I love the concept of Steemit.

Since joining around 2 weeks ago, I've spent many hours crafting content for peoples enjoyment. Being able to jump onto a blogging platform and start earning cash almost immediately was groundbreaking for me. Knowing people saw value in my content broke me out of a years-long, no-writing slump. I have finally found my joy again: sharing my information with you. Being heard and hearing. It's all any of us really want.

But that doesn't mean Steem is without problems.

As someone who isn't all that technically inclined, posting to Steemit is cumbersome. If you want posts to look nice, you need to have a working knowledge of html. And while there are plenty of code-snippets out there to work from, the process of posting is time-consuming. If I spend a few hours writing something, I can usually expect to spend another hour formatting the post till it meets my approval.

Until these usability issues are fixed, it's going to be hard to get the masses to adopt the platform. Many great content creators find the system to new and confusing. Some, like my girlfriend, who is a brilliant videographer, are just too perplexed by the whole Steem, SP, SBD thing. But that is a marketing problem if anything.

Thankfully, these issues should be addressed in the coming months/years.

The recent roadmap did a lot to build my faith and trust in the platform, and I get the feeling that those behind Steem are working diligently to get the platform where it needs to be. After some research I can comfortably say there isn't another company that has me more excited for the future of content creation.

But there are a few other companies who have benefited from Steem's vision, who have seen where the platform falls short. They are trying to use that knowledge to create their own systems. However, none of them are true replacements. They all differ from Steem in one fundamental way or another. But they're defiantly worth keeping an eye on. Not just for what they could do for us, but for what Steem can learn from their innovations.

Without further ado, here's some foresight into those four sites:

1. Akasha

Like Steem, Akasha user's content is rewarded on a by-vote basis. When you post something to their platform it gets organized by the tag you give it, and users upvote if they like it.

Unlike Steem, Akasha won't be backed by its own crypto-currency to start. Instead the company has decided to use Ethereum.

"We chose to focus first on building a working decentralized application and learning from the actual use what sorts of problems we should be solving with a custom token," says the website.

Although it's still in it's infancy, you can download their alpha software and give it a shot.

Pros

• Ethereum is a well-regarded token with a stable price-index. It's popularity and wide-spread use ensure that it won't be loosing much value over the coming years.
• Basic file hosting is built into the platform, and creating posts is fairly intuitive.
• It is a decentralized platform that uses P2P to store data. I'm not an overly tech-savy person, but in an age that values artistic liberty, it seems like a good way to circumvent censorship
• It's creators all use their real names/reputations to back the platform. They seem trustworthy.

Cons

• So far the only way to see what's posted is to use the app they have. No idea if they mean to make it accessible via a web browser or not. But having a standalone app is a barrier to mass inclusiveness. It's a lot easier to make people visit a webpage, than it is to make them download and app. (however I realize with the decentralized nature it can't all be via the web (or can it?!).
• How Ethereum factors into the platform isn't quite clear. However I noticed when upvoting others posts, my own supply of test-ether diminished. This could mean that the project doesn't actually generate wealth, it just re-organizes it. For instance if you wanted to have an impact on the platform, you'd need to spend money to get it.
• The company seems to be unrealistic about their goals, or bad planners. If you check out their roadmap, you see that they actually planned to be in beta by Oct 2016. There are very few blog posts in this regard, and progress lacks transparency.

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2. LBRY

LBRY is another platform with its own currency (LBC). However it differs from Steem in a major way: all LBC that is used on the platform must be purchased or mined. Like with Akasha, the only way for content creators to get some is if someone gives it to them by supporting their post.

It also looks like the company is focusing on video content. From what I can tell, any incentives they offer go towards video-creators. And most of what they've published uses video creators as example users.

Still this could make for an interesting platform, especially for indy artists who want to cut out the middleman. But it's more of a content marketplace than a blogging/aggregation site.

Pros

• Decentralized network that pays users to host content
• Pay content creators directly
• Very active Dev team, with daily blog posts
• Currently on-boarding a ton of creatives to jump-start the platform, making sure it has good content that will grow its user base

Cons

• It looks like it'll be a decentralized version of Medium
• Don't seem to be interested in courting print media
• Users are expected that people will "buy" their content. They set prices on how much it costs to view. If the New York Times can't get people to buy content, what makes them think this platform will?
• P2P content sharing and hosting means there is a massive chance for copyright infringement

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3. Synereo

From what I gather on Synereo's website, it looks like their decentralized app is meant as a complement to existing social networks. What I mean is that instead of being a place where people actually create content, it's a place where people share it.

"Synereo’s first set of tools will allow content creators to monetize original works on existing networks, without having to turn their channels into advertisment[sic] real estate, while granting their followers the opportunity to become paid affiliate publishers. "

It differs from the rest of these in a more major way however. Instead of creators and curators being paid for votes, they are paid for the amount of eyeballs they can get. Synereo call this the "Attention Economy" but gives sparse data on how this will actually work.

Pros

• If execute properly, the "attention economy" could negate sybil attacks. There would need to be some sort of conformation that a new person is actually reading the article, but it's an interesting thought.
• Decentralized, at least it will be at the end of their roadmap

Cons

• They aren't clear about how this will work. Even their whitepaper uses vague and ambiguous language.
• Taking point one into account with the setback detailed on their webpage, and one gets the idea they haven't actually figured it out themselves
• Not much information on their social currency AMP. Hitting the bitcointalk forums shows that people were pretty suspicious they weren't going to let other's mine their coin. It does seem like a shitty way to start a decentralized network..

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4. Yours

Yours is possibly the most interesting of the bunch, but that could be because creator Ryan X. Charles has kept things pretty vague.

All you get when you head to his website is a brief survey asking you what kind of content you like to create, if you like curating, if you're male/female. That sort of thing.

Like Akasha, Yours' economy will be built on an existing token, but this time it's the all-powerful Bitcoin. Reading through his blog, it seems like the only thine Charles has managed to figure out is the tech behind sending bitcoin micro-transactions. These would be necessary to get around the relatively high transaction fees bitcoin imposes.

However, It doesn't seem like Charles has pick how that economy will even function.

"We described our top five possibilities for payment schemes, 1) tipping, which are completely voluntary payments made to content creators, 2) endorsing, where payments deliver 50% to the creator and 50% to earlier endorsers, 3) purchasing, where users see a preview of content and have to pay to see the full content, 4) investing, where the users can purchase shares in future revenue of pieces of content, and 5), a market system where there is no standard scheme but where users pick the scheme that is appropriate for them."

So I can't very will give a pros and cons list. I will say however that is suffers from the same problems that all these other platforms do. That is, it only creates wealth for those who have it. In order to participate, you'll likely have to invest in some bitcoins. And while that may be fine for the adventurous 1% of the worlds population using crypto-currency, it's definitely going to see some problems when it tries to scale to the masses.

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Thank you for checking out this post. If you enjoyed it and want to see more, you can visit me @catharcissism and click the follow button. I spend most of my time talking about photography, poetry, and media.