could be removed, but having thought about this quite a lot over the years and listened to all sides, I think that it serves a valid purpose. It sure could be removed though and I am not against experimenting with that.
As long as images are visible, there is a risk factor - regardless of where they are hosted.
The main reason for downvoting, besides anti-spam, is that people can manually decide that posts do not demonstrate 'proof of brain' and can prevent vote exploitation. There is a gap in perception relating to the role of proof of brain, which I covered in a recent post. I agree that some aspects of the anti spam processing could be automated and probably should be.
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https://peakd.com/news/@valued-customer/censoring-hive-it-s-happening-right-now
From my conversations (as difficult to piece together as they actually are due to the total censorship of both his and my replies to each other) with @joe.public, he replied to all of Bernie's bot spam to discourage it.
When Bernie quit spamming, @joe.public ended up on the #irredeemables list, and Bernie walked away. The #irredeemable's list only exists because Bernie spammed tens of thousands of pics of their poop in a toilet and @fulltimegeek responded with his own massive spam attack. The #irredeemables list was created to silence @fulltimegeek, and Bernie walked.
There is 0 censorship resistance to a platform in which one person arbitrarily controls a censorship vehicle like #irredeemables list, or that power isn't effected solely through a public community vote, rather than arbitrarily by any individual or group - but particularly absent public information at all, as it is currently undertaken.
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Thanks, yes I already reblogged it.
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I wish we could go back to January 2018.
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Right, and of course, the reason I noticed this post,
Click to watch 1 minute,
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hehe
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Quoting @hone.heke
https://steemit.com/hive-171744/@hone.heke/q87jca
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Thanks, I left a comment under VC's post. So it seems that we are dealing with markymark and to a lesser extent odb and transisto.
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SFR also flags a lot of stuff, but they seemed much more reasonable (than steemcleeners) and answered most of my questions (at least until I started asking about why marky is allowed to use copyrighted images, then they sort of exploded).
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