Steem: Enabling change, managing and rewarding creation and consumption

in #steem5 years ago (edited)

I am just getting home after a 12 hour day talking strategy for the team I work within and I am always encouraged by how parallel so many of the conversations run to Steem, and I am not the one directing all of them. What a lot of people do not realize is there the teething pains of Steem are much the same as any startup, even ones that are much, much more mature than Steem is - and they have the "benefit" of a centralized leadership structure.

Sometimes I wonder if me seeing the similarities is a type of blindness, but when I step back, nope, there it is. Account signup verification and speed, onboarding, channel partner visibility, useful analytics and telemetry, bugs, testing errors, rollout delays, difficult market targeting, content failures, skill gaps.... you know...

This is the world of business and while most people do not see it all, on Steem many of the issues are very, very transparent due to the nature of the blockchain and the nature of people.

This is the internet and even if someone Tweets 999 tweets that everyone who reads it agree with, it is the one that is poorly formed and misses the mark that the internet will pounce upon and taint the entire stream of work behind. This is especially true of those who have some kind of fame or fortune behind them as people like to clip the tall poppies.

This happens on Steem too.

What is interesting however is that what Steem actually needs to attract a larger audience is a few tall poppies across several fields of content that can demonstrate the power and value of the steem ecosystem and that requires some kind of consistency until they have a reputation that works like a gravity that pulls a follower base toward them, without a chase.

The real success stories of Steem are the proof of concept that a social network that has no central ownership and a thin-air currency can not only find but also reward content contributors who deserve it and serve as examples to others. I said real success stories because there were a couple of rats like Joe and Jerry who were claiming success to their off-site audiences by buying visibility.

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There are people still voting on those accounts? lols.

What is interesting is the more this place decentralizes and tokenizes, the more content sensitive it becomes as people start supporting more granular niches and interest areas with a better trained eye.

What is a good post?

It is a question often heard but take this one for example, is there anything in it that makes you think a little more about the ecosystem, changes your feelings or mood, gives you a perspective of Steem you might not have had before? Unlikely, this is very generic and vanilla for most people but perhaps there are some who get something out of it.

If they have a discerning eye that is. This is why the fracturing of Steem into various levels of content categories, classes and sub-classes will add value to Steem as a whole as it will bring in the discerning eye to not only great content, but poor content also. Around a group of experts, everyone is held to a higher standard and those who pass the test of group dynamics will shine while those who offer little substance or value will fall into the shadows.

In time, the names that you see getting rewarded today are likely to start getting less exposure as the curating community moves onto the niche communities. And because those communities are owned and operated centrally with a tokenized reward mechanism, they are able to better reward their contributors through the community eyes as the community on them are more likely to be interested, engaged and invested in the platform doing well.

The rules of doing well are much easier to establish on a platform with a narrower scope and this has been a problem on Steem so far as there is so much diversity and so many potential options that many struggle with personal definition of Steem and therefore what is required for it to succeed.

How I see Steem is as an enabler blockchain that allows communities to grow and thrive by supporting them to build their on unique experiences and still being able to leverage resources and community support. Each Steem Power holder has the possibility to empower Steem in multiple ways and I believe that in the future, this will be the value of holding Steem, not the draw on the pool for reward.

That pool becomes a shared investment fund that a whole range of projects, applications and communities will be able to benefit from if they can attract stake to support them. But, the discerning eye comes into play here also and when investors make their staked decisions of what to support, it will be those who back the successful horses that will do the best.

In some way, the Steem inflation pool is an acquisitions fund, and while it is currently being used to attract users and content contributors, once SMTs really take hold and the owned communities form in various media frames, it will be used to acquire and support business models more directly. If the community grows significantly, project and application teams will be looking for Steem backing to create their tokenized experiences to onboard a community to support it.

While we talk about masses, when it comes to the owned communities, value doesn't require a great number of accounts or transactions, it requires an engaged community willing to support it. If you compare a super hero movie to the opera, the movie might gross more and sell many, many more tickets, but the opera tickets will be much more expensive and develop a small community which could support heavily, as they consider the niche highly valuable for their life experience as it supports their interest at the level they prefer.

I think that as the world of internet starts to increasingly move behind paywalls to cover the cost of unique content creation and licensing as well as the concerns with content ownership, censorship and demonetization of earners, Steem will become increasingly interesting. The reason is that it offers a hybrid approach for both the contributor and consumer that can bring value to content directly without having to provide centralized gateways to either the ownership, nor the reward mechanisms.

And of course, both parties can get paid in a symbiotic relationship cycle of content and curation.

There is more to this Steem conversation than the UI, the pool, the reward, the quality of content, bots, abuse or ROI; as the entire ecosystem that is forming is running parallel to the changing world of information flow and data management in conjunction with consumption feeds and payment streams.

Steem is fast becoming the model that is going to manage the way the world consumes information, and through this empower the users creatively and economically in ways we are yet to even imagine.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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@tarazkp, Steem will going to mold the Internet in coming years, this is my opinion too. This is Decentralised structure and people are driven by emotions and as you said on Steem everything is Transperant so sometimes we see the strong expressions. But one thing is there and that is, on this Blockchain through content many will going to express strongly without any fear of Censorship. Stay blessed.

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It is going to be a strange time ahead I think as the habits of internet content and consumption are changing daily and raising questions that steem is looking o solve in some way.

Then let's explore these Strange Times. Have a great time ahead.

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what i like best about steemit.. is like. no matter what your opinon is you are free to say it. the only thing that tell the truth about it is how people react by upvoting or downvoting the say! good post!

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the only thing that tell the truth about it is how people react by upvoting or downvoting the say!

Not even that. The upvotes and downvotes aren't about truth, and they have no effect on freedom :)

to me providing this two things together i.e upvote and downvote and making them optional to choose one from, is like giving voter the power to choose between right or wrong. what is the name of this if not called freedom. thats totally my understanding and opinion. thanks

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The bit about how much of the internet will be behind a paywall, really resonated with me. After all, YouTube has been pushing us towards their paid membership for a while now, and I don't think that is going to ever reverse itself. Honestly woukd have paid for it before they became bias, but now i'm only on there because that's still where most of my audience, and friends still are. Much like facebook.

I actually just wrote an article about my vison oh how steem could be the beginning on a decentralized, self governance system, where we hardfork the world by changing how we value things and actions in the world. My hope being we can give value to doing things that benefit the planet on a whole, rather than our current system rewarding those that exploit others or the planet for personal gain.

Im not the best writer, but i'd love to hear your opinion on it, if you have the time.

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but now i'm only on there because that's still where most of my audience, and friends still are. Much like facebook.

I am hoping that this will change over time at least to some part where people get so frustrated with the centralized control that they look for alternatives. A niche like Steem doesn't need a billion users to be highly successful, it just needs invested and engaged users. We are heading that way.

how steem could be the beginning on a decentralized, self governance system, where we hardfork the world by changing how we value things and actions in the world.

Sounds like something I might write :D. Drop me a link and I will read it later. just heading off to work again.

Wow. I like how this post is SteemCentric, yet it’s not. I see the parallels you draw and think I understand how Steem is not unique in its problems, nor absolutely different in it’s types of solutions. The form of the solutions may at times be unique to us but other times take the form of tried and true common solutions.

I agree our problems are not unique, they are not insurmountable and they are not easily solved, but wonder if that is not a good and necessary thing.

I think we are in uncharted territory many times, so it’s okay to take some time, to find our way, as a group. But be accepting that each attempt may not succeed, so be understanding and willing to try again.

Consensus, like democracy is messy, and doesn’t always look likes it’s working. But I think it’s better then the alternative ...

I think Steem will continue to change and at a varying pace like any business in a new technology driven niche, with disappointments over the failure of others to recognize our “greatness” or perhaps “goodness” ...

I am not sure we are great, but we could be and perhaps will be.

Take Care,
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I agree our problems are not unique, they are not insurmountable and they are not easily solved, but wonder if that is not a good and necessary thing.

I think it is necessary because when problems are approached and solved as a community, they tend to be better fit, spread and last longer. There is some ownership of the solution.

Consensus, like democracy is messy, and doesn’t always look likes it’s working. But I think it’s better then the alternative ...

I think in the end, blockchain will replace the current form of democracy to become a much more representative form through weighted understanding of the voter.

I think it is necessary because when problems are approached and solved as a community, they tend to be better fit, spread and last longer. There is some ownership of the solution.

I agree. I think the consensus solution necessitates some buy-in and ownership over the solution. Which is a good thing.

I think in the end, blockchain will replace the current form of democracy to become a much more representative form through weighted understanding of the voter.

I find this exciting, like a brave new experiment in something bigger then myself.
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I find this exciting, like a brave new experiment in something bigger then myself.

It is such an opportunity to shake up this world, people just don't see it yet, even those here.

I really love the idea of Steemit! Am still very new here and figuring out what is what and how all of this works. Thanks for a great blog post! definitely following you @tarazkp

Check out some of my blog posts when you get a chance, feedback is always helpful :)

Thanks, I will try to come by later and have a look. :)

Thanks, much appreciated :)