Time To End The Biggest Failed Experiment On The Steem Blockchain!!!
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Yesterday was the first State of Steem forum. There were many topics covered in discussing where things are and how to move them forward.
In listening, one point that was brought up was value. Basically, how do we add value to the blockchain? What is going to bring that value in?
The question is do people want that? Does anyone on here want the blockchain to moon? Do we want to see the value increase substantially?
If we do, why do we work against that?
Do people even know what value is?
Here is value: $12.3 billion as of June 2017.
Do you know what else is value? $2 billion as of a month later.
Both of these are the estimated values of Pinterest and Reddit.
https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-funding-valuation-2017-7
These sites are where people post links and upload pics. That is it. Yet between the two of them, they were worth $14B a year and a half ago.
What is interesting is we have an application on Steem that does what those two do. @dlike allows people to post links along with uploading pics or memes.
Part of the discussion on the call was how to get more people to Steem. Here is the solution: promote the hell out of dlike. Why? It is easy to use. Anyone can do it. Simply choose post link or upload photo. If a link is chosen, the URL is entered, a category typed in along with the taglines, and the title and first couple sentences are usually automatically inserted. The user can change the text in the body if he or she so chooses.
Then press the button and it is done.
It is an application that is idiot proof and hundreds of millions of people are already doing it on the other social media sites.
And do you know is done on Steem? People who do what I described regularly are flagged by steemcleaners for spamming and plagiarizing. What is that? And people support this and believe it is a good thing?
Is it any wonder that people leave the blockchain?
Here is the deal: do we want value or do we want quality? It is one or the other.
We can no longer stick our heads in the sand and say we want both. The blockchain spent 2.5 years seeking both. People complained about the sh*t posts and how we needed to get rid of them. Well, posts are down, how happy is everyone about that?
Personally, I want STEEM to moon so I am in the value camp.
Someone on the call talked about seeing a 25 second video posted on @dtube and how that always upset her because it wasn't "quality" (I am paraphrasing here). Do you know what? That 25 second video will have a lot more value than one 20 minutes that talks about the day's crypto pricing. Do you know why? In 48 hours the later means nothing while the 25 second yoga move is still of value to anyone who is interested in that stuff.
Have you noticed that we often talk about Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram on here in a comparative way? We discuss these sites wishing to take a portion of their users.
Why do we do that? Because these entities have value...very high value in some instances.
Do you know what they are not? Quality posting sites. Most of the stuff on each of those sites is borderline crap. @pennsif mentioned going to YouTube to look up a how to video and how valuable that is. When was the last time you saw a how to video go viral? Probably never. It is always the fat kid who gets caught trying to go through the cat door that gets the hits.
YouTube became the world's largest video content provider in the world basically through low quality clips that people found interesting/funny (cat videos) and copyrighted content. Hell, until they released their Google Red, they had full length films on there.
Watch any financial show that discusses Google and see how all the analysts talk about YouTube. This is especially true during earnings season. YouTube is estimated to be worth over $100B and provides billions each year in revenue.
Do you know what is not mentioned? Blogger.
Obviously, Blogger has a greater amount of quality content as a percentage of the total than YouTube. Those who post on there are serious about the different topics they cover. Yet it has little value to Google as a company.
We seriously have to decide what we want.
Steem was designed to tokenize the Internet. The simple fact of the matter is most of what is on the Internet is absurd, asinine, moronic, and senseless. Sure there is a lot of quality content but it is in the minority especially when focusing upon social media.
In 2017, there was an estimated 1.2 TRILLION photos taken. Where do you think a large percentage of them ended up? On the Internet of course. And does anyone really believe most of these were high quality content? I bet more than half were dopey selfies.
People work hard, often long hours. They take care of their homes and raise their families. At the end of the day, most people are not going to shoot a 20 minute video or write a 1,200 word blog post. Instead, they are going to film the dog walking around with the cat on it's back for 10 seconds and post that. Then all their friends comment how cute it is and good thing the baby wasn't in the way.
That is simply how people are. The Internet is not serious to them because they are looking to escape serious.
The Smithsonian has a lot of quality stuff but everyone goes to Disneyland. Why? Because it is freaking fun.
Value online is not in quality. Therefore, we need to decide what we are about. Marketers operate by targeting their market. Do we want the sliver of the online world that is concerned about quality? If that is the case, we can have a nice, little blockchain that is specialized by catering to that crowd.
If, however, we want to attract the masses and, in turn, have something of extreme value, then we ought to appeal to a much larger segment. Chastising, downvoting, or putting people on blacklists because they post a link that does not meet the standard of quality is completely foolish. It is also the path to failure.
Yet this is what we are doing on a daily basis.
We are seeing a new form of posting start to take place on here. It is called "Proof of Activity". @actifit uses this. The posts are simply a means for people to show they did a particular activity. Certainly, these posts are not quality.
But you want to know something? In all likelihood, Actifit will be a lot more valuable than any of the blogging applications on the Steem blockchain. There will be over 100M wearables sold a year which is more than all the Wordpress sites ever created. This does not include phones which also can use the application. IPhones alone are over 40M sold per quarter.
https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/wearables-statistics-2017/
The sheer numbers dwarf blogging. This is where the value is. Is this a target market that Steemians want on this blockchain?
We need to admit the quest for quality if a failed experiment. This is not what the people online are into. It is time to focus upon value and how to monetize the applications that are being created.
It seems everyone wants the next Instagram to be on Steem yet we are not willing to allow it to develop. Instead, we will sabotage it because people posting foolish pictures and getting paid for it must be stopped. That is the mindset anyway.
I am sorry to say, this needs to change and quickly. The longer we allow this to persist, the more people we will drive away. Like it or not, the value of social media applications and ecosystems is based upon MAUs, times spent, and activity taking place. If Steem is going to have value, MAUs need to be present. Yes, the applications need to figure out how to monetize things but without the users, they will be cooked.
And to do that, the apps have to give people what they want: a place to go to have fun or do something that interests them.
It is time we stop sabotaging ourselves.
If you found this post to be informative, please upvote and resteem.
Well written, and reiterated again Task. I shared the fuck out of your first post along these lines, the one with Beyonce as the thumbnail. It really changed my outlook, and I want others to have this realization too, so Steem can succeed beyond our wildest dreams.
I'll be sharing this one all over too. It's time to do this thing.
Thank you @lyndsaybowes for the kind words.
There is way too much conflict on here and a lot of it stems from disagreement over what people should or should not post. People want to set a standard of content then wonder why people leave. Who is to say what is quality to another person?
Is a link quality? Most would say no. What if it was a link to the obituary for my parents killed in a car crash? (they werent just an example). Does that then qualify as quality? Who is to say?
Ultimately, it just excludes people who do not attain the undefined level that many seem to only want on here.
Yep, it's one thing if they're posting just a pic, then bid botting that post to fucking 200$. But if it doesn't even have any rewards, don't flag, how bout don't look. Don't upvote. Unfollow, or just scroll on by.
I think the real problem is that right now Steem-based sites are trying to be the place for EVERYTHING. This is exactly where communities come in. There are a lot of people looking for "quality" content who don't care for the cat videos, and there's no reason why they shouldn't have a specific Steem-based community for that, where non-quality content gets downvoted.
Similarly, there should be communities for the audiences who want to watch people fall off things and hurt themselves, and in those places that type of content will be at the top and earn the most, because it is the most valuable to that audience.
The point is that there is no reason why all types of content has to all be in the same place and everyone has to fight about what they think deserves to be there or not, which is what we have on Steem right now.
Posted using Steeve, an AI-powered Steem interface
I agree @yabapmatt.
There are a lot of apps that deal with serious content. Heck, I always do my best to put up quality blog posts. I am not one for selfies or things like that.
We have apps for those like busy and steemspeak. That said, those apps also allow for a link to a cat video from youtube being posted.
I used Dlike as an example because there is a site with a specific purpose. It is around like just like your app is based around people who are interested in a digital asset game. There is room for both on here. Those who like gaming can use your app, those who like posting stuff that interests them can use dlike, and those who like both can do that too.
Good point @yabapmatt I like the way @musing solves the problem by taking away the content that would be thought of as spam on steemit or busy and putting it all in comments of their account. On one hand it looks pretty on their interface, on the other hand people can’t complain that their feeds are spammed with question and answer posts.
When the disaster that dmania was happened I had to unfollow some people that flooded my feed with uninteresting for me gifs. I’d rather switch to a different interface to check them out.
Yes, I think @Actifit and other similar dapps should adopt a similar approach or at least provide the option
Posted using Partiko Android
You've hit the nail on the head!
I agree @yabapmatt ... I would also see a frontend that realizes .. people might just like to see a mixture of some of the different 'community' content in their feed and it sets the frontend up that people can actually select the D'Apps they would like to see posts from in their feed.
@shadowspub
The current Rambling Radio Schedule can be found here
It's All About Community!
Thanks for pointing out the nuance of the issue.
I am not a big fan of dlike or share2steem.
Personally, I think the thrust should be content that is unique to our platform and not link aggregation.
I've seen a few too many #sharingcontent and other type of posts get over rewarded and don't think that is a the right way for our platform to shine.
#originalcontentFTW
Posted using Partiko Android
I couldn't agree with you more. The money quote:
You're right. Most of the content posted on any of these platforms is garbage and low quality. However, what these other platforms have is a way to allow valuable content to reach a wider audience. YouTube has a great algorithm that knows what videos I am interested in watching and is able to filter through most of the stuff I would consider low content and uninteresting. I guess that is what Steem is lacking. It still hasn't developed an effective algorithm to allow the best content to reach the front page or having certain content appear on the feeds of those that will probably find it interesting. Content voted through upvotes doesn't work better than YouTube's, Instagrams, etc. algorithms.
I would agree with you on that. The value of search and algorithms cannot be understated. Many do not like it but, for most, having videos that align with what they like is helpful.
Although we might not know who users are, they could certainly be analyzed from their activity to know what is of interest to them. The only reason such analytics has not been devised for this platform, yet, is the lack of paying advertisers and a need of a method to target them. One such scheme is outlined in my comment below
https://steemit.com/busy/@novacadian/re-taskmaster4450-time-to-end-the-biggest-failed-experiment-on-the-steem-blockchain-20181214t170703080z
Yes, you're absolutely right. I'm with @taskmaster4450 that we shouldn't have the "quality police" judging every piece of content but there does need to be a way for us to wade through the sh*t. A decent algo would help as you say. (don't rely on steemit ;))
I think the Steem blockchain can be all things to all people in that different dapps will cater for different content and experiences.
However, the problem, as mentioned in the post, is those who select to flag posts that are legitimate within the dapps they come from. We've seen this in the past, say when Zappl started, with claims they were not "legitimate posts".
If Steemit is not to be developed as a platform, then it increasingly looks like an aggregator of other sites. It then needs more serious discussions as to what can and should be flagged, or downright stopped, taking into account all those other Steem-sites.
Just because something originates from a dApp using the steem blockchain for distribution does not mean it meets the content criteria of a blogging platform.
Very well written. Yes, we have a fundamental problem here with understanding what constitutes a social network. The anger of the control bots is unbearable and the entire platform suffers. These bots harm the growth of Steemit.
It is not one or the other, yet lack of quality will depreciate the blockchain's value, in my opinion.
People seem to see the steem blockchain as a substitute for such social media platforms as Facebook. Seen that way then numbers of users are an important factor in relevance. However it is my understanding that the steem blockchain is meant to support a blogging platform, not a social media platform. Seen in that light then quality matters.
In my mind the true value (and most potentially monitized aspect) of the steem blockchain is its content. The greater the quality then the greater the value, in my opinion.
Imagine a condenser node delivering embedded Adsense-like Ads to users who are not logged in to a steem account or choose to have banners displayed through account settings.
Imagine a fairly automated system whereby an advertiser can bid (auction style) on time and time zone they wish to have their banner(s) displayed. Imagine such payments going into a transparent public wallet and the net income, automatically distributed (via software) according to stake among all active users by using the vested steem interest payments routine(s).
We could offer half the payment of the advertiser to the viewer of the banner providing they were a logged in steem account, so as to incentivize the use of the site as well as offering another stream of reward.
Should such a scheme be profitable then why would good quality bloggers want anyone but other good quality bloggers to share in this revenue stream?
This idea is being formulated as a bounty project with the @devcoin team and still awaits consensus agreement before being publicly offered.
Our content is our biggest value of the blockchain no matter what Voting Bot dApp Merchants (
some presently sitting in the top 20 witnesses list; as well as the very panel written of in this post) may tell you.Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I today say: Those who would give up essential quality to purchase temporary "value" (put in quotes because price on exchanges is not value!), deserve neither quality nor value.
Totally agree.
Yes, it does seem very odd. We need to stop worrying about giving $5 to the person who posted a video of cute animals with a wide angle lens and turn our focus to the users getting hundreds/thousands of dollars. It's grossly inefficient to try and regulate the small fish from the bottom up. Top-down is where it's at.
This almost seems like classic corporate misdirection. It's like a corporation moving overseas telling everyone they lost their job because of people illegally crossing the border. We need to stay focused and on target. Consensus and decentralization are the key.