Power to the dApps. Decentralize the Steem Blockchain

As many of you are aware, there was supposed to be a livestream with Ned earlier talking about the state of Steem, answering a whole host of questions, how Steemit,Inc.’s progress has been on delivering RocksDB, etc.

Ned seemed to neither care to show up nor alert the community that the livestream needed to be delayed once again (it had already been previously delayed last week). In light of this and the other recent events that have unfolded since Ned’s announcement of the layoffs, I feel that there’s been a certain sentiment shift in the community.

Many others had already been voicing their opinions’ about Steemit, Inc. and Ned, but I’d say that most of the community still stood behind Ned’s vision for the blockchain and believed that Steemit, Inc. would be able to deliver on that vision.

The vision, as Ned has discussed several times, was to empower tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to build killer dApps on top of the Steem blockchain. To me, this vision still stands. I still believe that this vision is the right future for the Steem blockchain and the Steem community/investors.

We can see this vision already playing out in the present with many of the killer dApps that are already building amazing and loyal communities and innovations of their own. A few that I keep a close eye on/participate in are:

1. Steem Monsters
2. Partiko
3. Steemhunt
4. DTube
5. Actifit
6. DLike
7. .. Many others!

The issue then becomes how to achieve this vision further. How do we move the blockchain forward in order to empower more entrepreneurs and also support the entrepreneurs who have so valiantly fought to bring their communities to life already..

In my opinion (and I think many are with me on this), the Steem blockchain needs to become more decentralized. It needs to shift the focus, attention and overall support away from Steemit.com and Steemit,inc.

This is not to say that I think Steemit, Inc. should entirely go away (although I do consider it to be a good idea to change the name of the company to something that is not so easily confused with Steem itself). I believe that we only got to this point because of Steemit, Inc. They are the ones running the full nodes and they are the ones who allow us to use Steemit.com with no cost, no beneficiary rewards, etc.

This transfers nicely into what comes next..

Nodes:

My knowledge as far as full nodes, RPC, RocksDB and what-not is extremely limited. Limited to what I’ve read from more knowledgeable Steemians who have written on these topics in a more technical manner. I’ll instead give you my macro view on this whole thing.

These nodes, apparently, are inefficient in their current structure. The way the blockchain is stored and the way that the APIs interact with the blockchain and the data and various interfaces connected to it all is costly and there is a better way to organize all of this.

@blocktrades made a proposal to help with this exact problem, and allow for a reduction in cost for Steem nodes. This is the gist of their proposal, in case you missed it:

"What are we proposing?

Our proposal is to analyze the key data structures currently consuming memory in consensus nodes (i.e. witness nodes) and then move some of this data into Rocksdb storage using a generic solution we will develop. We will then thoroughly test the resulting version of the node versus the operation of existing chainbase nodes to ensure that the replacement will be seamless. The generic solution we develop can then be used to move more state data out to disk as required in the future and the regression test system we develop will be re-usable as well. We believe we can perform this work in 2-3 months with a 6 person team for a fixed-cost of $250K.”

Ned and Steemit declined the proposal. Many others said that the price may have been a little on the high end of the spectrum. I myself have no opinion on the price because I’m not a developer and I have not a clue what kind of work and man-hours are involved in making this happen.

Others in the community mentioned that Steemit, Inc. has plenty of money to do this and questioned why they rejected the proposal.

Regardless, we can see in this 1 example that Steemit, Inc is not needed to perform the kind of updates that could make this blockchain run more effieciently and allow for nodes to further decentralize out of the hands of Steemit and into the hands of individuals, dApps and other organizations who want to support the Steem blockchain.

Tokens on the Steem Blockchain

That example of Blocktrades coming forward with a proposal that could radically reduce costs is just 1 example of how certain people/organizations have come forward with proposals and plans and actions that can make this blockchain better (they also mentioned somewhere in a comment that Steemit would recoup the $250k via reduced costs rather quickly, I forgot the exact time frame, but it’s well under 12 months, from my memory).

I’ve read and heard in a few different places that there are a few individuals who are working on bringing tokenization to the Steem blockchain without the affiliation, help or support from Steemit, Inc.

I still need to look into this a bit more for myself, but from what I’ve heard, we are to get an announcement from 1 of these individuals by the end of this month about his progress on this endeavor to bring tokens to the Steem blockchain without the need of Steemit, Inc.

Conclusion

So with all of this said, my conclusion is to ask: Why do we need Steemit, inc. and why does Steemit, Inc. seem to hold all of the cards of the Steem blockchain?

It seems to me that the Steem community has relied on Steemit, Inc. to deliver on a wide array of promises. While the Steem community is very positive and very supportive, Steemit, Inc. has failed to deliver in so many various ways that it kind of blows my mind. Hell, they can’t even show up for a meeting that they scheduled and rescheduled. Nor can they even post 2 lines of text on either Steemitblog or Ned to announce that the stream is to be rescheduled again for ___ or ___ reasons…

I’m not mad. I’m not pissed. I think a lot of others agree with me when I say: I just want to see this blockchain move away from the hands of Steemit, Inc. It’s not fair to the community to wait on false hopes and promises and it’s not fair to everyone at Steemit, Inc. who become target practice for everyones’ disappointments.

I want to see the nodes and the developmental work go into the hands of individuals who have an actual business model in mind. Steem Monsters has showed us all the power of an actual business model that actually makes money by selling an actual product. Partiko and Steemhunt have showed the community the power of sleek designs and innovative interfaces.

Countless other dApps have also shown us that the true value of the Steem blockchain lies in the micro-communities that form around certain niche innovations.

There is plenty of abundance in the world. Plenty of money to go around. There are plenty of ways for development to happen on the Steem blockchain without the need of 1 central entity that seemingly has little-to-no interest in building a profitable business model through the display of ads, selling some type of product, outsourcing development, reducing costs, etc.