Expectations And Time Frame: Two Things We Need To Adjust

We live in an instant gratification world. This is something that bleeds into the world of blockchain.

Let me ask everyone a question: Who would like that have bought Amazon stock at $7 considering it is well over $1,600?

That is a no brainer.

However, who would have wanted to endure the first decade where Amazon had the ups and downs, where it looked like they were not going to make it at certain times?

That is a lot more difficult question.

We see a similar thing with the Steem blockchain. We all want the price of STEEM to be $500 or $1,000 today. Obviously, that is unrealistic.

There is something else that is equally as preposterous. I was talking to someone yesterday about @dtube. It baffles me that some talk about that application and want to point out all the problems. They are genuinely upset that there are flaws with the application, that it does not operate as smoothly as YouTube.

Do you know what else does not operate as smoothly as YouTube? YouTube when it was a little over a year old.

For some reason, people expects things on the Steem blockchain to operate as well as applications that are 7, 10, or 15 years old. To me, this is completely unrealistic.

No matter how much planning, testing, and simulations that are run, there is no way to avoid the challenges that arise from real world use. Eventually, the product needs to move from the testing facility and go out into the real world.

Recently, we had a situation with Steemit Inc that threw the community for a loop. Things were moving along smoothly, or so we thought. Suddenly, we are all awakened to the fact there was a major bug in the system. Here was a major test.

It is easy to get caught up in emotion and what the naysayers are spouting. This is where perspective with time frame comes in. Many are taken aback at the prospect of the SMT protocol being delayed. I will admit this is a bummer.

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However, I want to offer a different perspective to everyone. Ignore the next 90 days. Do the same for the ensuring 1 year. Actually, wipe out the two after that.

I ask you this: where do you think the Steem blockchain will be in 2025?

That is where I focus my attention. Certainly, we have a lot of work to do in the meantime. Things will not magical fix themselves. Nevertheless, looking at things from that perspective, I find, tends to keep a lot of the mishaps "right-sized".

We had a lot of people sign up for Steem only to exit the system. Many feel this is due to our poor job of retention. Actually, for social media applications, Steem is about par for the course. Most apps retain about 8% of the users according to studies. A quick web search reveals this.

That said, I am certain that many came here with unrealistic expectations. To start, we promote the idea of money and making it big quickly. This is not what most people experience. Also, they believe the applications will be as advanced and fine-tuned as other social media. Again, when looking at the stage things on Steem are at, this too is not plausible.

2018 is the year of the FUD in the cryptocurrency world. It is really relentless. The media is not letting up a bit. We know where all this originates from and is not likely to stop anytime soon. Cryptocurrency is a threat to the establishment. We all are aware of this by now.

Again, if we are in 2025 looking back, one year does not seem that long. Even a couple years of FUD is but a mirage at that point.

Personally, for the Steem blockchain, 2018 is a truly astounding year. Steem had the best year, by far, since it was started. This is something that people miss if they look solely at the token. The price of STEEM, like most other currencies, got slaughtered. Yet that is not the ecosystem.

What is the ecosystem is all the developers who are banging out code. These individuals (and teams) have created hundreds of applications along with thousands of updates. It is now to the point one individual cannot keep up with all that is going on.

We see the community bonding together. Sure, of the 1.1M accounts, there might only be 100K of people who are actively involved in this community with any regularity. Nevertheless, whatever the number is, we are see big time dedication.

The events with Steemit Inc are helping us to end the year on a high note. It is putting the stamp on a great year for the ecosystem. This might seem a bit counter intuitive if you judge it based upon Steemit Inc. If, however, you look at it from the community perspective, specifically the reaction, you will see how true this is.

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Each day thousands of Steemians are looking for bugs in the system now. Where are we exposed? In one of my posts, @zoidsoft mentioned how he did not see a way to power down on @steempeak. I never paid attention to that on busy.org so it was easy to conclude that there is a problem. If Steemit.com was the only way to power down, that means our SP is locked up if that site fails.

As it turns out, a quick look and a talk with a developer revealed that @steemworld and busy.org both have the ability to power down. It is funny that @zoidsoft's reply was "crisis averted".

This example brings up what is taking place. People are looking for areas where we are vulnerable which allows for others to create "patches" We got bit in the hind end once, the community is not about to allow it to happen again.

Another example: the other day @blocktrades put out a post offering their services to handle the conversion to RocksDB to enable Steemit to focus upon the SMT protocol. If this offer is taken, there is a chance that the SMT development will unfold without much delay.

For those who missed it, here is that post:

https://busy.org/@blocktrades/blocktrades-rocksdb-proposal-to-steemit

There was a book a number of years ago titles "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff". When it comes to the Steem blockchain, it is all small stuff. The last couple week proved that there are a lot of people here who will not let Steem fail. The blockchain will be around for a long time to come. We are going to see continued development on it regardless of what takes place. As challenges arise, the people who are here will tend to them. The community has the talent and the resources to do it.

It is time to get over the idea of getting upset about every little thing that happens. Yes, there are problems; not everything is perfect. There are a lot of things we can do better. However, to act like it is the end is misguided.

Do you really think it will be a major problem 6 or 7 years from now, whatever it is?

The answer is no. There will be other challenges at that time but whatever is being hemmed and hawed today will not be an issue.

One of the reasons I have appreciation for developers is they know their software will have bugs. They understand the second they take something live, that is when things start popping up. Yet, in spite of knowing that, they do it anyway.

In other words, they expect problems.

So what happens? We, the users, freak out, and they calmly look at code. They go through the endless lines of it to find what needs fixing. Next thing you know, there is an update that fixes it. None of it is the end of the world, just par for the course.

I can tell you, whatever we are going to encounter over the next few years with Steem is par for the course. Nevertheless, I can also tell you the view from 2025 is spectacular.

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