Community protocols, SMTs and Lego empowerment

@smallsteps and I have got a jumpstart on the renovation planning and have decided to build a scale replica of what is to come, slide from one floor to the other included. A couple days ago, my brother @galenkp started a new community for Lego that you can subscribe to here on the beta site if interested in such things. While technically not Lego, my daughter loves playing with Duplo that we have bought and received from friends and we have a little box filled with random pieces, people and animals.

Below, you can see Sharon taking a selfie with Charlie Brown. Millenials.

It is likely that there may not be a massive Lego Steem community right now, but around the internet there are plenty. Perhaps one day a LEGO SMT will be integrated into them that can connect and encourage all of the communities to get even more involved. The power of SMTs for social interaction is still largely unknown, but I predict that the potential is enormous for developing engagement through the internet by giving a common thread to all across a blockchain, even if endusers do not fully understand the technology.

One of the things that we tend to forget as people who might have been on Steem and in crypto and blockchain a while is, most people will no have to know much in order to participate. I use the internet itself as an example where nearly everyone who uses it has close to zero understanding of the enormously complicated protocols and collaborations that make it possible.

The Steem blockchain itself is little more than a protocol, and what it does is allow for users to transfer data from one digital point to another. While this data can be anything, what makes Steem so powerful is that its context is social interaction and content that is the same as what people already use the internet for, except without the cons of centralization and the massive pro of ownership and value generation.

Value generation doesn't have to only be economic of course , as there are many communities out there already that have value for users, but do not offer direct economic incentive. However, it doesn't mean that there is no economic value being generated, as the tools they use to empower their community come with costs or potentially value generating mechanics like advertising revenue.

An SMT doesn't have to carry value to be valuable as it can be used to gamify experience in the same way that Karma points on Reddit add value to the Reddit community. Yes, some people can make money on Reddit, but most never will yet they still value and covet the Karma points they do hold, as it gives them additional capabilities in the system.

This is something that SMTs are going to deliver also as even if they do not have direct value to sell, they will be able to be earned to open up experiences like micro paywalls for additional content or powers on an application. And because there are people who will likely want to skip the earning part and get the powers another way, SMTs can make any experience freemium at very little cost and without the need for creating a fiat gateway directly.

That in itself could be massive.

UMMM...

Does this count as a Lego post? I guess that the owner of the community will let this one slide. However, what I am hoping is that these types of narrow communities will popup all over Steem and later they will be used as buckets for not only segmenting the community market, but allowing for endusers to have much more power over the way they organize and present themselves to the world. While it all looks rudimentary from the UI perspective, at the core is a very powerful protocol and engine that has the potential to shape the way the world uses the internet.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]