Convergence

I know that I've mentioned this before, but if you haven't come across the We Live in Public documentary before, it's worth pondering. The story is a bit of a cautionary tale about radical openness and transparency, and something of an exploration of the effects on human psychology when people inhabit an environment in which everything is recorded and shared.

The thing that has me off on this tangent at the moment is thinking about the conglomeration of things that we have happening in technology today, and the ways that the blockchain improves our ability to record and share.

Shared Immutable Data

There are already a dizzying array of applications which store data on the STEEM blockchain. Many of these applications have somewhat different purposes - it's definitely not a one size fits all world. The things which these blockchain based applications do differently than most of that which came before on the web are quite obvious and don't necessarily need repeating. Still, I'll make the observation. With blockchain based apps, we have a couple of things solved which people have been chasing after for quite a while.

1) Micropayments - It is trivial to reward someone small amounts for contributing
2) Archives - This stuff gets saved. Like it or not, it's on the blockchain if you submitted it

Getting Paid (even just a little bit)

The bit about payments, and the expectation of payments certainly brings an interesting twist to the entire enterprise of creating content. There are suddenly strong opinions, from a lot of directions, about "how" people should create content. Perhaps it has always been there to some extent, with bloggers calling each other out, to twitter fights and old-school flame wars, there has never been a shortage of people who specialize in telling other people what to do and how to do it online.

This behavior has always been with us, to some extent, but it does seem to be amplified when there's a payment system and money attached. There is ample opportunity with crypto based content systems for people to create followings, to help and/or direct others, and to amass power. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, since communities are very useful things for us all to be a part of and to contribute to. What I am suggesting is that the potential for abuse seems amplified, and it's worth watching out for. It's worth asking "is this advice mostly going to benefit me, or you?" whenever someone is telling you you're doing it wrong.

The more this system takes on the contours of multi-level marketing, the less I want to have anything to do with it. Maybe it's just me, but that's where I'm at with it. Endless attention-seeking hype is a poor substitute for compelling and interesting expressions of thought. Tell a story, entertain me, make me think. I don't want your damn byteball, or whatever else you're shilling. I know there's a fine line between "spam" and "promotion". Please, just ask yourself the question, did you put a lot of effort and thought into creating or understanding what you're trying to talk me into? Does it significantly benefit you? In combination, the wrong answer to both of those questions leads to some really spammy behavior. The view of the world that "I'm in a hurry so I didn't have time to really look into this, but I know I get something out of it if I do a lot of it, so here, sign up...please..."

Do your own thing

That previous section may make me come across like a grumpy old dude, which I am, but it's not my intention to come across that way here. My premise, and my basic approach to participating in this grand public experiment of rearranging bits on the internet, is that you should do what you want to do, the way you want to do it. There are tons of very helpful people online, who are quite knowledgeable and also willing to at least point you in the right direction. There is no substitute for thinking for yourself, however. Just because someone said something, does not make it so. What works for someone else may not work at all for you.

Go out there and be awesome! Be creative, find something that people love hearing about. Ask for help if you need it, and share your knowledge where it's appropriate. That is definitely what you should do, and if you're not, you're doing it wrong :) Keep in mind, however, that's just like, my opinion man.

Maybe next time I'll actually say something about convergence.