Open Letter to all Steemians - Hardfork 21: Culture Change
Hello Everyone. As many of you know, hardfork 21 is next week.
What to expect
This hardfork is going to be a big deal. Not just because of all the economic changes that are going into effect, but because there is an opportunity for us to make a major change.
Hardfork 21 = bad?
I know there is a lot of negativity surrounding this hardfork. There are a lot of people who are concerned about how this will affect the "little guy" (average user) and how it opens up more potential avenues for abuse.
I suspect a lot of people will think that because I am voting in support of the hardfork that I am not listening to these concerns, but I assure you - it is quite the opposite. I am very concerned about those things as well. Despite those concerns, I am still strongly in favor of the hardfork.
In my view, hardfork 21 is exactly what we need in order for all Steemians ("little guy" included) to succeed.
Here is my view
Steem in it's current form is broken. It has tremendous potential, but for whatever reason(s), it has not and is not living up to that potential. It is not broken beyond repair, but we cannot keep doing what we have been doing for the past 3+ years and expect different results. Things need to change.
Stakeholders vs. Users
Our community needs to realize that we need both groups in order to be successful.
- Users need stakeholders to buy STEEM in order for their rewards to have any value.
- Users also need stakeholders to vote on their content if they want to earn any rewards.
- Stakeholders need users to be telling all of their friends and family about how great this place is in order to draw more people to the platform.
- Stakeholders also need users to produce quality content that attracts outside eyeballs to Steem and shows off the potential of our platform.
Users: Start thinking about what you can do to make this place more attractive for stakeholders.
Stakeholders: Start thinking about what you can do to make this place better for users.
Why is Steem broken?
Blame Steemit for the ninja mine. Blame stakeholders for not putting the needs of the community above their own self interests. Blame witnesses for being lazy and not doing more to improve the platform. Blame users for leaching off the system and producing little of value. Blame Steemit for not making enough improvements to the platform over the years. Blame the "alt coin bear market". Blame abusive stakeholders who drove users away. Blame the lack of marketing.. Blame, blame, blame. There is plenty of it to go around.
Diagnosing Steem's issues
There have been lots of discussions on Steem's issues and what to do about them since before I got here (~3 years ago). There is no shortage of ideas on what is wrong and how to fix it.
I have (literally) spent hundreds of hours hashing out ideas with various stakeholders, other witnesses, and employees of Steemit, Inc. trying to figure out how to fix this place.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but some of the top issues include:
- It is too hard for new users to get noticed.
- The platform is too confusing.
- Signups are too difficult to onboard at scale.
- There is a lack of funding (outside of Steemit, Inc.) to pay for community development and marketing.
- Users who contribute a lot of value are not sufficiently rewarded.
- Users who don't contribute a lot of value find ways to milk the system.
- There is not enough of an incentive to buy and hold STEEM.
Hardfork 21
Hardfork 21 does not attempt to solve all of our issues, but it does provide us with tools to make a pretty significant dent in many of them.
Here is how HF21 is supposed to work:
- Curation is now more profitable, so there is more reason to buy STEEM and power up.
- Members of the community who have good ideas and are willing to put in work to improve the platform will have a mechanism to get paid for it.
- Stakeholders will have a means to earn higher returns on their investment by doing something that is good for the platform (curating) as opposed to something that is arguably not (funding bid bots).
- Curators who see content that is not adding value will downvote it, because it is taking rewards away from everybody else.
- Curation communities and voting trails will form to hunt for undiscovered content and upvote it in order to earn higher curation rewards.
- Authors who are producing good quality content will have a higher chance of being noticed, because now more people are actually looking for good content.
Here is the 20 billion dollar question:
Can we do it?
...
I believe we can.
Hardfork 21 alone is not going to get us there, but it at least gives us the tools we will need to achieve it.
What will it take?
The simple answer is we need a culture change. We need users and stakeholders to start working together to build the platform and community that we want.
Every Steemian is going to have lots of choices to make after the hardfork. Where we end up will be a culmination of all those choices.
Change takes time
One thing to keep in mind, is change takes time. I know a lot of people will get frustrated when their utopian view of Steem does not come to fruition in the days, weeks, or even months right after the hardfork. The key is to not loose hope, and to keep working towards our shared goal.
Where do we go from here?
The reason I joined Steem and the reason I still continue to be an active part of the community is because of the huge potential that I see here. I want STEEM to be a top 10 cryptocurrency. I want us to scale to millions+ of users. I want Steem to be as popular (if not more) than Facebook.
Closing thoughts
What I ask of all of you going into the hardfork, and in the days, weeks, and months after is this:
Start to dream about what this place should look like in order to be a top 10 cryptocurrency and attract millions of users. When you are using the platform, align your actions with that vision. Do things that bring us closer to the goal, and fight against things that take us away from it.
With HF21, we will have the tools we need to get us there.
No more excuses. It is up to us.
I feel like this is all a bit backwards. We're basically all trying to figure out what the best way is to give out all the STEEM that's being created rather than trying to figure out why people should want STEEM in the first place.
It seems we all have this assumption that people just want STEEM, which is true, but only because it can be sold for fiat or other cryptos that people want instead. It's just something to be milked and sold for something you actually have a use for. For Steem to succeed there needs to be another reason people want to own STEEM other than to earn more STEEM.
If you look at your list of things HF21 is supposed to do, they're almost all some form of "buying/holding STEEM will allow you to earn more STEEM". If that's the only reason people want STEEM then the price will continue to drop until finally no one cares about earning more STEEM.
I would love to see the focus shift from how the STEEM is distributed to how we can give STEEM value - or rather show the world the value that Steem already provides.
I think that having social influence on a social platform is a major reason that one might have demand for steem. It's partially a reason I'd like more steem tbh. This is a community filled with real people (mostly) who have real opinions and can give real feedback/assistance. Not only can I share my ideas/thoughts/feelings/etc here, I can potentially get paid for doing so. In addition to being able to get paid, I also have the ability to pay. This means I can contribute not only intellectually, from online, but now also financially in a direct way.
That's just one way you can perceive value for steem too. There are countless ways! :)
I stated this in my other comment, but even just looking at steem like an advertising platform, you're paying to promote your product (Which in some cases may be yourself.) and the potential for others to see it is great when you have enough stake to promote your content decently.
Ex: Say Nike buys steem to promote their products to steem users. They buy 1mil stake. Now they upvote themselves every post, to get themselves onto trending/hot/whatever. Their incentive to buy was to get the exposure with their ads. Now, Adidas wants a piece of the action, they want to be higher up than Nike though. They buy 2 mil steem and begin to self-vote their ads. Going much higher than Nike. Now Nike wants to respond to that, they buy another 3 Mil so they are double what Adidas is. The cycle continues.
This is obviously a far-off example (Possibly a fever daydream, who knows. lol), but that is another way to look at this. There are a lot of very real people on steem and anywhere there is a gathering of people, there is potential to market products. This is also an example where steem has been adopted to a level where Nike and Adidas and the likes, are even concerned about having a spot in the community's space.
Even without that being the climate of things, my point is, the demand behind steem is varying and to each person/company/etc it will have different perceived value. The demand that is presumed by most IS there, it's just most people aren't exactly sure as to why other people would want steem.
Why do you want steem?
What's it's perceived value for you?
Personally, I think for me it starts with exactly what I started with. The ability to share my ideas/thoughts/music taste/experiences/etc with other people and to be able to have more people see it. That is incentive for me to buy more. Then there's things like Steem Monsters and such, that are directly aligned with steem, that give it added value (to me). I don't think steem would even be around today, if massive amounts of people didn't see massive value in it. Some may not be able to exactly explain why they see value in it or where that value comes from, but the point is, they are still here, they are still posting, they are still participating.
We don't always have to know exactly why something has value, to know that it does. :)
The value of things is an agreement between humans.
Although neuroscience is now used to deceive and make people believe in the value of things.
But many of us enter steemit because of the global crisis in the world because of monetary survival.
There was a time when the biggest steemit traffic was in poor countries like Venezuela. I saw it once online
Therein lies another great purpose of steem, then. :) The ability for it to lift up those who don't have the best situations in life. I'm glad that it has been able to help in some way, that is the power behind this!
Also, I am sorry that countries like Venezuela even have to deal with those conditions. Another way steem can be used would be like charities. A way to give back to the people of other countries who need it, but on a more personal and direct level. This could be great for ensuring the people who need help are getting it.
Also, @soy-venezuelien made another great point. There is the ability to transfer value to anywhere in the world. :) From anywhere else. That ability is incredible as well. Currency becoming digital and able to reach places that other currencies can't or can but are taxed insanely/etc... this may not differ from other currencies, but think about how fast you can transfer steem compared to bitcoin. It's insane to even think they can be compared. I've never had bitcoin reach my wallet instantaneously. Well, not for a long ass time now. ;) Also, there are no fees with steem. If I send 1 steem, you get 1 steem. If I sent you a whole bitcoin, you wouldn't get a whole one after fees. The fees for steem are paid out in much better methods, directly to witnesses from the reward pool. (I think? Still new to steem.) As far as a payment processing system goes, nothing can really compete with steem. I can drop cash into a bank account and it'll still take a couple minutes to go through. Turn that into a check and you're looking at at least half a day for most banks, closer to a whole one, maybe two. None of those issues exist within steem.
Also, why is gold worth what it's worth? Limited Supply. Same concept applies here to steem. There is a limited amount. That's how things are. That means only a certain number of people can hold a certain amount and that's it. This provides scarcity and where there is demand and scarcity, there is value increase.
I'm not sure how anyone who understands basic economics could doubt the future of steem. You've seen where it's been when the market was in ideal conditions. Where do you think it will be when conditions become ideal again? Do you think there's potential to go even further? How many more people are part of steem now compared to then? How many of the old users continue to post? To comment? To vote? I think there are many people doubting the future of steem simply because of the low prices currently.
Would there be as many posts pointing out possible negative outcomes, if steem were currently trading at $1? As opposed to $0.18-0.20?
I believe that for steem to have stayed above 15 cents since I have invested into it, is incredible. What this means to me is that there are enough people buying to counter how many people are selling and keep it fairly stable for a while now. Yes, things are low, but if we have the ability to counter the selling off with buying in a market this down... think about the snapback that will have when the markets all recover. Like a rubber band, we are pulling and tugging as the band stretches to lower lows than have been seen in a while. Then, when resistance gives and the markets recover, we snap back. The more we've pulled on this rubber band, the more potential energy we've collected. Maybe I'm fantasizing again, but looking at the charts, I see steem at the very least popping back up to 60-80 cents. That may not be as good for others as it is for me... but I'm sure it would make everyone feel a lot better for it to recover to that level. I just see higher highs, that's all. :)
Sure, I may not have traded steem prior to recently on any markets, but I believe it has the same potential as any other market, to act as those markets have. This means large recoveries for those who are down and massive profits for those who bought in at the low lows. Keep your hope up folks, it'll get much better. I feel it.
I agree, visibility is the value of STEEM. This, in my opinion, is why the demonization of bidbot services and self-voting is a huge mistake. Self promotion is the killer app for Steem. Isn't that really the killer application for all social media? So, maybe its unwise for us to be so anti-self promotion.
I'm your huckleberry. The rewards on my content are coups, not money. I don't value money highly. However, I do value Steem other than as money, as it is a measure of the regard folks have for me.
That I do value highly.
I concede that this isn't going to change others, however I also reckon many others more highly value other societal matters than money. Steem is so contrived that it adds monetary value to those other metrics, such as factual reporting. Unfortunately, Steem is also so contrived that it enables other folks to degrade more important societal values profitably, such as by voting so as to maximize ROI from curation rewards rather than other benefits of content, such as factual reportage.
In order for this to be sorted and no longer work against itself, the code needs to change. Thus HF21. However HF21, instead of decreasing the financial incentive to cast votes that is contrary to curative purpose, increases it, and further degrades actual curation. Profiteering isn't curation. As a result I expect Steem price, market cap, and user retention to worsen after HF21 is implemented. Many people do not realize they value other things more than money, and are mystified when their financial endeavors do not increase their quality of life. HF21 is going to be an example of that dynamic. Curation is actually what we want. Profiteering, which HF21 will greatly increase incentive to do, is not, and is contrary to capital gains. Capital gains and profiteering are diametrically opposed.
If this is the case, we will have evidence that social media is not all about money for most people, and it will be time to recognize that those other values should be more the focus of financial rewards than profit. This may seem counterintuitive, but it's actually how society works. Money isn't bad, but valuing it more than people is.
We need to put the society first, and the money will come. HF21 is bass ackwards from what we should be doing. If it worsens Steem society as measured in the three metrics I mention, that will reveal what HF22 should do. I have posted mechanisms that will exert the effect I have recommended before, and will not detail them here, but when the time comes, we should discuss them.
Let me know then.
Fully agreed. Facebook has billions of users because - despite the fact that behind the scenes it is highly exploitative and probably even evil - it does provide the social features people use. Facebook seems to have found ways to value money more than people but still give people the impression that they value people more than money.
If we create a system that values everything appropriately - there is potential to beat facebook.
It is impressions that matter more than actual reality to most people, and the demonstration of this is Steem not being more successful than other social media, despite enabling some monetary reward other social media platforms do not.
HF21 not only doesn't acknowledge this fact, it exacerbates the impact of negative impressions, which is why I expect it to be a disaster.
The situation is much more complicated. Facebook has a huge number of groups, many of which are private. There are viable ways of having privacy and stopping trolls hassling you. Steem doesn't have any of that - so that's a deal breaker immediately for a large percentage of the world.
Beyond that, most people don't produce content that is unusual, so would not have much to gain from being here. The problem is partially Steem, partially the funding here, partially the lack of will of the population in general and partially the massive funding of Facebook et al.
There are, surprisingly to me, actually a fairly high number of people who like censorship and want control to be able to silence people. Communities on Steem will help bridge a big gap here and are absolutely fundamental to Steem's success. They should have been THE top priority all along.
Yes yes yes
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Great comment. We need sinks.
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I agree about what Tim has stated on the post.
I also think that the main focus after SMT should be adding value to STEEM and easy onboarding.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Tim and Matt.
your post value is worth 9 big macs :)
https://review.hunt.town/bigmac/en-US?channel=steem&unique_id=&username=yabapmatt
absolutely agree
I understand where people are coming from, they think making STEEM easy to get will help encourage growth, but imagine building a platform that gives out worthless shitcoins as incentive.
If more useful dapps & games & commerce & overall reasons to actually use the damn STEEM, then that's what we'll become sooner or later.
Let's hope that something in this upcoming HF will slip past us & unknowingly spark a huge demand & use-case for STEEM.
Wishful thinking? ...yeah, I know... 😓
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That's an excellent point. I for one am very concerned.
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Why don't you start buying? You are powering down :-).
I have a large amount of STEEM that I am holding onto in the hopes that we head way up. I am also selling some to pay the bills (which doesn’t go far these days unfortunately). I am very much vested in STEEM going up.
Diversify your portfolio. Invest in many things. Don't keep all your eggs in one basket.
Awesome post, Tim!
I am very much in the same boat with you and I agree with most of your views. I am hoping the use of downvotes will increase but not the use of unfair downvotes. I am hoping people will see the long term potential of Steem like many others of us do and start investing back at these prices (especially smaller users - this is your and our chance at a great distribution even though we are one of the best distributed currencies out there already and it will hopefully only get better with HF21 - get there before the whales pick it all up). I hope there will be some projects that will use other people's downvotes wisely and unbiased and that we get downvote delegation pool possibly on the next HF with SMT's to mitigate blind retaliation and at the same time I hope projects will spawn that will counter such retaliation and that people find value in that and assist it with stake.
I could go on and on about things I hope will start to occur after Tuesday but don't wanna make this comment too long. Let's unite as likeminded people and protect the rewardpool, our fellow users and show the world what we have here and welcome them with open arms. There is still nothing compared to Steem while all the older centralized giants are only getting worse and worse, it is our time to shine.
Maybe it's just me but I can't imagine a single person (outside your circle jerk) who will buy STEEM to vote for you. What do you think?
The concept is that we use inflation to reward social media users, the way companies give out free pizzas.
As more gather others build things for them to do: SteemMonsters, Gambling, Silly Games.. You know the kind people play every day on Facebook.
Where people gather they begin to buy, sell and trade. (The Network effect)
Usually in investing the concept is to raise the value of the thing you bought.
Not drain the value in a huge ponzi scheme.
I get that most "traders" who like to call themselves investors don't really get the concept of investment. Which means... You put money and effort into something that is getting better so you can take more money out later.
By later I don't mean tomorrow. :)
While you can say people buy steem to vote for you that is an over simplified version. I don't blame you for getting stuck on it, because SteemIt Inc has done a terrible job of painting a vision.
It was never supposed to be the endusers who buy tons of Steem. Their presence is essential if you want the next steps to happen.
Anyway, have a great day.
Who are you? Who are we? Could you please explain why you and your friends are draining the value in a huge Ponzi scheme? Most of you didn't buy single STEEM, but that's why you know best what to do to increase the price. Do you think that everyday posting (shit) brings any value to STEEM? Your shit is better than mine. For sure. But what about others. You can't keep (with few votes) here any real author with that concept. You should have understood that by now.
I didn't want to shitpost here. That was my response to bots and "friendly users" which blocked my friends here. You should stick with blockchain neutrality. This is the only thing that distinguishes Steem from other social networks. I'm afraid it's too complicated for you. You crave power, so you have increased the power of down-voting. Mao Zedong would be proud.
Social media has proved to be the best business model in the world today. The FAANGs have proved this by exceeding the market cap of other businesses, and very quickly.
People interact and create society, and an economy is part of society. It is not the most important aspect of society, and extracting rewards isn't why most people use social media.
Extracting rewards by self voting, buying votes, and so forth, reduces the monetary value of the Steem token, because it extracts that social value before it can inure to the underlying investment vehicle.
Profiteering produces ROI, and before Steem it has long been the business model of outfits like Bain Capital, KK&R, and other firms that buy a controlling stake in a company and sell the assets of the company, profiting thereby. This destroys the companies they buy, but they make money, so it's all good from their perspective.
That's what is happening on Steem, but the forges and equipment of Steem are authors, and they can't be sold. HF21 is going to increase the incentive to profiteer on Steem, and further decrease the value of Steem. If we want capital gains, we need to reduce the incentive to extract rewards by self voting, selling votes, and so forth, allowing rewards to encourage creators and produce capital gains.
Mitt Romney would be proud.
People build websites and attract users every single day there are many models for doing it. This isn't rocket science or even anywhere near as hard as we were making it.
I was buying for a while and I also could buy more, I don't because of this... Too many stakeholders who think they can milk profits out without building anything.
Are you against the free market?
They just aren't real investors but wannabe short term profiteers.
Capital gains are reduced by profiteering. Warren Buffet and Bernie Madoff both made ROI. The former builds things up, and the latter destroyed them.
Exactly.
I do not think this is the case. Do you have a source for this?
Thanks!
Maybe it's just me but I can't imagine a single person (outside your circle jerk) who will buy STEEM to vote for you. What do you think?
http://steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=acidyo&days=30
http://steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=boosta&days=30
I doubt that you bought a single STEEM.
This is the best post I have read here in a long time.
resteemed to my 4700 Followers.
Well said @timcliff.
What a concise and clear explanation.......thank you.
All the best.
Cheers!
Hi @timcliff I’d like to thank you for a really measured and balanced post about HF21 when many other seem to have been weighted one way or the other.
I’m a small account and have blogged my way to that status with what I hope has been reasonable content. I’ve enjoyed it, and still do, however have the same fears and concerns others do. Your post has gone some way toward allaying those fears and for that I also thank you.
I look forward to the future here, to continued content creation by myself and others and I look forward to HF21 making a positive change. Most of my steem has been earned by content creation and (manual) curation however I’ve added some purchased with hard-hearted fiat so I’m eager and optimistic on the future. I believe we can do this.
Anyway, I just wanted to say this.
Enjoy your weekend.
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Well stated!
Also don't forget to let everyone know this is NewSteem!
It's alive, active, busy and thriving.
#NewSteem It's what we make it.
I think it'll be great. People have essentially said I'm naive at times because I'm new here, but I see far too much potential, even considering the bad, for something this big to fail in any real way. This is one of the greatest concepts of this decade, I don't see it or us going anywhere any time soon. :) The community here is wonderful too. The good far outweighs the bad from what I've experienced so far! Looking forward to the future!
Great article! While I still hold on to my thoughts that the effect of the economic changes will be unpredictable, I agree it's a good change overall
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