RE: Open Letter to all Steemians - Hardfork 21: Culture Change
"For Steem to succeed there needs to be another reason people want to own STEEM other than to earn more STEEM."
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.