Can SMTs and Oracles make steemit and other dapps content driven?

in #steem6 years ago

steem


I've had many conversations and think tanks about this question over the last couple of months with a wide range of people with many different perspectives. My perspective and thoughts on the perceived problems on the platform have shifted and changed extensively over time due to these conversations, but in the end I can say it's given me much more perspective about the platform as a whole. If you want the short answer to the question I'm posing, time will tell, but I'll explain why that is below.

The nature of cryptocurrency and how it's created tends to fundamentally contradict a content oriented and driven platform. This doesn't mean it isn't possible, but it's obviously going to be a massive hill to climb and gaining any traction is going to be difficult, so the hill might as well be a sludge pile. With a proof of stake production system for the currency, it's required that the largest investors earn the largest share of the stake weighted distribution. Even if STEEM is a 'delegated proof of stake' platform, that really only dictates the governance and how it should ideally run and elect witnesses for decision making.

What does this mean? Well it means all of my time spent fighting the "good fight" against bid bots and what I and many others perceive as greedy actors on the platform isn't really productive or fair and fails to take into account their perspective. I was discussing this with @meno last night and it's hard not to sound like a defeatist or someone that's given up hope when having this conversation, but it's really not about that. It's about realistically understanding how cryptocurrency works and realizing that no matter how special STEEM is, it's always going to be a cryptocurrency platform first and foremost. There's nothing wrong with that.

So back to the topic question. Can any dapp that runs on the STEEM blockchain ever be entirely content driven? I am going to say that we should have a little faith here after reading more about Oracles and SMTs. I'm not exactly one of the biggest @ned critics, but I have criticized and questioned quite a few of his decisions in the past and even written an open letter to him. I'll be honest I kind of felt like his response was more of a "smile and nod" and brushing me off at the time, but the more perspective I gain about the big picture of the STEEM ecosystem, I think he was saying the only thing he really could and I can respect that.

Are SMTs and Oracles going to "save" the platform? Well I think the platform is actually working as intended and even if I have my own personal gripes about distribution and rewards allocation, it's only my perspective and we all get one of those. I think it's time to consider that and have a little faith that the content oriented and driven aspects of dapps built on the blockchain will come in the future. Changing the code and how the blockchain fundamentally operates and distributes rewards on a base layer to make Steemit or any other dapp content oriented would most likely cause even more problems.

@meno's post already covers most of the reasons as to why we are in this situation and I don't really want to rehash these here as I feel he did a great job already conveying the message. Ultimately we need to accept that the base layer blockchain cannot be a primarily content driven platform in it's current state. That isn't really a bad thing though, it means that there is still a solid chance of building a dapp on top of the blockchain that is content driven. I think of all of the time we put into the platform before SMTs and Communities are released as practice for what's to come.

I believe there are great things coming and that SMTs and Oracles will actually be the best shot at creating content driven dapps on top of the chain, and I'm actually more excited now than I was when I first heard about SMTs. My hopes are that we can actually get Oracles that are objective and non-biased enough to be effective content curators and that rewarding quality content will be the driving factor that brings in new users. Maybe it took a while for me to see what @ned's reply to my open letter was actually saying, but if all of this is making sense, then I think there are truly great things ahead for the STEEM blockchain and content quality will be very relevant to the dapps built on top of the base layer protocol. Namaste.


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Being on steem is a rollercoaster ride!

When I first got here, I could see so many problems. From the massive self voting and abuse by people like haejin, to bid bots and the promotion of really poor content!

But if we take a step back and have a wider view. Steem is miles ahead of the competition. As an investment, I have grown and held my my stake in steem.

Why?

It's not perfect, but it works!

It runs on its own blockchain technology that is quite impressive, look at all the others that are either just vapour wear waiting for ICO money or running on Ethereum! Ethereum is too slow, expensive and overloaded for social media.

So I have decided just to chill, buy a little more on the dips, help out some plankton and see what comes.

SMTs you say? Great
Oracles you say? Great
Hivemind? Great

At least the team is pushing the platform forward after being around for two years. How many other blockchains can say that after 2 years? Not many.

@kabir88
Steem on

That's very true. I'm interested in seeing where we are in 5 years... 10 years... 20 years... It's going to be a wild ride for sure.

Some time ago I had a chance to discuss my concerns with @ned off chain, and was told he'd address them prior to the release of SMTs. Months passed.... I felt I'd been brushed off, just as you did. I kept ranting.

Then @ned spoke in Korea. He not only addressed my concerns - he agreed with my assessment! I have been haply scarfing down my discouraged words ever since. I see SOC (SMTs, Oracles, and Communities) as a single tool that potentiates massively parrallel communities (websites, organizations, whatever..) that can deliver rewards based on whatever criteria and focus they want, and this allows the far greater benefits of society beyond mere finance to be those foci.

IMHO, having but one community forces people to choose between emuneration and things they might prefer, but must neglect in that circumstance due to financial necessity. The eventuation of myriad communities allows folks to spend what attention they must on necessary finance in the requisite space, but also to separately invest in those aspects of society they actually value more and seek to emphasize.

I believe almost all people value other things more than money, and that SOC will prove this quickly. Votebots, selfvoting, and etc.. will be enabled in some communities, and those communities will be avoided by almost everyone when communities that don't permit them are available and also focus on particular social endeavors that people do actually care about and want to encourage.

SOC creates the possibility of evolution of social media on the underlying framework of Steem, much like the Cambrian explosion was built on the Eukaryotic innovation. I anticipate an amazing and wonderful explosion of communities and society as a result.

I cannot wait.

Thanks!

It's awesome to know I'm not the only one genuinely excited.

Also hivemind/communities...take reddit for example , I follow certain sub-reddits that I enjoy the most and end up spending most of the time within that ecosytem.

For sure, obviously we'll have a whole new world of price discovery to deal with on all of the SMTs, but we wont have to compare memes to articles to live streams to spam comments. It's just going to take some time and faith that the system is going to be better in the end.

once the feeds starts becoming personalized , the bid-bot spammy content is also going to perish or evolve !!

I just hope they don’t over complicate things more and make it even easier for people to exploit for profit. Every time they tell us this new great thing is coming and going change everything for the better. Ya…..

Many seem to be holding on for dear life waiting for this to arrive. If it makes my life easier that will be great. If it just creates a lot more I need to learn and turns into a time sink –not so much.

I hear ya on that. Personally I imagine we're going to see all of the apps essentially using their on SMTs as rewards. It'll take a lot of the comparison of content out of the equation and enable things like dmania and musings.io to have real price discovery to figure out what this content and interaction is worth. It's kind of fascinating to think about, and some people really might not like the long term answer to the price discovery of certain content, but until these changes are implemented we have one big collective reward pool all sharing and comparing and it's pretty hostile and competitive from my perspective.

Do you think STEEM should retire from rewardpool altogether to stay away from any controversies related to distribution? Can STEEM can be limited to PoS mining and witness compensation? STEEM's inflation will be limited from current 8.7% to 2%. SMTs will work with developers and communities to find optimum solutions for (SMT) reward pool distribution. STEEM will be walled from any DApps/SMT's reward pool controversies.

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I imagine it's going to work like this. DAPP stakes STEEM to secure bandwidth. Staking that STEEM and any interactions within the DAPP essentially award the DAPP owner the stake reward in STEEM. The owners and users of the actual STEEM token will be devs and DAPP owners, end users may never have a need for the actual STEEM token other than speculative investment and some base level of bandwidth required to have a STEEM wallet. Ultimately I don't think it could be retired as a reward, but it will be distributed to the investors and people running the DAPPS. It kind of already is like this in some sense, due to the 1% distribution of wallets holding over 500 SP. I imagine that the SMTs will derive their value from actual user retention, engagement, and quality content. If steemit.com continues to exist, it'll be awarding SBD like it's own SMT essentially and probably less reliant on SP to award that value and more heavily reliant on oracles. Hopefully that makes sense, but it's all just theoretical until we see it in practice.

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