The time for modernizing the Steemit interface is now

TL;DR: I support the proposal by @the-gorilla to modernize the Condenser front end. Here's why I think you should, too.

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Introduction

If you read the above post by @the-gorilla, you'll see that there is a new Steem Proposal System (SPS) proposal to modernize the Steemit interface (aka, "Condenser") during the course of the next year. What this means is that the community can now vote on whether or not to fund that proposal. Voting is done on a stake-weighted basis, and for the proposal to receive funding, it must receive votes from enough stakeholders to raise it above the so-called "return proposal. Here's the current proposal ranking:

And here are some of the current votes. For later discussion, take note of the fact that "9 votes ( 1.688 M SP ) have no effect, because the voters witness proxy didn't vote.":

So now, the question for every single Steemizen is whether or not to vote to support the proposal.

7 years ago, one of Steemit's founders wrote:

Steemits (sic) future depends on web development more than anything else...

I agreed with his point then, and I agree with it now. In my opinion, we can separate the blockchain and the rewards from Steem's ability to succeed. From a utility perspective, the blockchain is basically just a (nearly) free database. The rewards were revolutionary in 2016, and they're still a differentiating factor.

However, in my opinion, user retention and growth depends on the front-end interfaces that are available. We've seen over the course of ~8 years that rewards alone won't attract or retain users. In contrast, people do social media with no rewards at all if the web site is done right.

We can take a quick look at our user retention by dusting off one of my PowerBI slides from a while back. I removed the filters so we can see all the data I have, and here's what it looks like:

(Data and definitions from @steemchiller's SDS accounts API)

Since January of 2023:

• Whales have declined from 32 to 31.
• Orcas have increased from 290 to 299
• Dolphins have declined from 1256 to 1239
• Minnows have declined from 5750 to 5434

The only category that increased was Orcas, and that increase peaked in July of 2023. After July, Orcas have declined from 315 to 299.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time with more charts and figures, but I'll also note that according to my informal observations, comments and votes per minute have declined during the same time frame; also, more recently new account creation has slowed, and powered-up (staked) STEEM has fallen as a percentage of supply.

So, it seems to me that user growth is going in the wrong direction. This raises two questions, to which I'll offer generalized opinions in the following sections:

1. What do we do about it?
2. Who pays for it?

In addition to answering these questions, I'll also include a final section with more specifics in order to address some possible objections that I am aware of.

What do we do about it?

For my answer to this question, I propose that we look at Twitter (aka X) after Elon Musk took control. Twitter was basically stagnant for many years, until Musk took over. After he took over, it has added numerous features, including:

• Revenue sharing
• Videos
• Community Notes upgrades
• Spaces
• Paid verification checkmarks
• algorithm changes, including (I think) chronological feed ordering, bookmarking, and better handling of private and public lists
• Released their proprietary code as Open Source

All the experts said that Twitter was going to be dead, but the reality is that it seems to be growing and even outpacing its competitors.

Similarly, if Steem is going to grow, I believe that we need to enhance the front ends that are available to worldwide users.

Who pays for it

Condenser is an open source program that serves as the steemit.com front-end to the Steem blockchain. Without a doubt, Steemit is the most influential stakeholder here, but because it is Open Source, anyone can make use of this code.

A modernized front end will (hopefully) attract users to use the blockchain through steemit.com, and it may also attract other entrepreneurs who could also make use of it with their own web hosting and funding models.

Therefore, in my opinion, the community of stakeholders should fund its development, and the easiest mechanism for this to work is through the Steem Proposal System. There are, however, other options:

1. A developer could set up a funding account and community members could fund it through the use of patronage in the form of transfers, beneficiary settings, and upvotes on posts.
2. Steemit could fund it with coordination by the @dip.team.

Risks and objections

@jondoe raised a couple objections in the comments. I think this one provides a good overview:

There are no checks and balances on the DAO and there is no way for the community to know that the funds being sent to the developer are actually being used for development... or that the costs are reasonable for the work etc. For that reason, I am against any DAO development unless there is a clear path to bringing in new users and new investment. Even then, I would want checks and balances on those funds. We have seen many times (almost every time) DAO funds go to developers and they either don't complete the task they claimed they would, or whatever they deliver doesn't really bring any new value to the ecosystem, and definitely not more than they took out.

I totally agree with the point that this system has frequently delivered poor results in the past. I don't agree that there are "no checks and balances", however. If we look at the proposal by @the-gorilla, we see that it is divided into 5 sections:

• Discovery
• Design
• Development
• Testing
• Deployment

The community can consider these as milestones, and if commitments are not met, funding can be terminated at any time - simply by unvoting the proposal. The community could even ask for additional milestones, like periodic progress reports, demos, etc... Also, I would draw your attention to this excerpt from the proposal - during the "Discovery" phase:

Stage 1 would involve documenting the structure of steemit.com - identifying what source code is used in each page and the associated CSS files. Steemit.com's "all.scss" file imports approximately 70 other .scss files which needs understanding.

This work, alone, is invaluable (assuming the documentation is published). It has a multiplier effect because other developers can benefit from the effort.

So, yes, there is an element of trust, but there are also risk-limiting controls that are available.

The second point from the comment above is that there are no guarantees that this effort will bring users. Again, I agree that there are no guarantees, but when are there ever guarantees? That's life. To me, that's not a compelling reason to decline to act, when (1) we have already observed the degrowth alternative that comes with the status quo; and (2) Twitter gives us a reasonable basis for believing that improving the interface can reverse the trend.

Finally, on the question of trust and not capturing the value of the funding, we can look at the history of @the-gorilla. He has already provided (at least) two services that are used by the community: a Steemit reskin and the club status tool. So, we have a track record to go on. I agree with @jondoe that we shouldn't fund any random person that comes along (especially anonymous ones), but I think @the-gorilla has earned enough trust to start the funding, and it's then up to the community to provide oversight.

How we can help

So, if you agree with me that this is a worthy project to receive funding, what do you do? There are several options available, you may choose one, none, some, or all:

1. Vote for the proposal here or here.
2. Unvote the "return proposal", if you are currently voting for it so that it's easier for this proposal to get above it.
3. If your witness votes are assigned to a proxy, contact your proxy provider and ask them to vote for the proposal (this is where that excerpt from above comes in).
4. If your proxy provider will not vote for the proposal, you can remove your proxy setting and vote it yourself.
5. You can power-up more STEEM to increase the weight of your vote.
6. You can write posts & comments to help persuade others in the community to vote for the proposal.
7. If @the-gorilla announces a funding account, you can use a small beneficiary setting on your posts to help fund the development outside of the SPS.
8. You can contact members of the @dip.team and ask them to support funding the proposal from the Steem development incentive program

As an aside, I believe that the Steem blockchain has some sort of escrow capability, but I have no idea how it works. I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows if/how that could be applied in situations like this...

Let me also add that I think there are good reasons why this should be done now, instead of later. Here are a couple:

• The daily creation of new STEEM per day peaked last November (barring unexpected changes by the witnesses) and it will now be declining more and more quickly. If we want to replenish the SPS fund, that will be increasingly more difficult in the future.
• Historically, bitcoin halvings have led to a downstream increase in STEEM's price and an influx in new Steem users. The next bitcoin halving is expected in April. If that leads to growth again, we want to keep as many people as we can when the BTC cycle moves on to its next phase. A modernized front end should assist with that retention.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I restate my support for the proposal as a mechanism to reverse the multi-month degrowth trend that we have been observing. In my opinion, it's the right thing to do; @the-gorilla has a proven track record in the community; And the timing is right.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".

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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

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^{Pixabay license, source}

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