The growing @ocd collective

I am pretty excited for Steem at the moment as there are quite a few things happening that I have been hoping for in one capacity or another. Firstly, there is the post last night from @steemitblog covering being out of survival mode and entering thrive mode, plus Steemit.com coming off Beta. While by itself that might not be too much, to balance the Steemit Inc books has led to a reduction in costs for nodes and improved the scalability of the Blockchain for everyone else.

Pretty exciting but that isn't the most exciting post. This one by the @ocd team talking about Operation Slider Delegation is. with @ocd-witness now in the top 20, rather than using the earnings for something else, they are going to push it into the community to support the creation of minnows by delegating to them until they are able to have a slider themselves. You can read the post for details but the magnitude of this move is potentially massive and this is what a community witness should be doing, not just supporting their narrow interest but instead, the interest of the entire user base.

Over the last so and so I have written a few articles that cover some of these things that I will link now incase you want to have a bit of a look into history.

Steem Business Loans to aid distribution and growth
The importance of communities
Proof of Staying
Are you a Steem 1-percenter?

There are "one or two" more around the place but there are a few that can give a sense of it. However, to save you reading the TL:DR synopsis is that Steem requires a middle-class of Steem staked who are broad in interest and willing to support the platform that is also looking to support them. I have been @ocd adjacent for a very long time now and have always predicted that they will be a community focused force on the Blockchain and over the last few months, they are making their true commitment known - they are committed to Steem.

While the @ocd project has been supporting Steem content creators of all kinds for around two years now under the power of @acidyo, the manual curators, @anomadsoul (also teaming up with @coruscate for @steemonboarding), the whitelist only @ocdb distribution bot, @blocktrades, @pharesim, @theycallmedan support, supporting @oracle-D in the early days of the project and a host of other actions, they have taken the next step and are setting a new bar height for what a community witness is capable of, engagement, growth, distribution, support and empowering all things Steem.

There is a passion there that has been unwavering and while there are always struggles on Steem, they continue learn, reflect and adapt in a way to best suit the Steem environment. It isn't for a certain community or even a specific project, they as a group look at the Steem ecosystem as a whole and can be found all over the platform. @anomadsoul's post looks at some of the crazy passion involved and their commitment to the chain.

While this has been a shill post for @ocd, the development of a middle class of users with 500+ Steem Power could have a profound effect on the platform as it isn't only the Steem involved, it is the community engagement and the learning that will happen. They are not just empowering users with delegation for sliders, they are going to support in other ways too and in combination with @steemonboarding, these lucky users are going to get an opportunity to not only grow, but learn about the platform in many different ways.

They are sticking to their initial vision, O.C.D Operation Curation and Decentralization, and in doing this, they are building a Steem Collective of users, businesses, communities, projects, initiatives, the large stake holders and the smallest to build a highly diverse group of users and empowering them through curation, delegation and learning for Steem decentralization. Users with a little bit of Steem Power and a lot of knowledge, go a very long way in the future onboarding of users as they themselves become support nodes for their friends, family and all kinds of people who are going to start coming into crypto and the platform over the next year or two.

What many still don't realize is how scarce Steem itself could become if even moderate mainstreaming happens and while the middle class might seem like it is dolphin-sized, it won't be later - it will be a few hundred Steem-sized and the minnows will be a huge distributing force that while not pushing a lot of Steem themselves, will be distributing a great deal of value. The more range of interest and background of the holding Steemians, the wider the support spread is and the more empowered users of all sizes become.

As said, I am excited about this for so many reasons and have long predicted and supported the idea that it is going to be the community projects that power Steem success and the ones that are looking to develop the ecosystem by finding and growing the healthiest creators, developers, projects, businesses and also consumers will be the binding glue that pulls the project together, the foundation of human Steemians that are interacting above the Steem protocol that enables them from below.

The Steem infrastructure is developing well, improving and becoming more efficient for scalability. It will be the community projects that support the people and the people who will be the ones who support the application development. This next step from the @ocd team is a maturing of the ecosystem and is a turning point in Steem history where the people of Steem start becoming the focus, as was always intended.

If you don't vote for @ocd-witness already, consider it. And when they start building minnows, lend some support for the ones they have selected also so that the cycle of growth can speed up and they can bring more people into the delegation program. While we all benefit, for those who benefit directly - don't wast your opportunity.

While I named this post with the @ocd collective, that is not the case - this is a branch of the Steem Collective.

We are here now, there are many more on their way.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]