RE: Performance and Scalability Updates
It's rather easy - and seemingly fashionable currently - to critique development work by Steemit Inc, but the question is - do we really understand the challenges it takes to build a social network and frontend on a blockchain? I certainly don't, and I haven't seen a better alternative or solutions suggested. There's probably a good reason there have been a dozen or more social blockchain platforms announced, yet Steem is still the only working one I'm aware of. There have been platforms announced over 2 years ago now! If there were a direct competitor to Steem that were outperforming it, I'd agree, of course. As it stands now, I'm not even sure a blockchain social platform is a good idea. As flawed though it may be, nothing offers a superior experience than Reddit as a social platform for me, currently. On those grounds, criticism is certainly valid - Steemit is a sub-par social network experience; though de-facto still the best blockchain driven one.
Looking at Github, I see plenty of evidence that the team is working flat out, with new developers added. Occam's razor, they are simply facing difficult problems that take time to solve; rather than incompetent developers lazing around doing nothing. Vitriol doesn't seem to be warranted in this case.
I don't agree that publishing timelines are key for experimental projects like Steem with no real precedent. I believe it was a mistake to list out timelines in the 2017 Roadmap. Predictably, they have missed most of them as other priorities come to light. History has taught us an obvious lesson time and time again - schedules and budgets are never, ever met for innovative work of any kind. There are unforeseen and complex challenges of all sorts that will only be apparent during the development process. Technology corporations know this and keep their cards close to their chest, only announcing products and timelines with manufacturing set to go. (Yes, I'm aware competitive advantage is an important part to this, one that's not relevant to Steem. Still, I hope you see my point.) Products that have been in development for 5 years are announced 3-6 months from release.
As for price, it's completely irrelevant to technology - crypto traders appear to be irrational lunatics. Steem has a poor reputation in the crypto community; there are plenty of other coins which have far superior hype drivers. How many of them have a product that is in active use? Doesn't matter.
Sure I see your points, but still I think my criticism is allowed and correct. I dealt with experimental projects myself as I dealt with products that made my employer market leader by far, meaning nobody was able to do the same since we did it in a different way and outperformed everybody by far. I know all about what, when and how to communicate these things. I know all about how the plan these things and keep the 'customer' engaged even when timelines are not met. And sure, any IT/software project have the tendency to take longer then expected, but that is anticipated and reserved for. I'm in favour of mentioning timelines in roadmaps, and features per release. I'm also not scared to change those, features and timelines, but it all boils down to communication and keeping the customer engaged and knowing how to do that. Communication is horrible, in frequency as well as in content. Frequency is way to low, and content is way to detailed; Thats is were they loose their customers, us, the community who work hard to make a success out of Steemit.
Okay, let's have a set of amorphic promises with no due date and hope someone will do something next year. Or dosen of years.
To have commitment is tough call. Really tough. But it is the only way the team could move ahead.
Agree