On the Future of STEEM and meOS, "The Steem Killer"
In a few weeks, @dan will supposedly release his "Steem Killer" on EOS. The company he founded after leaving Steemit, BlockOne, is heavily promoting their event #B1June. One can only assume that the #6 blockchain, according to Coinmarketcap, will try to expand its reach beyond the EOS gambling & gaming dapps that currently dominate the DappRadar Rankings.
Gambling & gaming are nice & all but if blockchain wants to truly achieve mass adoption, then the key is obviously to solve for blockchain media. The fact that I am writing this on Steemit proves that Dan Larimer intimately understands this truth. To extend this point, the top 10 dapps on DappRadar cannot boast the daily active users (DAU) that we find on STEEM.
According to the latest post by @penguinpablo, more than 45,000 accounts transact on the STEEM blockchain every day. And that doesn't even count people who just come to Steemit.com, Busy.org, or the @partiko app just to read.
While it is certainly the most used blockchain in the world, according to number of daily transactions as tracked by Block'tivity, EOS still has a long way to go in terms of providing real value to its transacting consumers. The event on June 1 is likely to address just that issue.
While we're on this subject, let's take a look at the Blocktivity league table and give @dan some props:
He has been intimately involved in the creation of 3 out of the top 4 most active blockchains. That's positively Jordanesque. Kudos!
Maybe the best summary of what may happen on June 1 can be found here at EOSwriter. If you wanna read just one quote that hints at all the possibilities, you can just read this one from Yves La Rose of EOS Nation:
Yves is one of the more sane people I've ever encountered in the space. At a meetup in Shanghai earlier this year, he didn't even appear aware of the price of EOS, much less BTC. His organization is focused on creating value for its community members. And that's the way it should be. We are still so early in this industry. Those of us involved with projects need to find a way to tune out the moonboys screaming for pump & dump trading action and just hunker down and build blockchain-based ecosystems & communities that provide utility value to token holders. It's hard, but that's the way we're gonna deliver the societal change that blockchain can truly deliver.
It's not about $3,000 bitcoin or $20,000 bitcoin. It's about changing the world, or whatever little niche each blockchain project chooses to focus on, for the better. 1% at a time.
For me, if the B1 event on June 1 moves the blockchain community as a whole any little bit further along toward this goal, then I am for it!
But what do Steemians want to know about this event? How would a B1-backed meOS social media platform built on top of EOS affect the value of STEEM?
In the initial stages of meOS, I think it won't be a problem. Why? Decentralization.
EOS is the most centralized token in all of the blockchains. Let's take a look at the current EOS Whales:
That's 90.85% of the total EOS supply in the hands of its top 15 holders. I know some of these accounts are exchange hot wallets but, uh, that's not decentralized. Not one bit.
Honestly, however, that's to be expected. Blockchain is supposed to be decentralized, I know. But the reality is, if blockchain-based systems are going to compete with the FAANG-BAT systems that currently rule our digital lives (and disrupting these mega-corps should be the main goal IMHO), they need to be shepherded by powerful incentivized for-profit entities. True decentralization of token supply can only come later in the roadmap.
We know this because of the STEEM experience. Here I point to some great posts by @exyle and @taskmaster4450, who both spend a considerable amount of time on their blog talking about STEEM-specific issues.
According to this post, near the beginning of the STEEM blockchain the rich-poor gap was very pronounced. It wasn't as bas as EOS currently is but whales still owned 75.44% of the token supply on 8/1/2017:
The end of the most recent month has seen a remarkable change in the distribution of token supply in the past 21 months. At the end of April 2019, whales only owned 53.16% of the STEEM token supply:
That's substantial progress over the past couple of years. And it is most likely what EOS is trying to replicate by introducing a social media dapp. As Steemit has shown, there is no better way to distribute tokens fairly than by encouraging active participation via incentivization by token reward. All the other means we have encountered via blockchain - mining, transaction mining, staking, delegating, etc. - have all lead to more and more oligarchic systems.
If we want oligarchy, we might as well just stay in the fiat world, where the distribution of wealth in the United States is bleak and getting bleaker:
So I think it'll be a couple years before meOS can actually compete with STEEM in this all-important aspect of token supply distribution. It just takes time for a blockchain to be properly "seasoned" in this regard.
That being said, obviously the STEEM price is suffering due to the anticipation of the introduction of the "Steem Killer." To me, this fear presents an interesting "buy the rumor, sell the news" opportunity. The "rumor" being STEEM will be killed and the "news" being it will actually take some time to build up a social media dapp with 45,000 DAUs and a somewhat fairly distributed token economy.
How many months of logging into meOS will the top trending post be "Come gamble on EOSdice" or "Bring your friends to trade on Huobi" or "Stake your EOS with eos.fish"? Or whatever... It's gonna be spam city from all the big EOS whales for a while. And that will only worsen the Whale Problem, at least initially.
I have no doubt that @dan and B1 will figure something cool out in the long run. But it will definitely take time. That is just the nature of blockchain development. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.
Even in a world with a robust meOS ecosystem, that certainly does not spell D-O-O-M for the STEEM blockchain at all. Social media is a space where many ecosystems can thrive simultaneously. Just look at Tumblr being acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion back in 2013.
The point is, for Chrissakes, let us please have a few social media platforms in this world not owned by Facebook or Tencent!
I'm still thinking about this issue and would love to hear any thoughts about #B1June, meOS, or the future of STEEM. If you have something to say, please comment below for STEEM rewards!!! 👇👇👇
As always, PEACE! ✌🏼
Im going to tell you whats going to happen.
MEOS is going to launch and all quality creators that are quality by objective standards will have a field day. Not the turdblossoms that are winning right now on steem.
Then the average creators and small accounts will follow thinking they will get some $$$ as well.
Eos whales will be super generous at this time to steal as much of the community as they can.
Steem whales will start to panic and you will have a flood of "fuck you, you assholes, im gone" posts. Which is bad since most whales leech the system with bots or circle jerk and they will see the folks leaving that will no longer be there to view the content vote buyers want to plug.
You know... The type of post a angry employer writes to his boss when he quits his job.
After a few months pass and the EOS whales start to not give a shit like the steem whales, those creators that are shit (folks like me) will run back to steem to grab some votes from the steem whales that finally realize that selling votes got them here....
No they wont... Haha.
Youre going to probably see whales continue to drain the pool and slowly power down. Because collective epiphany from stupidity is super rare.
Once they see everyone is doing it theres going to be a frenzy.
...or the retards (my name for majority of the whales) will start to give out votes to quality creators like in the early days and not make retard claims yelling: "im not here to make you rich!!!"
I find that unlikely, but it could happen.
Really good summary...if MEOS really wants to kill STEEM , here is even an easier solution :
10M MEOS BURN can be allocated to STEEM account with reputation above X and SP below Y to do an airdrop and that will swap the middle class from STEEM to EOS in an instant !!
!tipuvote 0.2
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yap. it could maybe be interesting to be there for the generous whales in the beginning.
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Yeah. Quality is pretty easy to spot as well as who the influencers are..
I think that EOS whales will be super generous towards them in the beggining for a number of reasons.
Ofc i dont think that sentiment will last for long. People are generally the same where ever you go.
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A truly dystopian reality that has a ring of truth to it. But I think the same behavior you anticipate on STEEM will be even worse on meOS, at least in the early days. If you’ve heard the stories of bartering that goes on among the EOS block producers at this stage... Ugh, governance is a major major issue on EOS and there’s nothing much they can do about it until they achieve better token distribution.
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Sure. What im saying is that there will be a initial generosity to get as many people on board.
The distribution on EOS is really bad and how they decide to set up the economy will determine a lot of things.
If we see certain abusive behavior banned, just from the fairness that will arise from that you could have a stable social media site.
Will it be better then Steem front ends, its hard to tell.
What i do know is that people are getting sick and tired of the abuse taking place on steem and its reaching its boiling point.
Community influencers are already getting anxious. If they start to crack (some already have) you could see a exodus at least in the early days of Meos.
This post is supported by $0.27 @tipU upvote funded by @penderis :)
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Wish comments could be resteemed. Thought you were channeling some Carlin here with your insight.
Best compliment of the day. ☺
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To call creating another successful blockchain based social media a Steemit killer is indicative of a mindset that had better die. The whole space is tiny. The masses aren’t even aware of decentralized alternatives. The success of one is a boon to all the rest.
I think the move will be towards wider adoption beyond crypto nerds using some of the same ideas that make STEEM popular. The difficulty of getting into STEEM, I think, is one of the main reasons for it languishing. STEEM is growing, but 50K active users on a planet with billions of people is not a wild success.
Another reason, I think, is demonetizing. Minds, for example, is doing rather well because of its hands-off approach to censorship. They permit anything that is legal. I find it much easier to make friends there because there is no profit motive. Whereas on STEEM, saying the wrong thing can get your posts voted down. The profit motive of STEEM keeps things clean. But, it is also a form of censorship that makes it unpalatable to mainstream users.
I suspect @dan learned much from STEEM and has been working on making MEOS easier for the mass market to use. With millions or billions of users, it would not be long before whales control a smaller percentage of the pool, versus 50,000 “active” Steemians.
What would, in my opinion, make all the difference is to have private messaging and e-commerce. There is no good reason for me to keep liquid STEEM. I power up all of it. With e-commerce, I could buy things. There would be incentive to keep liquid Steem. Of course, it requires private messaging for sharing transaction particulars like shipping address.
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Minds pays nothing? I can't understand how getting flagged on rare occasions on Steem can make not being monetized on Minds an advantage.
Steem has encrypted memos, which means that there is no reason e-commerce could not be done on Steem.
Minds pays tokens that are only good for buying views. Not completely worthless, but not a great benefit. I only mention Minds because it is more entertaining and lively there. A thriving community, which many Steemians lament isn’t happening here. On the one hand, Steemians want engagement and more content. On the other hand, Steemians insist on snobbery about “quality content”. Minds has no such standards, which is very evident. But Minds is a ton more fun with a mix of all kinds of content.
You say “flagged on rare occasions”. Most people are more attuned to loss aversion than potential gain. Thus, they can be very happy on Minds with the knowledge that they won’t lose anything.
Regarding e-commerce and private messaging, I guess I haven’t found the menu options for encrypted memos. I don’t see it in Steemit or Partiko. With so many smart people like yourself, I am shocked, SHOCKED, that there is not an existing e-commerce solution on Steem. We can all make much more STEEM by selling goods and services than pecking at a keyboard. I would imagine e-commerce would have been one of the first dapps developed.
Where does Steemit keep the encrypted memos feature? Send me a private message.
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You make many good points. I've found Steem to have a pretty lively community. And there is a range of content published through many apps such as DLike, which is a link sharing app.
I agree on the quality content snobbery. Mainstream adoption is definitely not in quality content. It's in mediocre content - by definition!
You're right about loss aversion but I honestly haven't found flagging a huge issue myself. There are some controversial figures who have been shadow banned or outright banned from elsewhere such as @tommyrobinson here. They seem to be exercising their freedom of speech just fine. Besides, Steem is not Steemit or any other particular front end. No matter how much SP you have, you cannot delete anyone else's content from the chain. Front ends other than Steemit do not let flags influence the visibility of content.
People are happy on Minds, not because they are not earning anything, but because they most likely don't even realize they could earn something for what they post online. The whole concept of users owning and governing the platform they use is so radical and novel that most people aren't even aware of how badly they're ripped off on traditional centralized platforms.
The economic model of Minds is something very different from that of Steem. Steem is no longer primarily a social media platform. It's a fast and free blockchain-based content delivery system. It's most high-traffic applications are actually games these days.
I agree on e-commerce. There was a startup called DStors here but it failed on its own accord.
Memos can be made private simply by adding the # sign in front of them. For example, '# This is a private memo' could only be read by its recipient and sender.
Thanks for the private memo instructions. I’ll give it a try.
One minor disagreement about Minds. I met several people there who are Steem refugees. They have some rather extreme views that got them voted down and reputations lowered. They weren’t banned. But Steemians made it clear they weren’t wanted.
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Victims of flag wars.
THIS! If I could put a Featured Idea at the top of everyone's feed, this would be it. Stop obsessing about price, stop obsessing about investors, stop obsessing about how you can squeeze out more Steem from the system, start obsessing about building amazing products that add real value to people's lives and that people want and need to use.
Thanks! I’m glad you appreciate the sentiment. This is something I am probably more passionate about than anything else in this industry. The point is to change your little slice of the world for the better. Price, if it happens, will follow.
Would be interesting to see a follow up to those post now that we know the new project is Voice and we have some more details about it.
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Very interesting. I didn't know of this potential "Steem Killer".
I think MeOS might just follow the footsteps of Steem. In order to gain adoption, the best way is always through some monetary incentive. Hence, I think there will be many who will lure users to MeOS by spreading how easy it is to earn money on the platform. However, using Steem as an example, we know that's not sustainable.
Steem on the other hand had grown through that phase and have entered the organic growth stage. And as you have rightly pointed out, the wealth gap within Steem is shrinking and that's a good thing.
It will be interesting to see how things will evolve. I will certainly keep a lookout for MeOS when it's officially launched
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Yeah, I think the current STEEM price reflects the fear that this new B1 product might replace STEEM. But I just don’t see it. Token economies take time to grow regardless of the technologies that they are based on. From this perspective, STEEM is just now coming into its own.
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It’s gonna be an uphill battle for mEOS. Unless all Steemians go and start blogging on mEOS which I hope doesn’t happen...
Unless the B1 wallet for EOS is awesome, I don’t see that happening. I sold my EOS back at $10 when I couldn’t figure out the damn wallet! 😂😂😂
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I’ll be blogging on both. I find that each community has a different feel. I may have friends there and completely different friends here.
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I would be curious why your friends would join Meos before Steem? Considering Steem has been our for 3 years longer and has better apps? Just curious what the incentive would be to join Meos and not Steem.
We should not get confused that MEOS is a DApp on EOS similar to steemit or busy on Steem. There are hundred of DApps on both EOS and Steem. Nobody can kill Steem or EOS. @dan is abusing his success by misleading masses that there is a solution for reward dustribution. There is none: it will depend on what the front end DApp is trying to achieve. To learn more: https://steemit.com/steem/@riseofth/problem-with-knowing-the-solutions-of-social-media-how-meos-or-steemit2-0-can-be-a-failure
Perfectly said
Even with the “one account one vote” thing you mention in your post, there will still be growing pains for a meOS just like Steemit had. There is no substitute for “seasoned” distribution of a token supply.
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What is your price ...within reason ....for you to give back @jadabug to owner?
It will strengthen the steemit community, devs, and stinc. And meos will face many uninspected issues.
It's just another steem clone perhaps in opinion, sorry but it will be like Golos, smoke, whaleshares, bearshares, weku and a lot more. Steem is battle tested for a couple of years. Difficulties have come and go, community become more attached to the blockchain everytime a problem arises. It makes steem killer be killed on the way. But I am not saying stay away from it. Actually, it's another innovation which makes our community better and better. So I encourage everyone to check this project. A good project will stay for sure.
If you are a creator of content, you need to have look to meOS.
But as @shanghaipreneur said, this won't change the world in a day but maybe we see some changes in the long run.
Anyway, here is a !BEER for your good post.