Steem - CORE PRODUCT VALUE and the A-HA moment
I have become increasingly convinced that there is systemic misunderstanding underlying nearly all of our ecosystem, starting from the lowest of new users all the way up to some biggie buddies that use our blockchain. No one is immune, although there are some that have seen through the veil.
I will come out and say right off the top that this idea is not fully fleshed out. I need you - all of you steemians and friends - to help me develop these ideas.
So let's get to it, in order to understand what STEEM is, we must first break down what it is not. Let us empty our cups:
Part 1: What STEEM is not
There has been a mistake. None of our content is 'worth' anything. Quality is not the purpose of steem. Yes it probably was sold that way but its not that, and it never was even in the beginning. There is no commensurate compensation, just stake weighted votes.
This might sound harsh at first. Surely you value your content, because you put so much work into it. But if you think it through, you will realize that this is only an extension of "Quality is Subjective".
What's more, I hope to be able to convince you that no one is paying your for your content.
Nope. Nobody. Never. You have never been paid for your content.
Don't get confused! You are not being paid for your content! And you are especially not being paid because it is 'valuable'. You are being released 'stake' in the platform that you are using, stake that just so happens someone else will pay for. Maybe one day no one will buy it. Maybe one day they'll pay $100 dollars. I don't know.
Ok, I know this is a big blow to some of you. But if you are still with me, we'll make it through this, I promise. Here is a TL;DR review: Steem does some stuff good but it is not a place to reward quality content. It is a place where some people try to reward quality content, and that's okay. But that is not the purpose nor the principle reason nor even a very high priority of this place.
Now, the same goes for the community. "Come for the crypto, stay for the community" is equally misleading. Look how upset misunderstandings make people: (WARNING Bad Language)
Part 2: What STEEM is
Steem is a blockchain (not a site). Our blockchain has a lot of uses, in my humble opinion most of the best ones haven't even been thought of yet. There are other blockchains, and some of them are trying to do cool things too. I suspect the smart ones are learning lessons from our steem experience.
Want to do a pension plan? Put together a group of friends, buy some SP and vote yourselves until you're all dead. Want to take advantage of 3 second blocks and zero transactions fees for your trading card game app? Use the custom json features! Want to reward people for taking worthless steps they do anyway? Use our reward pool function by locking up Steem Power! Want to complain about how one thing that's voted to 1 dollar is really better than some other thing voted to 2 dollars or 35 or 500 dollars? You can do that too - and you can even get votes for it. And yes, these votes give [stake] rewards. And yes, [this stake] can be sold for money.
The STEEM blockchain has 3s blocks and free transactions, which it can do with it's creative use of DPOS, which we will get to in a moment.
A blockchain is a way to store INFORMATION. We live in the so-called Information Age, and it is no coincidence that blockchain storage of information is at the forefront of the Information Age. STEEM is a piece of infrastructure.
Different sites, apps and d.apps can be created to visualize, interact with and store information on this blockchain.
Part 3: But but....Steemit!
I know that there is some classic confusion between STEEM and Steemit, Inc. They are different, both in concept and in nature. STEEM is a blockchain, Steemit, Inc is a company. Got it?
Now even those that understand that, still are tempted to get confused. I can tell by the number of people who talk about what Steemit should/could/needs to/ought to do. They might ought to do a lot of things, but that's completely besides the point.
Here's an example:
Steemit needs to do something about bidbots!
This is wrong on structural levels. The concepts don't line up. Yes maybe they could change code, they have before. I haven't been around since the beginning, I don't know all the little details - but I don't care. Maybe Steemit, Inc will mess up STEEM, maybe they already have. But that is besides the point.
STEEM is.
Each node on STEEM is an owner. Our stake is our ownership, and each of us is building. Steemit, Inc may or not be building. Obviously I would prefer that they do awesome things with their stake, the same way I prefer all witnesses, communities and users to do awesome things with their stake.
Steemit, Inc controls the code base. That is true. But this is besides the point.
STEEM is, and we are owners and we are building and maybe in the future all these lessons will move onto a different chain or maybe they won't. The future could be anything, but it will be the future we build.
Steemit, Inc is besides the point. STEEM is.
Part 4: Core Product Value
STEEM's core product value is HOSTING information. Free hosting. Censorship free hosting.
I love saying FREE FOREVER HOSTING because as someone who has had blogs in the past, as soon as I stop paying squarespace, aws or any other hosting service - that website is down - FOREVER. I have lost content in the past that I spent valuable time on. I have turned in papers in college that are GONE FOREVER (so this phenomena is not limited to the digital world).
If only I had hosted them on STEEM.
Now, some of you might have a problem with FREE. People are accustomed to 'complaining' about how you 'need money' to have success on steem. But actually, you can grow organically on steem. Stranger things have happened. A lot of things are easier if you put some money in.
But guess what? SP generates RC. RC let's me host my content. Then, I can sell my SP!
FREE HOSTING!
And no censorship! I know people get frustrated if, due to flags, they get minimized. But your content CANNOT be removed. Any website could be used to show it prominently, including a simple wordpress blog.
This stuff is powerful. I know I have a lot of work to do expressing it better, but that is where you guys come in. Challenge me. Comment me. Question me. I need to get this post out because I need to get YOU GUYS involved. Help me focus this laser, so we can stop damaging our own platform by describing it wrong.
Love and Light!
Alex E.B. Trapp
I think the biggest misconception is one that people have with social media in general, paid or not - they think they are going to fart into the wind and become internet famous. Only here, they think they will be YouTube Star rich, as well as famous.
I went into Steem not expecting any such thing. I thought I would meet friends - like I have on Facebook - and "like" their posts - like I do on Facebook - only here, we're dropping a few pennies in their bucket when we "like" their stuff. Cool!
That's still, I think, probably the best way to frame it. That, and maybe as a gateway into crypto. Think of those pennies in your bucket as an investment, if you don't want to/can't afford to buy your way into crypto. All the people who complain that they could have bought Bitcoin back in the day when it was cheap, lament that they didn't - well, you can get some crypto pocket change now and see where it goes. You're not going to be a crypto millionaire tomorrow, and you don't know which coins will survive the test of time, but the Bitcoin pioneers didn't know that a decade ago, and they hung out through years of people not believing them. Maybe it will work out and a decade from now, you'll be rich, maybe you won't be, but at least you took the shot and it didn't cost you anything but time hanging out online with your friends, which most of us are doing anyway. Why not earn some coins while you shoot the shit?
The biggest detriment, imo, is people being impatient and greedy. If you just see it as having fun with your friends with some bonus pennies, you won't be disappointed if those pennies don't turn into lambos. But if they do turn into lambos, then bonus!
You bring up a great point about other internet sites - and I would add that they are not getting paid for their content either. Youtubers might get a share of ad revenue, but that means they are being paid for the users watching their content, not because the content is valuable.
Maybe it's splitting hairs, but building a future foundation requires firm understanding.
By the way I think you have a great attitude about all of this, which is why it has been a real pleasure to get to meet you on steem! As I mentioned to Improv - the community is great - maybe because we are all misfits meeting up here. But can that scale to tens of millions of normies? Maybe not.
I totally retweeted your super chalk post with #wordpress hashtags because I think it is a great anthology example of what wp people wish they could do - forever blog.
I think if we ever get groups (?? wasn't that supposed to be a thing with HF20, or did I dream that announcement ages ago), and "resteem with comment" - which was also supposed to be a thing in development - we'll get more "normie" adaptation. Because then you can group with your friends, and comment on shares.
Currently, it's more like Twitter - what you say, you say to the whole world (unless you have your account on private, which isn't an option here) - and not like Facebook, where you can post only to your friends. I have a VERY different usage of Steem, Twitter, and Facebook - FB is where I share memes or make random comments to my friends, because that's what I have my shares set to. Here and on Twitter, any rando can come along and comment on it, so I don't share the same in-jokes and personal thoughts. This is why FB isn't going to die any time soon - because it's oddly the more private of the social medias. If Steem finally gets those two things, then we'll be able to have more personal type interactions. I could share something relevant to a group of friends or with my comments on the resteem making it more of a personal friend thing - ranting about this bloody thing in the news or here's why I think this is important or isn't this project awesome - instead of a blind share with no ability to comment WHY I wanted to share, or who I thought would be interested in it. Honestly I doubt there is much traffic from resteems on this site because you can't see why that person who you know and care about shared the article that maybe doesn't have an explanatory title and is from someone you don't know at all.
Like, say you shared my chalk post (thank you for tweeting that, btw!). The title, "chalk with me superpost #2" wouldn't mean anything to someone who didn't know that I'm a person who runs around town chalking positive messages on the sidewalk, and you can't say, "Hey, this is my friend Phoenix, who writes positive messages on the sidewalk to hopefully make people smile, I thought you would like it" or whatever that might make your friend say, "Oh, cool, I'll read that." You know what I mean? Even on Twitter, you can retweet with comment to make it relevant to your followers. But here you can't, and that's unfortunate.
So yeah - that was a really long rambly way to say, I don't think we'll scale until we have some front end development. I know the different front ends can do different things, but I don't think any of them can do groups or share-with-comment. Partiko can do DMs (that's another sorely lacking thing on most of them!), but I don't think any of the others do.
In the meantime, us early adopters are MacGuyvering our way around with duct tape and bubblegum, having a blast, because misfits rule. :D
Yes, persistence is a rare virtue. I found marketing of Steem during the mania, and even now on the Steemit main page, is focused on "make money" -- which sets a certain expectation. Money in general is a poor motivator for creative and social engagement, so you lose the psychology.
To your point, community is what you make it. Why not earn some coins while you shoot the shit? Because I don't shoot the shit to make money, I do it because I enjoy it.
As people create more different types of enjoyable activities on the Steem blockchain, it will grow. It will grow from games, contests, and dapps. And people won't go in saying "maybe I'll make some money" -- they'll say "this is cool and fun and I like it." They'll say "Steemmonsters? I'm in. How do I play?"
Quality content is irrelevant. People want to connect and engage with each other. They want to share things that they value and see things they like. It's a social network that happens to have a content platform. Oh, and it also has people who comment like this:
https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/social-condenser-is-live
The things people love about Steem are the same things they love about humans. The things people hate about Steem are the same things they hate about humans. The people who use Steem are humans.
Is Steem the problem? Or are humans the problem?
Another purpose of Steemit (and any other front end app for Steem) is to provide a real world application for Steem (the cryptocurrency), something many other cryptos lack, they are purely an instrument for speculation. So by upvoting, people are using the currency.
Also Steem banking is great.
Just today I sent 200 Steem to somebody in Cameroon. It took a few seconds, till I could see it in his wallet.
Compare that with international banking via banks, the days it takes and the fees it costs.
i agree. thats my biggest selling point on cryptos when i explain it to people.
Banking! Yes, I do think this is powerful. We need to keep the value of the stake high for it to double as a currency, but the transaction speeds (and cost!) are amazing.
I actually send remittances, and my next best option is Walmart2World, which costs 8 dollars to send between 200-1000 dollars. Way cheaper than banks, but STEEM blows it all out of the water.
I think our apps are coming along, and real use-cases are not as rare in crypto as they once were (though surprisingly still not 'the norm'). But understanding our Core Product Value as a blockchain does not limit each front end/app/community from promoting themselves - they must all serve their users and understand what they are adding.
Thank you so much for your additions and feedback!
Glad to see people using the ba***** word: I mean banking, of course.
I have written on this topic recently. I have also found it frustrating that Steem is not even mentioned in articles such as this and this.
But passive income through staking - a long-winded way to say "investing" without falling foul of the myriad investment laws - is only appealing to investors. As @ecoinstant has highlighted, this blockchain should also be appealing to creators and bloggers who may well start from zero.
We really do need some strapline that encompasses both functions - perhaps there are three functions, two of them merged.
So what do we have on Steem?
FREE & SECURE BLOGGING
FREE, FAST & SECURE MONEY TRANSFERS
ACTIVE INCOME THROUGH BLOGGING
PASSIVE INCOME THROUGH STAKING
Just brainstorming, perhaps too many, but then again, banks advertise different services to different kinds of customers. Corporate straplines are usually anodyne crap; these are not really straplines but key services.
What do you think?
I challenge your example about community. I acknowledge the point, but I don't think anyone is misrepresenting steem when they say "stay for the community". Whoever wrote that doesn't understand what community means. But yes, community is not integral to what steem is. To sum what you said, Steem witnesses host information in Steem's innovative blockchain.
That's all, but that's like saying, computers are a series of switches that can turn on and off. That's all. But we can see how much people can do with "that's all".
Posted using Partiko Android
The point is an interesting one. I love many people I have met here, dare I say I love 'the community' here. But is that scaleable? Or is that just because interesting outcasts have found themselves cast together on this chain? What if 1 million more people arrive? What if 1 billion more people arrive? Is community enough when normies run the place?
Think about blaming computers for reddit users being jerks, or for facebook being centralized. No, they are just a series of switches! Ones and zeros bro! We build the future!
So, when we are trying to get down to CPV - I might have been a little harsh on some of the more beloved aspects of steem. But read again that comment I posted. Someone actually said that to me - someone misled about the nature of steem.
If someone were to build a community, say Punday Monday (or any number of other great ones), ON STEEM, that is so great - I support that 100%. But we need to clearly communicate our Core Product Value to new users, and ourselves.
Betwixt clarity and brevity lies a barren wasteland.
Posted using Partiko Android
Its so true hahaha, but I think I will do a multiple series posts on this, hopefully get a lot of input from great users and builders like you and others, and continue to develop this idea.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, each community can advertise its greatness, its rewards etc. But to get people to an AHA moment about steem requires being very clear about our Core Product Value.
Yes. I agree with you. But you asked us to challenge you, and that's why I said what I did. I think the perspective in that comment is not one that follows from "come for the crypto, stay for the community". That user may have had someone say something else, too, but not just that.
The real reason that phrase doesn't work for me, is that there are lots of places on the internet with good community. It's not special to steem. I do credit @freewritehouse with getting me to write a novel, though, and no other platform has done that, and I think it's the tiny amount of money that is the extra nudge that made it a habit. Also that people actually read it.
Posted using Partiko Android
Also, yeah, no, I'm saying that the commenter lacks an understanding of community. He wasn't misled. He had some belief that community meant cash, and that's simply not a reasonable understanding of the word.
Posted using Partiko Android
Ah, yes, well that's probably true. This comment affected me, and so I decided to include it in all its crude reality.
I think it was a hurtful comment, but I have heard it said that 'hurting people hurt people'. There are a lot of things to respond to him, and as I have sponsored him in SBI, I took the opportunity to remind him that, technically, I had supported him on that post :)
True. There's lots of hurt in the world, but I doubt you're responsible for his hurt. My experience with you is that you are a conscientious and kind man.
Posted using Partiko Android
Very good! Been saying some of this for ages ;-)
And that we haven't yet figured out the killer app - not really.
(Gotta go - will check in later.)
You are one of the people I am hoping for feedback from!
Excellent.
Actually i cant write anything else :) Here are all the details, what are mostly blurry for the members.
Have you thought about the 'reality of steem' before?
Yep. Actually after my first few month, or maybe half year, im just recognized, steemit its a simple mining interface for a pimped pos system, and the steem works other method, not what the people think.
Its not a big problem, but i know, the "mainstream" crypto media just misguide the enthusiast about steem and steemit.
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