Connecting The Dots: Resource Credits Will Make STEEM A Lot More Valuable
Through all the uproar created by Hard Fork 20, I spent some time the last two days trying to connect the dots as to what is going on and the future of STEEM.
STEEM is an open-source blockchain. That means anyone can fork it. With a situation such as this, what is going to give STEEM any value at all? How can it fend off any threats when anyone can take what is created on here and duplicate it? In fact, many believe there are already STEEM competitors cropping up like Lino.
Resource Credits (Mana) might well be the answer to this.
Before going any further, have you noticed how clean the comment sections are? What I mean is that you do not see spam comments like you did before. Certainly, this is something that every reader on here is enjoying.
How did that happen?
Simply put, the new system requires a minimum amount of RC to post. Without that, one is not able to put up anything. Unfortunately, this did snare a number of Planktons who are not spammers which is unfortunate. It is also, I believe, a temporary thing.
There is a point that I must bring up. Some are asserting that STEEM is moving even more towards the "rich getting richer". The belief is that the HF is the Whales way of driving smaller accounts out.
I want to make this very clear: For Whales holdings to increase in value, they need to have the ecosystem grow. At the same time, many of the Whales are Witnesses, meaning they depend upon transactions. Without transactions, there is not much need for their services.
One of the biggest challenges is creating a freemium system while having something of value. This is a very tricky proposition simply because we, as humans, tend not to value things that are free. Hence, there is a major difference between freemium and free.
STEEM aims to be a freemium blockchain yet it is not free. Resource Credits (Mana) will make it a "pay to play" game.
I posted on a number of occasions that smaller accounts should invest some money into the STEEM ecosystem by buying STEEM. I realize not everyone can afford this but, for those who can, it is a way to increase one's commitment. This leads to further research, engagement, and long-term outlook. STEEM seeks to have all those things.
In addition to spammers, the ecosystem is not well served by people coming onto the blockchain and looking for a quick buck. Many tend to throw up garbage hoping to get some quick profits. Many of the spammy comments fit into this category.
So what is STEEM going to become?
In my view, one word: Exclusive
The Resource Credit (Mana) will make STEEM an exclusive blockchain. This is going to help the price of the currency enormously. When something is exclusive, it is desired. It is also becomes a premium.
Which leads to another dilemma: how do you grow when you are exclusive? And who do you decide gets in?
The answer to the first question is a post that @ned put up months ago. It was very short, didn't reveal too much at the time but, now, is very telling.
https://steemit.com/gathering/@ned/secret-steem-advantage
bandwidth-delegation-pools
We know bandwidth was replaced by Resource Credits (Mana). Hence, from this, I conclude that we will see the ability to delegate Resource Credits (Mana).
Another thing that ties into all of this is the ability to onboard users. I want to thank @mcfarhat of @actifit for looking into the code. He was able to create a new user account. The mistake I made in my articles leading up to the Hard Fork is to point out that applications can onboard users. This is only partially true.
The fact is that anyone with enough Resource Credits can sign up users. ANYONE.
This means that an account with a decent amount of Resource Credits that go unused has two choices:
- Delegate it to a smaller account so that person can interact more
- Sign up users
And that is the answer to the second question: each of us is able to decide to joins the STEEM blockchain. We are the ones, either as individuals or as applications, that determines who we allocate our RC (Mana) to.
It is helpful to remember that we now have the ability to see what each activity costs and how much we are using. There are going to be plenty of accounts that do not even come close to using up their daily Resource Credits.
Using the data from steem.supply from yesterday, here is what I could do with the RC available at that time.
At a little over 40% of my RC, I get to post 917 times, vote 4,300 times, and do 4,800 transfers. There is no way I can do that in a day. And this is not even considering the fact that I will have more than double that on a daily basis when I fully power up.
In other words, any Minnow, once fully powered up will have more Resource Credit (Mana) than he or she could use in one day (unless spamming the network). Thus, even the newest of Minnows should have excess RC.
Which brings up another very important point: decentralization.
All of this decentralizes the sign up process. This puts the power of this in the hands of the community. Both applications and individuals, if they have enough RC (Mana), can do this.
One major problem with this entire industry is verification. How does a platform verify that the individual is who they say they are? With this model, it does not have to. The individual who is signing the person up is verifying that person. This is creating a Proof of Human concept. If I am going to use my RC, odds are that it will be with someone who I know exists. Applications are going to be under the same constraint since it is in their best interest to use their RC wisely.
There is another layer to all of this. We could see RCs (Mana) sold on the internal exchange. We know the idea was to have bandwidth purchased with STEEM; the same concept could hold true. Hence, there would be a market rate established every second of the day for people to use the blockchain. Applications or individuals who lack the necessary bandwidth could simply purchase more. This essentially creates a "pay to play" model. If one is not delegated RC (Mana) either via an individual or an application, he or she can simply purchase some.
What does this do? In my view, it could drive the demand for STEEM.
Creating an exclusive ecosystem could be a great way to cut down on spam while driving the value of the blockchain/currency. When coupled with the anticipated communities, groups will be able to onboard those they desire. It will create different "tribes" on this blockchain, all doing their own thing. It will negate the quality versus quantity debate since anyone is free to do what they want. Those who prefer quantity posts will simply do so as their RC (Mana) allows. It will not affect those who seek out quality posts since those individuals will have incentive also. Since applications will be the driver going forward, the communities will operate within their groupings, even as they utilize more than one application.
Resource Credits (Mana) are opening up a world of possibility and could elevate this entire ecosystem. This is creating a freemium blockchain yet we embracing that joining is not free.
All this is just speculation on my part but this is some of what I am seeing.
If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.
im not sure this will make the platform anymore valuable because it is still uite vulnerable to abuse by large stakeholders. The cutthroat capitalism of steemit is at times disheartening.
but maybe i am misinformed and need to read further. this was quite an interesting read
This combined with Ned’s post.
It is very imaginable that we will see a RC rental market come SMTs, or earlier even.
This would, much like EOS’s proposition by Dan some weeks ago, allow SMTs to enter the market without needing to invest in having SP.
The difference with leasing SP would be that SMTs can/could operate without also needing to reward much in vests and RC rental would thus be cheaper than leasing delegation. The owner of the RC would, at the same time, continue to actively manage their actual upvote value and reward, all while earning from renting RC out.
That separation of resources is a massive WIN for everyone involved. And for the platform too.
Thanks @fknmayhem.
I agree with this completely. It was a major step. We now have people operating on two different levels. RC and SP are not tied to each other specifically.
It will be interesting to see how the pricing changes. It makes sense that this could provide apps a lot more flexibility with a lower RC rate versus SP.
The other thing that just dawned on me, since I upvote, I theoretically do not have excess SP. If I delegate some of it, I lose out in that my votes are worth less. Yet, from what I can see, I have plenty of excess RC meaning I can delegate it without any penalty to how I operate on here.
The other thing that dawned... is the beauty of the new separation.
You can theoretically, and cryptically confirmed by Ned’s post, earn passive income from making RC available [on the market] without diluting your curation worth/value.
While in a not yet limited supply and low price feed world this isn’t too big a thing yet, in a more exclusive world this setup is both passively interesting and also a stimulus for active [curation] contribution for orcas and whales since they can then benefit curation rewards as well.
Addendum: bApps could for example use rented/delegated RC for discounted account claims which is rather expensive as far as I heard.
I did wonder if this might happen: an RC market.
It may well be the first test run for how SMTs themselves need to set up a market for their tokens, assuming they want them traded.
If the market isn’t created by Steemit Inc., it will be created by community members as soon as the delegation of RC becomes a possibility. Just like MinnowBooster did for SP delegations.
I agree very good explanation thank you!
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What I don’t get is why everyone seems to equate being poor with being undesirable/spammer. Don’t spammers have money to buy RCs too?
I think it’s more likely a poor college student in Venezuela is going to come on here wanting to make a side income with quality content creation but not be able to afford steem, than that a professional spammer won’t be able to afford some.
And what about the people who quite reasonably want to see how they like being on here and what traction their content can get here before investing scarce money in the place? I invested considerably, but only after reaching about 300 followers and having some regular commentators on my posts. I couldn’t have achieved that had I not been commenting about 20 times a day. (Long comments like this one LOL)
I’m concerned now for both my investment and my enjoyment of this community experience. Because I think this confusion about the nature of spammers is going to cut off the lifeblood of any community, new users.
This 10x change tonight will only mean newbies will get one comment or post per day. If I arrived here to that I’d be gone the second day.
And I don’t care about not having those few spam comments to ignore or flag. I care about the silence of all my global followers this week.
I think your math there must be wrong. My alt account can post twice every five days. x10 means it can post 4 times a day on average with a total bank of 20. This system is brand new, and the first thing I thought of making as a javascript developer was plankton trading their nothing votes for more bandwidth.
I'm sure you take issue to that as well, but the point is that this system is BRAND NEW. Once systems come into place that let high bandwidth users delegate said bandwidth to low SP holders we'll have a system that still allows engagement without all the bot garbage and spam.
This hardfork was massive and it is a precursor to an even more massive change (SMTs). These reactionary responses that assume that everything is going to be terrible forever are quite inappropriate. This isn't Facebook or Twitter. This is grassroots ugliness at it's finest and it's not going to be pretty until there are thousands of developers helping Steemit Inc keep the blockchain stable.
You are so out of sink with my thoughts in your comment, but then you are obviously taking my above comment in isolation and not noting my many comments and posts on this issue in which I've written to STINC and the witnesses making it clear that I have no issue with the need for RCs or even that the change management on this upgrade was fraught with problems. My issue is as stated and my math is correct.
You are presuming that your other account is like all new accounts. I had previously written based on the same math. Then I was corrected on two points. See my post here for my own self-correction. Notably, new accounts are now 5SP, not 15. And the 10x is not applied to all accounts equally.
I feel like I'm pretty in sync with what you are saying. I do appreciate that new information: 5 SP is not a lot.
The biggest difference of opinion we are having right now is something we haven't even talked about. For now, I think it's acceptable for Steemit Inc to use our blockchain as a testing playground so we can progress faster in the long run.
You don't, and that's fine; sometimes I feel like I should be more outraged than I actually am.
Steemit Inc. asked us to wait 5 days. As a developer, I know that 5 days means at least 10 days. We're on day 3.5 right now, so I'm not worried in the slightest.
When the RC system released and everyone was negative quadrillions there was outrage. When the debt was forgiven there was outrage. Now they are multiplying mana x10 and there is outrage. These reactionary outbursts are not appropriate and show a lack of vision. The solutions are incoming. Soon™.
The real argument revolves around Steemit INC using our fully functional blockchain as a testnet and claiming we are still in beta. On that front you have a much stronger foundation to stand on.
I don't agree with their change management procedures, for sure. No developer/PM could possibly agree with how things transpired, and a number of the witnesses have clearly stated that they don't agree with them either.
But no, my core issue is not that. I really don't take issue with the process of working these things out. I take issue with the fundamental belief behind some of the decisions being made.
Specifically, this attitude that more money means more value to the platform, so the way to get rid of undesirables is to restrict activity by those with little SP to barely functioning.
If they didn't have that belief, they wouldn't have decided to fight spam in a way that hurts new users or anyone with little SP. They would have used something like UA scores to determine if someone was a spammer. That measures actual interaction on the platform, particularly getting those with high reputations to engage with your content. That to me is a much more accurate determinant of spammer/not spammer.
There will always be an advantage one has to having been here longer. But "advantage" should not go so far that effectively you can't do anything if you don't come in day one knowing you are determined to make it work on here, and ready to drop a couple thousand bucks to make it so.
What I want now is for them to skip this 10x nonsense that will only give new users 1 comment or so per day and go straight to 100x to do their calibrations. Not only will that mean fewer people will get discouraged and quit in the days to come while the calibration of RC costs is occurring, but additionally, it means they will get more accurate data sooner, because more people will be able to interact more normally.
This is not outrage. I'm not outraged. I'm clear about what I want and why I want it, and I'm campaigning for it.
Agreed, @ned's snide corporate attitude is pretty annoying. He talks like a politician that can't be trusted. They've pushed for SMTs way too hard because they think that is the Golden Path to higher value.
Instead, they should have taken their time and fixed all the BS that is still pervasive on the platform. Like you say: they should have scaled down RCs from a ridiculously high number instead of scaling it up from a ridiculously low one. That's just common sense. Doing it the way it was done only makes sense in the context of an emergency, and there was none.
Yep
You're either a cheerleader fro Steem or an "enemy." This place has gotten too religious, and real and valid concerns like yours are usually ignored by out of touch higher-ups here. Sorry to say. I've been here over two years and that does not matter to these types either.
I think people are very emotionally and financially invested, so it does lead to that sort of absolutism in thinking. Fundamentally I think we all have something of a "come to Jesus" moment coming, where we realize STINC really doesn't care about Steemit or the users on it. They care about SMTs, and they will use us however they can to advance them toward that goal. Whatever we are going to get out of the situation along the way is going to be up to each of us. We each have to decide how we relate to an eternal beta and being a part of development. For some that is fine, and they will defend STINC because they truly are not bothered by the experimentation, so long as they feel it benefits them. For others, well not everyone wants to invest themselves in a place that doesn't care whether they stay or leave any moment. There is no right or wrong answer on this, just the right or wrong one for each of us.
@indigoocean I have wondered the same thing. I have been here over a year, now and noticed that there was little communication, and steemit seemed to just be a way to attract devs to build on it. I mean the site still looks like it was developed in 2000. :-) Now, I am noticing that the few times I have seen a comment from Ned, you know he does not give 2 sh**ts about what we (his customers) think. :-) He often avoids answering questions by not "really" answering them. I would venture to say that he is building this blockchain as a way to attract developers to other apps build on it, NOT to make steemit a great platform. From that standpoint, it will make him a lot of money - a lot.
Yep, I think that's it. I haven't read anything from Ned until reading some of his replies to comments on their current "mea culpa, but it was a success" post. I was thinking, is this guy high? No, just doesn't give 2 shits.
Very well said.
I share your concerns, and hope Stinc also realizes that multiple comments for accounts bare of accumulated SP are necessary and desirable.
We'll see.
Thanks!
The whole reason facebook, reddit, twitter, etc. are successful is that they were able to create a free way for people to interact socially online. The consequence is we agree to sell our data for our ad viewing pleasure but no one had to buy in to be able to use the system.
The ultimate facebook will probably combine free site with brave anonymous ads or something where the users controls their privacy but the platform can still earn enough profits to run through the ad network.
At this point for spending $15 a user can only comment 1 per day while using 2 transfers and 5 upvotes. This will not attract the masses to Steemit.
"The consequence is we agree to sell our data for our ad viewing pleasure but no one had to buy in to be able to use the system."
TANSTAAFL
If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product.
You make some very interesting points, although getting the balance right is key. Its nice to seem some positivity amongst all the negativity about HF20.
It will be interesting to see if the spam returns with the redfish or is truely deterred by RC requirements.
Yes the balance is going to be tricky but at least we are seeking that. It is the first step. The exacts can always be tinkered with. As we saw, the RC was way off stopping many legit accounts from posting. Hence, an update to fix that.
Pretty misleading.
First those are not and they should be or.
You either post 917 times or vote 4300 times.
Second these numbers are not recharging daily basis, you'll generate 10% in 24 hours. It might be still enough for you but I have an account with 1300 SP (with leased delegation.)
I'll be able to comment 18 times a day without any transaction or votes.
Accounts become minnow after 500SP which means like 7-8 comments per day without any other interaction with the blockchain. And we are talking about minnow level. :) $500 investment. :)
This is not a freemium service, as you slightly showed us this is totally a premium service. New accounts already doesn't have any right to post or comment, their only option is to power up.
Could you please elaborate the decent amount? I want to create a functional alt account for my newest dApp.
So how much did you guys paid facebook to share a post so far?
Thank you for the comment @oups.
And you are correct, I can do either of those things but not all (or some combination of them). That said, the point holds true. Unlike SP, I will have excess RC to pass onto people.
As for the rest, the new update is increases the RC each has. We are going to see where the numbers end up since it is completely in flux right now.
There was a post earlier by someone monitoring it, and even without the update, the RC required for each task was decreasing over the past couple days.
Yeah it was holger80's IIRC he was telling vote and transaction prices reducing but the comments are still the same. I think it will find a good spot for everyone in a few days, it will allow newcomers to interact enough and keep spammers away.
Your balance is below $0.3. Your account is running low and should be replenished. You have roughly 10 more @dustsweeper votes. Check out the Dustsweeper FAQ here: https://steemit.com/dustsweeper/@dustsweeper/dustsweeper-faq
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Having a delegation, be it SP or RC, from a user instead of a faceless entity could even be beneficial: It might motivate a new steemian to make better posts...
Hey nice concepto. Freemium he he.... Its true that the comments section look much better now, and its great to know that one can share mana to new users. Awesome update I would say, although I understand the pain of the plangktons. Thanks for sharing
I guess we have to celebrate!
Happy HF20!!!
Gimme some !popcorn and !pancakes
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