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RE: The Past We Had Internet, Now We Have Steem
Dear @robertoueti and @EVERYONE READING :)
Excellent choice of topic. But Im not sure what do you really mean that internet is dying. Internet is way more than exchanging content on social media platforms, isn't it?
that they are not visible to a large number of people.
It may as easily happend with Steemit, busy or any other platform. Your data can be stored on STEEM blockchain but may not be shown (because you may be banned) on any of those platforms. or perhaps im wrong?
This is issue I've been discussing with some friends lately and till now I'm a bit confused. We all know that STEEM (as a blockchain) cannot be censored. But Steemit is centralized front-end and it can be easily forced to censor some content.
Am I right or perhaps I'm very wrong?
Yours
Piotr
I agree the web at large is a more robust and valuable resource than SteemIt or the blockchain.
There are millions of real businesses and real community service organizations on the web. These organizations are actively involved in communities and are actually doing things.
The blockchain is a fantasy land that is notoriously divorced from local communities.
It is worth pursuing .... but should not be pursued at the cost of the web at large or the local community.
When I wrote about the death of the internet, I meant how we are currently observing it.
We see that large corporations have the power to censor and prevent people from speaking whatever they want. Here at Steem we do not have this because of its decentralized nature. I believe that the internet as we know it is dying for a totally new and decentralized Internet.
Unfortunately the desire to "create a new internet" seems to lead to greater centralization.
For example the "app" phenomena was an experiment in creating a new internet.
Smartphones have a limited storage capacity. So people download a very small number of apps. These apps have the predictable effect of limiting the number of voices that people encounter.
Even though SteemIt and "dapps" are on decentralized servers. They have the effect of limiting the number of sites that people actually visit.
Dapps create a paradox where people are using the term "decentralization" to create a new paradigm that is actually more centralized that the web at large.
Sorry, I didn't understand, the dApps are doing a decentralization or a centralization?
I think @yintercept means that, while dapps are running on decentralized servers, they have a relatively small user base as compared with the internet as a whole.
So using them effectively limits your audience, as well as the number of posts you can see, simply because they have not yet been widely adopted.
Which is entirely true.
In that way I agree... But adoption is not a huge problem since people can migrate to this platform, even if they are concern about the privacy and censorship from another social media.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi @crescendoofpeace, @robertoueti, @yintercept
Wow. What an interesting conversation you guys have here :)
Damn. Steemit may not be censorship free but still this is the best platform to engage with people I know.
Cheers
Piotr
Yeah, you got it... The internet dying is a way to call the attention for the post, I guess the use of the world was sucess, hahaha. Yeah, the internet is more than that, but we can switch that word for "mainstream social media".
About the visibility, well, is kind different...
In Facebook, if you say something bad for the government and someone want to delete it, it could be possible, however, if you try to do this in Steem, isn't possible. Of course, you could flag a person until the reputation become less than 25, and the post will be hide, but you will be able to see if you want. That is the main difference between that.
About the Steemit centralization, totally agree but we have another ways to use, like @steempeak and @busy, so even they have a centralization front-end, we have a lot of different ways to use it. :)
Cheers!
Dear @robertoueti
Do you mean STEEM or Steemit?
Please keep in mind, that Steemit.com is a front-end which is fully centralized. And once it will get bigger and bring attention of regulators and politicians then this platform will also most likely change.
Do you think Steemit and other platforms cannot implement some extra rules similar to Facebook? Where your post will not be displayed at all? How hard it will be for goverments to put a pressure on every single platform (either steempeak or busy)?
The only way to avoid censorship is to create "decentralized Steemit" :) That's still my opinion. In current stage it will be super easy to force all STEEM front-ends creators to adopt to goverments needs.
Yours
Piotr
In a blockchain, and by the nature of how it is built, it will always be hard for censorship, since the norm of blockchain dev's and enthusiast is to see that any blockchain system should be opensource, and that it has capacity for decentralization. If proven otherwise, many blockchain users will leave that kind of platform.
In the case of steemit inc. it has only controls the steemit blogsite, I still believe that the API , nodes will be censorship free and will continue its development into decentralization, granted that all users and as represented by dynamic and proactive witnesses will steer the platform towards the goal of a new internet.
The internet, and all its existing protocol will improve also, but will remain mostly as it is today.
BUT on top of the internet, is the blockchain network(s).
Many dev's out there will always push for decentralization, and the core of blockchain itself is indeed decentralization.
What is my suggestions;
First, always support blockchain projects who are opensource.
Second, member yourself in a blockchain community, and help that community towards the realization of decentralization.
Lastly, learn anything that will enrich your experience in the blockchain, example, learn to code, learn to market your blockchain, use it in everyday life, invest using fiat(as it increase your stake on the blockchain) and don't stop learning.
Let's us all be vigilant. This is a new frontier. We are all pioneers on this land called decentralization of information. The wheel is turning, and it will no longer be stopped, because man, by all its essence will always wanted to be free.
SteemIt is highly centralized. A few big accounts get most of the votes and attention. New accounts rarely get upvotes.
SteemCleaners is doing a great job identifying spam and @cheetah calls out copied content. The accounts that run afoul of these tools have an experience similar to the shadow-banning and outright censorship that people experience on other sites.
(Quite frankly, I love cheetah and SteemCleaner's efforts to clean up spam and phishing attacks).
The block chain is great because it provides a low cost alternative revenue stream. But we are foolish to ignore the web at large for the delusion that the blockchain is providing a censorship free platform.
I don’t mind @cheetah and @steemcleaners . They are a good way to remind content creators to be the best as they can, copying others without proper citation is bad, and as we are intelligent enough to correct ourselves.
We can self regulate.
These are just bots, still we the human reading the content will judge if a content is worth our time.
And the time we spent, these are value, the gold within the steem blockchain.
The content is the pickaxe for digging the gold.
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my two cents worth on the cheetah bot
https://steemit.com/ai/@redpossum/why-i-hate-bots
Thanks for sharing this link @redpossum
Will check it out right away :)
Piotr
But which digital currency does not have a centralized currency? Bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, in short, they all have few accounts with an absurdly large balance, centralizing a good part of the coins.
The problem is not the dispersion of the coins, but rather, if you can speak what you really want. You see, even though the accounts are large, you can criticize them without losing your voice on the platform, something that does not exist in other social networks.
speaking about PoW, actually a lot of mining pools can provide 51% attack, so its hard to talk about safety, trust and decentralization in the moment, when our assets are in the hands of certain amount of online gurus.
speaking about PoS, as you said we easily find few accounts with an absurdly large balance, centralizing huge part of coins and power
I dont think we ever had a chance to get to know each other. Great comment @cubapl
Are you Polish?
Cheers
Piotr
no we have never met and yes, I am Polish ;)
Agree with you on that one @yintercept
You nailed it.
Yours
Piotr
Totally a favor,
The APIs will be decentralized or at least that's what we're expecting. People are increasingly wanting decentralized models, so I believe it is a matter of time before we can secure the hegemony of decentralization without Steemit Inc.
Amazing comment @guruvaj
Aren't those projects usually struggling financially?
I love the sound of it. Being pioneer isn't usually very profitable. But it may be andventure of our lifetime haha :)
Yours
Piotr
I think depending in witch country the platforms are hosted it will be very difficult to force them to something.
Good point @udow
Also, it's easily copied the front-end platform, so, if they close one, two will be started.
yes you are correct !
Reputation and flag are closely linked to Stech's blockchain, not the front end. So, in this case, I comment on Steem.
About regulations, I doubt there's any chance of that happening, and I'll say why.
Let's imagine that governments force Steemit Inc to take this post on the air for example. What could they do? Within STEEMIT, they could create a redirect that, if someone tries to access this post it will not appear, or it will be redirected to an error page, for example.
BUT ...
As we are talking about a front end, we have other options such as Busy, Steempeak and Steeve, which are mirrors of the STEEM blockchain and not STEEMIT. This means that in these other places, my posting will be visible unless governments try to file a lawsuit against all of them, and even if they do, they would have to do with all the applications that use STEEM to come in the future.
Even if Steemit Inc wanted to, it would not be able to change the block in which this post is, and consequently they would not be able to make this post censored completely.
So, in conclusion... You can only censored something in STEEM blockchain if, and only if, you can change the block of that post, which, in a such way, it's impossible.
Cheers!
Man, I love how responsive you are @robertoueti! LOVE IT!
Hi @crypto.piotr,
If you run a website that has european users, you have to comply with new rules set by the european community meant to protect the privacy of the users. On a project like steem you might have the raw data in the decentralized blockchain. Centralized platforms like steemit or busy normally would have to comply with these laws. This means that sooner or later, such platforms will have to adapt a certain censorship of the content that comes from the blockchain.
What is great with steem is that anybody can create a frontend to read the content of the blockchain. Maybe in the future we will have a personalised app that filters the content we want to read... That would be an interesting project by the way ;-)
Best regards,
Achim
And the most anticipated comment of the night ... by noone else by famous @achim03 !
That's exactly the way I see it. And faster Steemti will grow, sooner this place will attract attention of authorities. As long as we're still small, noone care.
Oh wow. That would actually be amazing idea buddy. Seriously amazing.
Piotr
At the current time, I can clearly say that centralised platforms have some problem due to their nature of rules ( as you say), and tracking. So every person, writing comment, can be tracked. One of my friends wrote something about one of our politician years back when there was a riot on the street. And few days after, he got police on his doorsteps. So much about freedom of speech.
Problem for our freedom as a society is the "corporatization" of social media and big government influencing the modern model of the World Wide Web and social media.
Just like @anomadsoul says...
Facebook sells your personal information. You are a piece of data ready to be sold to the highest bidder in order to be able to sell you random products or services. Youtube is falling apart as creators are searching for any and every way to get OFF the platform and find a way to make money elsewhere. Tumblr banned their primary user base and demographic content consumers. Flickr is - out of the blue - charging their userbase a yearly fee for something that used to be completely free. Patreon is censoring and demonetizing the users who don´t align with their political agenda. Paypal is deciding who can and who can't transfer money for arbitrary reasons. Twitter is a cess pool of a left wing echo chamber. If you don´t agree with someone or if you have unpopular opinion, you will get reported by groups of SJW´s who will get you banned. It is all just crumbling down before our eyes.
But Steem has all that functionality. And more.... Without political agenda, without demonetizing users, without demographic content consumers, with no rules to agree to someone just to stay on the platform....Steem just has different names for all the functions ( dtube, steepshot, steempeak, partiko, musing, fundition, tasteem, d-oracle, steempress-io, actifit....)
Steem has all those parts .. Steemit is just one of them.
It will be hard for any entity to attempt to shut down any part of the Steem userbase.
And the most anticipated comment from @worldfinances
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. Again.
Very well said. I wonder if our society is moving on a one way street or can anything ever change. Are we going to end up being nothing but workforce/consumer and product. Traced on every step we make. I wonder sometimes.
Seriously? I didnt know that.
I realized that already. So I decided that I don't want to have strong opinions. I want to understand what is happening around me, observe, ask what other people think and myself share as little of my own views on politics, religion, migration etc.
It is what it is.
Cheers
Piotr
Hey, @crypto.piotr :-) Happy and prosperous 2019 to you and your family.
I'm just stopping to say Thank you for the great discussion you provoked under this post.
Best wishes,
@ravijojla
Indeed @wordfinances,
I think people are realizing that the most used social networks are getting more and more problems related to censorship and freedom, which is why Steem is better at these issues.
hi @crypto.piotr,
Please pardon me for this delayed response.
"The only way to avoid censorship is to create "decentralized Steemit" :) That's still my opinion....."
I also agree to a decentralized Steemit, but what is the need to avoid censorship if the content is obscene and the like?
Sir this is where i was unable to understand. Please throw light on this part extensively so that i may get a chance to understand the subject bit more clearly!
Thank you for your kind reply @marvyinnovation
That's a good question. I didn't think about it. But at the same time I believe that censorship will be huge part of Steemit and every other social media platforms no matter what.
Yours
Piotr
Yes you are right @crypto.piotr Decentralized steemit can be the only answer to escape governmental control and surveillance. I believe that steemit is still not as big as facebook or Instagram but growing. Steemit is still in its infant stage and has a long way to go and I believe that with surge in price of Steem in the future and more people coming into the platform will encourage developers to get steemit decentralized. And the internet as well is not just about social media but is about many more things.
Thanks for that comment @n1hal
So we're pretty much on the same page here. I still wonder why so many people seem to believe that steemit is free of censorship. I cannot grasp it.
Yours
Piotr
I would have preferred it was titled, the Internet as we know it ... but then the title would have become a little lengthy.
Dear @crypto.piotr
First of all you need to remember one thing very clearly (as far as I can understand), just as @ned has said:
Steemit Inc and the Steem Blockchain are two different elements, but they are related to each other.
The Steem blockchain, like other crypto currency blockchain, requires machines and physical things to maintain the transparent ledger (if you know how to extract it) : example: the wallet.
Whereas the Steemit Inc is the platform that gives the opportunity to generate (mine) the crypto of Steem and SBD, in their % calculation in all the programming codes and algorithm.
How it is generated is by the proof of Brains , the behaviour of humans in the social network.
However, after it is generated, as long as there is a way to access to how it is kept, you can still do transactions, provided you have the authorised private keys to do so.
However that being said, with the Rocks database being implemented, the data platform is now centralised but the Steem blockchain is still decentralised where all the witnesses are maintaining that ledger online that everyone so dependent their dear life with.
I hope this gives you an idea how I understands it. haha.
Hi @dses
Thank you for amazing comment.
I agree that we need to separate STEEM and Steemit Inc. But at the same time we cannot separate Ned into 2 different people.
After all it's still one and same person being in charge of those 2 projects, which are kind of 2 different elements but not really. It's like saying that 'bitcoin' and 'blockchain' are two different elements. Indeed they are. But are so heavily connected that separating it is very difficult.
It does. I appreciate it a lot.
Yours
Piotr
Probably that is why if Steemit truly sunsets and let the dapps blossom and strive towards perfection, then he can focus on supporting and improving just the blockchain itself.
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Thanks for your kind comment @dses
Dear @crypto.piotr and @robertoueti
This is more a debating topic than the excellency I would say. If we see the title it is so confusing because Steem is also a branch of internet world. May be the title could be Internet 2.0 or 'X'.
Here we have to agree with almost all of the points of the author. But this point is confusing as rightly mentioned by piotr "that they are not visible to a large number of people."
I don't think steem will censor based on front end centralization team.
Dear @kcherukuri
Thanks for your lovely comment :)
And I appreciate your input.
Piotr
This is a valid concern and one I share with you. Stars may have aligned as we have the hacking group @thedarkoverlord on steemit. And I am amazed at how fast they where banned on mainstream media sites. If we have a central point of attack it will surely be compromised.
Let's wait and see, as my gran always says.
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The absence of a single point of failure, is what brings more freedom to Steem.
Really interesting comment @hansdewet
I believe the key @crypto.piotr ...
... is the position of the all-important Steem Witnesses. Steemit cannot force them to do anything. However, as I detail more in my comments below, I am pragmatic about it and believe that Steemit currently exercises far more influence over these witnesses than is ideal.
I hope 2019 will bring about considerable improvement in the right direction, which is toward more decentralization and the right kind of witnesses, who can be trusted with the future of this blockchain.
Let's hope so @roleerob
We need to have more and more freedom in the platform. According @ned, they are working on it, and we need to see if is that true or not, but until now... I think that Steem is the place that we have more freedom to speech anything that we want.
I agree with you I even deal with that problem now. I try to answer this post for already 10 hours but zero result. I deleted the biggest part of my answer, but still no result.
Steepshot did not work for me and I turned out to be not the only one.
The word "internet" means the connection to the world wide web (www) in my language and Steem is just a part of it.
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i think the more steem gets decentralized the more it will be private and creating anti-goverment influence on steem is also a good thing
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Totally agree... No more governments saying what we need to talk.
yep the internet should be where we are completely free
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Hi @crypto.piotr. maybe Internet is dying because IT infraestructure is highly centralized. As far as I know I have not seen "open" hardware like an "open" cable/satellite.
Regardless of politics, building such infraestructure would require some degree of centralization, a coordinated effort to join resources. Probably a company with a decentralized equity/governance can build complex projects like an open Internet infraestructure. In this case equity would belong to everyone (like a public asset but without goverment management) for now it sounds like sci-fi. Just my opinion.
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I never been thought about that point of view @caribehub, thanks for open my eyes about that.
That's a very good point @caribehub
Thx for sharing your thoughts on that issue
Yours
Piotr