What If Steemit Really Is Just A Beta (Afterthought)?
In the past, I complained about what seemed like general apathy towards the Steemit.com front-end on the part of STINC. Truth is, it often seemed as if Steemit was an afterthought which had been in "beta" for many months before, and since, I arrived. New features are rare and existing features are sparse. Much digital ink has been spilled over the lack of even a basic resteem filter.
Even STINC itself regularly refers to a vision of "tokenizing the web." You'll note there is no mention of blogging, paying content creators, or cultivating an online community. It's pretty explicit - it's all about the "tokens", which in this case, refers to the forthcoming Smart Media Token functionality being added to the Steem blockchain. In fact, I've even seen Ned state that blogging/Steemit is not their focus, though I don't feel like searching the comment up.
This used to irk me, as I was a "blogger." The thing is, I didn't intend to be. I was simply a crypto investor before I found Steem - at first, the blogging just seemed like something extra I could do with a coin I had a small investment in. Before I knew it, I found myself buying a lot more Steem and powering it up.
However, lately I've decided to take a "wait and see" approach. The more I use other cryptocurrencies, the more I am annoyed with the fees and transaction times. Even Ethereum has been slowish lately. Steem kills most other cryptocurrencies on both transaction times and zero fees - a fact I am reminded of far too regularly.
Is the best use of Steem really a blogging platform? Perhaps not. Perhaps this has all been a large dress rehearsal for bootstrapping a young cryptocurrency, while giving decisive proof-of-concept that it can handle huge transaction load without fees. On top of that, Steemit comes with the advantage of distributing some of the currency to early supporters based not only on financial investment (although this is an option,) but also to some extent on merit. This would hopefully eliminate the Steem-concentration problem we currently have, with some 90+% of the Steem held by the top 1% of users.
Most of us look at Steem as Steemit rewards, but that is only one use. Some other users, particularly certain large and notorious whales, simply look at Steem like any other DPOS coin - they vote themselves most of their own stake each day, albeit usually with some attempt to either cloak or make it "culturally" acceptable.
However, if you don't look at Steem as primarily a blogging tool, then you would have never found that unacceptable. I can't think of a single example of a user "donating" his share of DPOS or staking rewards on another coin - of course you take them for yourself. On Steem, we get quite angry by users who do this, but that is the right you receive by being a large buyer.
You get to choose your way on Steem - you can buy it, or you can earn it. Either way, the more you have, the more you are likely to get.
Perhaps Steemit was always simply intended to showcase the capability of Steem for this "tokenizing the web" plan all along. Maybe nobody really cares about the "social" platform and that is intended to simply function at it's current level or taper off.
Since most of us can't do anything to steer the ship either way, let's wait and see.
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 10,000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: STINC, Steemit, @ContentJunkie, Google
Copyright: Steemit
Good points!! I believe that Steemit is being used as proof of concept for upcoming SMTs. However, the fact that Steemit is amazing at SEO and slowly taking over Google Search, I believe this will be the platform of choice for anyone who is serious about blogging. Instead of hosting a word press blog on your website, you’ll simply use Steemit and get organic traffic that way. Outside of that, I believe there will be much better social platforms in the not too distant future!! I’m keeping an eye on APPICS ICO coming soon! Thanks for the post!
This has been a long beta has it not?
You're tellin' me, cute dog avatar.
I agree with all this. Really, how can any modern company think steemit.com is even close to a competitor to facebook or any other decent social media platform?
It's not about steemit.com, not about the content we sweat over for hours, not about the whale battles and upvoting and downvoting. It's just about the blockchain, and by extension, tokens/SMT. If that's the ultimate end game, all of us are trapped in the pointless backwater eddies of social media content games while the rest of the world moves on.
It's true, everyone just acts this way to conform to social norms on the site, lots of people want to push a pro-social agenda but it will actually matter as far as the ultimate distribution of steem and who controls how much of the network goes.
It's important to take a step back to remember this from time to time. Thanks for summing it up concisely.
I'm a strong believer that Steem's economic model can be improved. At the moment, even though there are abusers of the system, people are still creating high quality content on it and at the end of the day, we can treat it as a free blogging platform.
The no fees thing certainly is a biggie. I kind of jumped into crypto with some fiat on Coinbase and have lost about 40% of that at present ( I know - just wait 5 minutes and the market will swing.) But when I really analyzed the trades I had lost a good chunk in fees! I don't even pay fees to my bank - always find the way around them and I was rather embarrassed I unwittingly paid that much in crypto fees. Nonetheless - live and learn. Thanks for your insight and thanks especially for that awesome ummm General Cat picture :P
I'm getting killed on my alt-coin withdrawal and deposit fees. I think I had to pay 6 ark for a withdrawal once, wtf. Ark is over $4.
I had bought Steem on OpenLedger but then their gateway was broken so I couldn't move it to the platform so I ended up changing it back into btc and then transferred it - all in all I think I paid about $40 usd in fees. Guess I'll chalk it up to paying for the learning experience. Which exchanges do you have the best luck with? When I tried I couldn't even open a Bittrex account. Ended up on Binance and OpenLedger - both of which leave something to be desired (like ease of use and low fees).
To a large extent, the ones who will make a killing in this blockchain revolution will be the exchanges and their fees. Since this is a global 'anyone who has a few buck can participate', the vast number of transactions being made trading cryptos and their annual fees is going to mind blowing.
I actually was so shocked after some of my earliest withdrawals that I made a spreadsheet for all my altcoins that included columns for trading fees AND withdrawal fees, then a calculation for the two. The exchange that is the cheapest to buy a coin on is the one with the best combo. I lost 100 coins on one withdrawal, which was a full 10% of what I'd bought!
How are you upvoting a comment?
@skyefox - to upvote a comment use the little green circle with the up arrow in it at the bottom of the comment. To the far left of the reply text link you used to create this reply. Is that what you're asking?
No, I saw many comments come in through a service. I figured it out but I appreciate your help!
I too invested in steem(a little) originally and started blogging just to offset the inflationary nature of steem , then the alts went way down for a long time and steem became a welcome distraction.
An interesting and probably true thought but this has long been beta and is not going to disappear anytime soon
Ah, you never know when things could heat up! Change tends to happen slowly, then all at once.
So very very true :’(
Wonder if placing a social media on Eos is the game: Eosit.....
Sorry but I do not use steem to trade or make money, I use it to post my art , photos, and poetry. I like that I am not censored as FB is now becoming famous for. Sorry all you Midases but coin isn't everything.
I certainly love the censorship resistance around here, especially with YT having the same problem. But there's no denying most people are here due to the "currency" part of "cryptocurrency."
I believe you are correct. I have never seen Steemit as the main usecase of Steem, but more as a branding of the Steem blockchain.
I am eagerly awaiting the launch of SMTs to see how things shake out.
I want to do a Steem based SMT for our business or for disc dog, dog training, and/or dog sports content.
I think it would be amazing. There is tremendous value being siphoned off of niche markets by FB and Google. If the value of dog training and other niche content were properly assessed in terms of time and effort (of viewers), I would be a rich man.
If that value were to stay in the community via niche SMTs and other niche SMT based web and service applications. Online social locations would serve to spread the cultivation of reputation all around the social and local economic space.