Posting Key Security, Custom JSON Operations, Prototyping, Dumb Contracts, and Decentralized Reputation
Steem is an incredible platform for prototyping. Just look what SteemEngine has done by simply utilizing custom JSONS! They essentially prototyped a version of SMTs very quickly before Steemit could do it, given way less time.
The slight disadvantage here is that custom JSONs can be written using only posting key security, which theoretically is an account's least secure key. However, I haven't heard anyone complain about this yet. Encryption is encryption, after all. If governments can use it to secure all their infrastructure, it should work just fine for us.
So what else can we prototype using Steem's custom JSONs? Well, honestly, the sky is the limit. As long as your dapplication can operate within the time-frame of blocks being produced (3 seconds) everything should be just dandy.
Personally, I was going to start at square one and create a dapp that allowed users to buy and sell votes in a peer to peer manner rather than have them be centralized through the various bid-bots on the platform. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking this is the last thing we need, but honestly it would be quite valuable.
There will always be demand to buy votes.
What causes this demand?
The trending tab.
As long as users click on the trending tab and provide the content creators that reside there with visibility, there will always be demand to acquire that curation.
Instead of being forced through a centralized service like SmartSteem, we should create our own free market where votes can be bought and sold directly peer to peer. This eliminates the middle man and makes it possible to make money from buying votes when demand is low.
Demand
If the demand to buy votes is created by trending tab curation, the demand to sell votes occurs because not everyone wants to create content and upvote it. On average, a vote should be worth more than its face value because it is worth its face value plus the value of being displayed on trending. If your vote is worth more than a vote, why wouldn't you sell it?
This got me thinking about Steemit development. Clearly, votes should be able to be bought and sold in this manner in the marketplace. Why has Steemit been allowing witnesses and other developers to monopolize this market for so long?
I imagine Steemit Inc doesn't want to step on anyone's toes. After all, they are very busy and such a hard fork might be counterproductive for them. However, they'll basically be forced to do it if I (or someone else) prototypes it in custom JSONs first.
The problem with the whole custom JSON situation is that Steem doesn't have smart contracts. Well, it does, but they aren't customizable. We have what we have and developers can't make more. All Steem's smart contracts are hardcoded into the platform (example: upvoting and posting). However, this is only true with the Steem currency. As far as I am aware, SteemEngine is working on smartcontracts using tokens created there.
Therefore, if I wanted to create a free-market for selling votes directly with Steem currency, it would have to be a dumb-contract where one party would be a trusted individual who would be incentivized to hold up their end of the bargain (cheat the system; get banned from the network).
Honestly, This would work out just fine for most people. Take my account for example. If someone shafted me out of one of my 20 cent votes and got themselves banned from the network, I'm not really going to cry about that. Dumb-contracts work well when the risk being betrayed is low and the punishment for doing so is high.
Dumb-contracts
The advantage of smart-contracts is that they are trustless. Two people could trade millions of dollars of value with each other and not have to worry about being taken advantage of. However, Smart-contracts are complicated.
This is why dumb-contracts (honor bound contracts) go hand and hand with Steem and the ability to prototype. Once developers wrap their head around this idea, it's going to be very easy to crank out development and see what works and what doesn't. The projects that are popular will obviously have more work put into them and become more secure.
Foundations
In the wake of PALNet being created I've been thinking a lot about my idea for a decentralized reputation system on Steem.
Just last night I was in MSP Waves Broadcast and the idea of creating a new reputation was brought up. My idea, and another one similar to it, didn't gain any traction, but I think if I work on it and show PALNet what it can do, it might be adopted to that platform.
I bring this up because my idea for a decentralized reputation can be connected to the fabric of every other dapplication I want to create. Say someone buys a vote and doesn't pay what they promised they would for it. Such a thing would be immortalized in a system of decentralized reputation. This would give the ability of every user to ban that bad actor or ignore that action and everything in between.
Decentralized reputation can also change the very fabric of how content is viewed on the platform. Users who have a complex white/black lists could leverage those lists to change what content they view on the platform and in what order. Temporarily importing alternate or other users lists (reputations) would be a trivial process, allowing Steemians to find coveted content in a much more unique and effective manner.
My idea for a Soul Coin also goes hand in hand with a decentralized reputation system and the concept of dumb-contracts. Break a dumb-contract and your Soul gets fragmented and you'll lose reputation within the system.
Conclusion
Too many ideas, not enough grinding to actually get them done.