Steem is not a social media platform --- And that's a good thing.

remlaps (75)in #steem • 7 years ago (edited)

Whatever it is that we're building here, I'm sure that it's something valuable.

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The other day, @drpuffnstuff asked the question, Is Steem still the blockchain based social media platform?. This article echoed some of my own recent thoughts, although the perspective was different. It was a thought provoking article, and I recommend reading it.

As the title of this article suggests, my answer to the question posed by @drpuffnstuff is "No," but I think that is a wonderful thing. Let me elaborate...

(1) The Steem platform is a tournament of ideas

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We all have our visions for how the block chain should be used, and we are free to use persuasion, collaboration, competition, and block chain based tools to try to steer the block chain in our desired directions. These tools include things like content, bot and app creation, up-vote, down-vote, buy and sell, along with others and soon - the upcoming SMT tools.

To look at a prominent example, one user has decided that his/her best use of resources is to post ten articles a day with technical analysis of various cryptocurrencies, and depend primarily on patronage from another user (who may or may not be the same person) as a revenue stream. Is this a good use of the Steem block chain? I have my opinion, but as a minnow, my opinion really doesn't matter much. Despite the irregular mechanism involved, this practice is functionally equivalent to proof of stake mining on many other block chains.

If that user is right that this is a good use of the block chain, then other users will join in and the price of Steem will go up. At this point, everyone holding Steem will be rewarded for that innovative use of the block chain. If (as I suspect), that user is wrong and enough users join in, then the price of Steem will fall. Eventually, the patron's assets will lose enough value to make room for someone else with a better idea. It is worth observing that during the few months of the experiment, the patron has lost somewhere around 5 or 6 million dollars in value due to declining Steem prices. The two things might be totally unrelated, but if I were that person, I'd be thinking carefully about my voting practices.

Similarly, the paid voting bots that seek to arbitrage mismatches between author and curation incentives have emerged in a wave over the last year or so. If this is good for the block chain's value, then they will survive and thrive. If not, they will die out and be replaced by new people and bots with better ideas. Which brings us to...

(2) Steem is the fuel for a discovery process

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So everyone using the block chain analyzes the incentives and uses their talents and resources in the way that they believe is most valuable. Some of us will be right, others will be wrong. But the block chain is always right. Over time, value gradually replaces malinvestment.

In the end, Steem does exactly what the community - in aggregate - finds for it to do. Today, the Steem block chain supports social media, but fundamentally that is not what it is. Fundamentally, the Steem ecosystem is a process of discovery to find out how best to create value with the particular incentives that were designed into this block chain.

And despite the developers' intentions, when the community of stakeholders gets its say, we might decide that there is some more valuable use than social media for the Steem block chain. For example, it could be an Artificial Intelligence (AI) incubator or a a foundation layer for Smart Media Tokens (SMTs). It could even have some obscure use like a public repository of records for historians or a public database of experimental data for scientists. Or maybe it will continue to fulfill social media needs. Maybe all of the above, and more. Or maybe even something that no one has imagined yet.

(3) As a Steem-holder, what does this mean to me?

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It means a few things:

These views are mine and mine alone. I hold no expectation that anyone else will reach the same conclusions or make the same decisions, and I am content in the knowledge that my ideas might rarely be the ones that win.
It means that aside from prudent diversification, I hold on to what I get. Whatever Steem is and might become as bad ideas get replaced by better ones, I expect my holdings to be more valuable in one and five and ten years than they are now. I believe in the discovery process, even if I don't agree with all of the decisions that every person makes. Whatever it is that we're building here, I'm sure that it's something valuable.
It means I make decisions for my own stake according to my own beliefs about the long term best uses of my resources. To me, on some of the controversial issues, this means:

Bots are generally useful, but buying and selling votes is disinformational and thus detrimental to the platform.
Curation schemes based on paying for content are informative and therefore improve the platform.
The existence of paid voting bots signals the existence of some sort of structural problem in the reward payouts (which may or may not be addressed by HF20).
Voting should be proportional to my own, subjective perception of the value that a post provides, regardless of whether I am the author or not.
Flagging is mostly harmful, and for most voters a well-placed upvote is usually better for both the voter and the platform. However, this relationship may invert as the voter's account gains in value.