Open Social Platform

in #waivio6 years ago (edited)

When an inspired entrepreneur is pitching yet another social network project to a seasoned VC and says, "we will compete with Facebook", a reflective thought goes through the mind of said VC: "Buddy, your competition is another start-up and you’re not even aware what they are doing".

All true, until the rules of the game change and an Open Social Platform arrives.

Are you skeptical? You are not alone. People were very skeptical about open spectrum, open networks (Internet), open software (Linux) until goliaths (closed systems) were defeated. And here we go again.

All major social networks are closed systems:

Closed social systems

Closed social systems

The main purpose of closed systems is to maximize profits for their shareholders, not users (despite all the marketing). And the best way to protect any business from competition is to introduce some barriers:

  • Users must register for each system;
  • Connections and user information cannot be transferred;
  • Users are required to surrender content rights;
  • Businesses are forced to use closed ad systems;
  • Innovation and access by 3rd parties is restricted.

Companies spend substantial resources on innovation, but the main purpose of that innovation is to extract maximum value from users, while keeping them glued to the service. Eventually these closed social systems create too much friction and inconvenience for everyone involved.

Today users must maintain multiple social profiles, submit the same content over and over again to different networks, manage fragmented audiences and all that while being bombarded with intrusive advertising.

Businesses don’t fare much better either. Besides maintaining presence according to the rules of these systems, they are also forced to use dedicated ad systems which lack transparency and impose lots of restrictions.

In this context, a new paradigm emerges - an Open Social Platform powered by distributed blockchain technology.

Open social platform

Open social platform

The fundamental innovation of the Open Social Platform is that users keep their profiles, their connections and content on the public blockchain. You may even think of it as a content cloud - one place for everything.

Users are free to use any app to interact with the blockchain, access their own records and communicate with their friends. In fact, followers might all use different apps and remain perfectly connected and in sync.

App creators do not need to ask permission to build apps on a distributed blockchain. Contrast this to Facebook app vetting! With open blockchain, the floodgates of innovation are open. Creativity and experimentation are no longer the privilege of the few. Anyone can try a different approach, anyone can experiment or build an app.

Blockchain is organized in such a way that apps cannot break the integrity of the distributed database, they cannot change the history or add records on behalf of users without their knowledge. Users always remain in control of their online identities and their wallets.

Businesses no longer need to employ sneaky advertising techniques to get attention of potential customers. They can communicate with their target audiences directly through the blockchain by bidding for their attention. Users may choose to accept bids, ignore them or request higher payouts.

Users, businesses and app creators interact with each other through the blockchain using simple and transparent rules. This changes everything.

Or does it? After all, how can these unorganized developers ever build anything worth something? Don't you need a well-organized company with proper management structure to do real stuff?

Open platforms innovation

Open platforms innovation

In closed systems innovation is prioritized based on the addressable market to ensure return on investment remains high, and much innovation is rejected by committees, boards and consultants.

Open systems offer an entirely different approach to innovation: anyone can build and try something new. When this is coupled with open software development approach, everyone can learn from others, build on top of each others’ work and reassemble ideas in new ways.

At early stages it may seem that open platforms have a long way to go to match mighty established players. But before long, the gap narrows down and they surpass old systems by an order of magnitude enabling users to do previously unimaginable things. Open platforms become great foundations for new businesses, new products and services.

We've seen the history repeat itself multiple times, yet this time something feels very different.

Platform value

Platform value

It was not possible to buy shares of open spectrum, open software or the Internet. If you were lucky, you bought Amazon, if not - Pets.com. You could invest in companies that were built on top of open platforms, but not platforms themselves.

This time around you can buy Open Social Platform tokens or earn them by either submitting quality content, curating content of others, investing in bots and more.

Tokenized Open Platform effectively funds its own development, content acquisition and all other services that contribute to the overall value of the platform.

All function layers remain open and much of software development is open source. Anyone can innovate, anyone can take things further. And every new experiment increases the overall value of the platform.

And here comes the network effect:

Open platform network effect

Open platform network effect

Competing apps and bots use the same token and that creates a combined network effect for the entire Open Social Platform. It is no longer a zero sum game. Each new customer, each new connection and every new article or report increases the value of the platform.

Interests of app creators and users are perfectly aligned: apps earn 5%-10% from user earnings, including attention and reference trades. It is in the best interest of app creators to maximize profits of their users by offering them content feeds that match their interests and offer the best opportunities to earn platform tokens.

Small apps enjoy the same profitability as much bigger ones, because their users equally compete for author and curation rewards, for attention and reference bids as well as other resources of the platform.

In turn, businesses can safely bid for attention of combined audiences of all apps, using domain expertise of users, which was verified and confirmed by the community. This level of transparency is unimaginable in current closed social systems.

Open Platform ensures that users are the main beneficiaries of their labor, enables rapid innovation and allows investors to participate in the success of the platform.

Summary

Summary

All these factors create a very powerful combination, which puts Open Social Platform in a unique position to achieve mass adoption.

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As is always the case, the closed system owners will fight tooth and nail to protect their interests.

Open systems will win out, eventually. The law of disruptive markets tells us that any time you can do something 10x better for 10x cheaper, you will win. We're at that point with blockchain publishing like STEEM.

But it will take (a lot of) time before that is recognized widely.

Steem open platform was featured in the top 10 on the Audit Report of 200 blockchain projects:

https://medium.com/@DPRating/dprating-github-audit-for-200-blockchain-projects-sep-2018-monero-and-bch-boosting-3db8b3d971d7

And Steem ecosystem includes many parties: developers, miners, content creators, curators (including organized leagues like Curie and more). And this is just the beginning.

It is very difficult for closed systems to fight open platforms, because their standard toolkit is useless: you cannot buy open platform, you cannot sue them out of existence and it is very hard to regulate them, because these are not companies.

Also closed systems are unable to adopt open platform innovations, since they attack the very core of their business model.

I think open platform is the worst nightmare of established closed systems.

The fight is on the reputational level to prevent the critical mass of users from switching to the open platform.

So it's rumor and slander as the tools of the day. E.g. "Bitcoin is for drug dealers."

Because from the user-perspective, you are right. There is no reason to stay in the closed systems when there is an open alternative that is superior in pretty much every way - except for the lack of network effect.

In our own case here on STEEM, the value for a user to switch from twitter/fb/etc with their millions and billions of active users to STEEM with its 20-50k active users is low. So we are in the baby stages of network effect where we pretty much only have people who are looking at the larger, long-term picture as users.

Open platform enables permissionless innovation and Steem ecosystem has grown immensely in just 2 years:

  • web interfaces: Steemit.com, Busy.org, steem.chat, …
  • apps: Partico, eSteem, Vapor, …
  • specialized: D.Tube, Dmania.lol, Musing.io, SteemStem.io, dsound.audio, dlike.io, SteemFest, …
  • tools - apps: SteemWallet, Steem Monitor, SteemConverter, …
  • tools - web: steemd.com, steemworld.org, steemconnect.com, delegationhub.com, blocktrades.us, steemprojects.com…
  • bots: steembottracker.com, isteemd.com, 40+ bots…
  • curation: curie, steemflagrewards, …
  • funding: utopian.io, fundition.io
  • games: steemmonsters.com, …
    And much of this development is done as open source software that allows others to build on top of it, network their ideas and gain momentum. At first glance, it may seem like a long way to go before an open platform compares to existing giants, but this growth is exponential and once the open platform starts to catch up, the next moment it is 10 times better and offers something completely different and unique to users. The adoption will happen.

Oh, definitely. It will happen. The question is when will then be now?

This is all about business, owners are getting profit through ads on social media.i like that platform where user gets most benefits. Thank you sir.

Open projects used to be fueled exclusively by the enthusiasm of creators and users. But distributed blockchains enabled sustainable business models to support the development of open platforms.

@grampo exactly, open platforms will always win out in the long run. There was no stopping the internet and there is no stopping this. I believe that widespread adoption will happen a lot quicker than most people think. Another great post looking forward to hearing more from you!

Posted using Partiko iOS

Excellent, clear description of a complex topic!

So it means open social platform is more valuable towards mass adoption.
Thanks @grampo ,looking forward to see more from you

Posted using Partiko Android

thanks for these insights! super interesting! I should share this on facebook...!

That is why i like open platform systems as steem is one of these kind of systems where everyone have hands in the game including many projects. I like your way to make it simple to understand, thanks @grampo

Your post is as good as before, and the way you explain it first is to explain the theory. After that you make the graph and explain that it is very wonderful. Sir, it is easy to understand this and understand the commands you have mentioned.

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Dear @grampo sir!
Your posts are always on the serious issue. The way to explain through the diagram is very accurate. You have a comparative interpretation of the comparative interpretation. The best medium to express thoughts is the social platform. Where everyone is going to be an healthy competition opportunity. Gradually it is going to be done through the business? Are we relying on the reliability of these platforms? Are we safe from third party? Because we provide them in their personal data registration. How fast is increasing innovation and distance new new apps Are so impressive that? Keep it to you. People are in the same time, we are moving forward on people. You are going to go to here. You are thank you for your valuable content and ideas.