HOW SMTs FITS INTO THE NEXT FRONT-END OF STEEMIT.COM - INSIDER SCOOP
Introduction
Yesterday, @ned dropped a new video talking about the economics of SMTs as it relate to STEEM.
Some people in the comment section were worried that this "new direction" would distract Steemit from becoming a power website that competes with the likes of reddit, snapchat, Facebook and others.
What I am going to explain today is how SMTs fits perfectly with the brand new front-end that is being worked on right now. I pray that the big reveal will be at SteemFest. :-)
Until September 2017 - Working On The Foundation
From the information I was able to parse together by talking with people at Steemit and by watching the github like a hawk is that until September, they had to solve issues with their infrastructure. 95% of the bandwidth was entirely dedicated to how the blockchain could sustain all those apps being worked on as well as the enormous demand that was put on the blockchain.
All that seems to have been solved by the end of August. They mentioned that they expanded their front-end team in The State of Steem - August Expansion
Now, all resources seems to have been dedicated to releasing a powerful front-end and mobile app that will include the hivemind protocol which is going to power the community feature.
hivemind is an off-chain consensus layer for Steem communities and API server for social features like feeds and follows.
How SMTs fits into the picture
I have been a long advocate of communities. I first thought that having multiple communities on the front-end would allow for a richer experience and fairer distribution...but I was wrong.
Anyone who complains about inequality of reward should rejoice
Under the STEEM reward mechanism there is only 1 hierarchy one can climb. Everyone competes to climb a single ladder. Even with multiple communities...there is only 1 reward pool and one power hierarchy. Because of the 80/20 rule, we would end up with only a handful of communities were curators will hangout to maximize their profits.
By creating many domains or ladders one can climb, they have multiplied to possibility for people to find success within this ecosystem.
Without SMTs, the growth of communities could be stunted since there will be only 1 token all the communities would compete for. Scaling would be difficult since there is only so many whales and so much attention they can dedicate to curating content.
Now, with SMTs, we can create "new whales" and way more "power curators" who can affect different reward pools that are specialize around topics or usecases.
Example
Let's say @steemstem decides to build a community around it's mission:
Community Project to Promote Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Postings on Steemit
If only the STEEM token was available, then the only way it would succeed is if enough whales congregate there and curate the content. But whales are scarce and their attention finite. There is only so much a few hundred or thousand people can pull off in terms of curation. Also, the current Steem Whales do not necessarily have the competence to decide which article should be rewarded.
But let's say @steemstem start their own token called STEM and distribute it to the people who participate to their community based on their contribution. They could have very high standards to make sure only the best stuff makes it to their community.
Community features will have owners, admins, mods, etc. They could decide to have a policy to only reward genuine high value scientific papers. They can set it so that SteemPower doesn't affect rewards and therefore have much more control on WHO should be rewarded.
As their community gets bigger, the value of their token will increase. If most of the voting power is owned by genuine scientists who value peer-review by their community, then a virtuous cycle can be created that goes beyond curation reward game theory.
SMTs fits perfectly within this context. They create possibility for the communities within the steemit.com website that were not possible before. It also multiplies the domains under wish success can be found outside of the STEEM reward mechanism.
If SMTs are successfully rolled out and marketed then for sure they will be the key to diversifying the growth and value of Steem. I'm new here and have noticed that there could be or already is a propensity for popular members to earn big by default over time as people trust in them and set autovotes. Of course people can grow into that pool and that's the aim of it all but there's also middle ground somewhere if we are all truly here for content primarily and rewards secondary.
With a larger potential content stream it allows for the correct audiences to be aligned and the content to be surfaced. Perhaps some topics here are totally undervalued due to the running interest within most Steemit users being different to that of this valuable content?
The more I read and discuss, the more I look forward to the outcome and seeing the changes that come with it.
@cryptoctopus,
After your explanation I could see a big picture about SMT and it's token on STEEM block chain! It looks like multi platform environment which function on STEEM block chain! This is a great concept and tokens based on STEEM crypto will increase the demand of STEEM (definitely) And we won't bother to build new block chains like EOS, BTS, because we have STEEM block chain as the facilitator! (If I am wrong please correct me)
I think ETH did something very related to this and outcome was high demand on ETH and a lot of ICO projects started by using it! (correct me if I am wrong again)
Whatever happen we need to see a bright future for STEEM! If we need to archive it I think this is the best concept which will work on it!
Thank you very much friend, actually I was a blind fool of this SMT thing and you gave me a clear idea about how it suppose to be functioned in future!
Thank you very much for sharing such great article which can be easy to understand people like me! Really appreciate your effort!
Thank you!
You are absolutely right mate, I also feel with the introduction of SMTs, each community (foodies, travel, science, research, gamers...) can create unique tokens to reward their best supporters/contributors. They will no more just rely on the reward pool of steem.
The possibilities will be just amazing with SMTs.
Great write up again mate!
Everything I wanted to answer has already been answered by @justtryme90. We have discussed the option of creating a steemstem SMT and we will probably do it at some point. But before, we must calm down and think deeply about how to put everything in place. In short, it is just a matter of time! :)
PS: thanks for shedding light on @steemstem by the way ^^
Thats quite insightful but I like this bit from your post: "only a handful of communities were curators will hangout to maximize their profits". If this happens, I tend to imagine how difficult it will be for users to grow. Awesome analysis.
you've got the essence of it. Only 1 reward pool with the current set of curators cannot sustain thousands of communities. Many dominance hierarchy must be happening simultaneously.
True; it's amazing how you have brought it out. I wish all Steemit users can read through your post; it's a mindset changer.
I hope all these changes will help users grow and not struggle because it would be even more difficult for new users to grow and I'd like more people to join and not run away. It's truly an uphill battle
amigo #resteemia at your service
smt will bring steem to the moon ;) nicely explained about reward pool concept @cryptoctopus
ReSteemia
'UpVoted ReSteemed Commented'
Hahah I'm confused now. Everytime it seems I read a new article I think that SMTs are either better or worse for the steemitsphere. I worry about dilution, but can see your points. I've joined a few communities that I enjoy being a part of and though it will be nice to be able to better set-up said "heirarchy" I worry that steem will be the only reward that matters.
We are planning to do pretty much exactly what you describe with our community, The Writer's Block. Do you see most of these communities forming on a platform like Discord and linking back to Steemit, or are you saying these communities can actually exist, owners, mods, and all, on Steemit's front end?
I don’t see there being much of an impact on overall inequality or monetary distribution, though I could be wrong and am anxious to see how things evolve.
While newly minted SMT whales may have a great deal of control over the curation and content ordering of their particular niche, they’ll be awarding and distributing valueless tokens unless users have paid STEEM or some other form of currency to acquire that token. That still leaves a scenario where initially SMTs favored by and of interest to current whales will dominate monetary rewards, while most SMTs become points/karma type systems, developing veteran users in a community but with minimal monetary reward involved.
Let's take the example of ZAPPL. If I, a user, decide to bet on it's future, will get rid of some of my steem to have a stake on their system. Some community might be turning into "karma" point types but for apps, I doubt it will be the case.
For large apps I agree. I think it sets up an interesting continuity of “social capital.” If MySpace and Facebook had both been founded on SMT tech for instance, users would be able to carry over the effort they’d put in MySpace over to Facebook, but with early adopters of the next big platform getting a much better exchange rate! It will be fun watching things play out. If the wallet interface of Steem & SMT’s is well done, people will have fun building & trading their influence.