Preparing for changes in Velocity
The Hardfork is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 25, at 11:00am EST. The changes in the Velocity Hardfork are dependent on the approval of a super-majority (17/21) of the witnesses voting in favor of the Hardfork. source: @steemitblog
This is exciting news and is highly anticipated. Even though not everyone agrees on all parts of Hardfork 20, most are optimistic that it will improve the system in some ways. I recommend having a read of at least this post if you haven't already to get somewhat familiar with what s going to happen.
I find far too many people have an idea about how the system works without actually doing any reading on the way it works. It can be quite complicated but, with a little effort much of it can be understood enough to have a decent view of the platform.
I am not going to go into any of the details of the Hardfork here but on (or near) September 25th, it will happen and things will change. Some of the things that change are likely to benefit you and, some are likely to harm you. What most people focus on is what harms rather than what they gain. This is obviously because a loss has twice the impact of a gain but, the other reason is that it forces them to change. If one is benefiting from a circumstance, they don't want that circumstance to shift so they lose their benefits, they want to maintain the status quo.
This position is no different to a government, bank or corporation that benefits from any situation that currently exists. Even if people are suffering, even if there are alternatives that can bring more value, they favor a position of benefit where they do not have to invest in change management and infrastructure. Spending time learning and preparing for the Hardfork by thinking through potential scenarios will have value, as will being attentive after it happens to observe for changes and opportunities.
No matter what happens though, there are going to be unintended consequences of changes but again, these will be positive and negative. Generally though, the first people to take advantage of the changes are those who are looking to maximize their returns as they actively search for loopholes of opportunity to weave through. As much as the loopholes need to be attended to and closed, this isn't the focus of the average user.
If we think of Steem like a game, a Hardfork just changes the rules and, should change the way it is played in some way. The way the field of play is negotiated will change and it will evolve over time as players learn new ways to benefit and take advantage of the new dynamics in play. The ability to adapt to not only the new rules but, the new techniques of players is an important factor in an individuals ability to be successful.
After every Hardfork, there is a lot of discussion about what has changed and how it is affecting the system. Pay attention to those who have an understanding themselves. This means that rather than relying on finding them after, part of the preparation is to find them before it happens so one doesn't have to wade through a sea of nonsense and FUD to find valuable information. The Hardfork is approximately 6 weeks away, this is now preseason.
For me personally, I now consider myself investor due to relatively high SP, and user as I am very active on the platform as a poster. This puts me in the position of needing to consider both sides of the equation as I have to learn how to best treat my investment and, consider what is a viable path for earning through posting. A lot of people tend to look more heavily at one than the other depending on their current position.
However, we are all investors in Steem if we hold or put time into developing for it as both sides are necessary for the platform to operate in a healthy manner. This means that no matter what position, considering the position of the entire ecosystem is generally required to understand how one string pulled affects the components it is attached to.
With rule changes such that a Hardfork involves, there are going to be a lot of strings pulled and a lot of reactions to the movements. It is going to be messy and what may appear fantastic to begin with can degrade quickly, like that of Hardfork 19 that signalled the arrival of the bidbots and an massive increase in self-voting, especially through comments.
But, what might be detrimental in some ways allowed for a lot of benefits in others such as for the delegation to Dapps that has allowed a fair bit of technological growth, innovation and a great deal of distribution to users who were able to take advantage of the new interfaces.
What people need to remember though is that there is no perfect system and this is one that is operating on the border between what was and what could be. This is a platform that is not only still in development, it will always be in development and as such, learning to prepare and get accustomed to constant change is necessary to avoid high levels of stress and disappointment as well as feelings of disenfranchisement from what just a moment ago was comfortable.
A massive benefit of understanding and training this on Steem is that the skills learned are transferrable to any environment where change happens and, that is all environments. As I see it as do many others, is that the world is going to reach a critical juncture and a whole lot of status quo systems are going to fail and need to be renewed or replaced. Those who can predict where the failures will be and move with the changes will find themselves with opportunities that those who complain and wish for the past do not have access to.
As an example of this, we as people exploring cryptocurrencies are actually preparing for the changes the failure of the current economic models will cause. We are frontrunning the future on that probable eventuality hoping that we will be ahead of those who chose to hold on to a broken system.
Essentially though, changes are coming sooner or later and there are risks and opportunities inherent in all change. Hopefully, rather than lament the loss of the past, we as a community can build a better future.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I hope we can weigh the negatives and positives easily to have a balanced system
So after reading about the changes my big takeaway was “easier to make spam accounts”
Easier to make in the first place? Probably. Although it depends on how steemit will allocate its "account creation tokens". Most likely, it will grant some to DApps at more or less the same rate they delegate SP, which means these DApps will have their own responsibility + incentive to only use them on new accounts that will add value to the blockchain by producing content people will want to upvote and thus give them benefactor rewards. Without access to these tokens, it will actually be harder / more expensive to create spam accounts since the STEEM is burned.
Easier to spam? Probably not. As my understanding of the new resource credits + dust threshold goes: It will be more expensive for a bad actor to obtain the bandwidth needed to flood the blockchain with thousands of comments per day. Also, low SP spam accounts will not add any value with their votes, you will have to purchase and stake more STEEM to be able to benefit from upvoting your own accounts. So there won't be benefits to the way in which some actors have acquired hundreds/thousands of spam accounts with a tiny amount of delegated SP that they use to self-vote.
Imo, there are few things we can do to completely remove spam, but we can at least make it more expensive in order to lower it and also making those actors have to pay back to the community they hurt with their annoying actions.
I'm actually not so sure about this takeaway, but maybe I'm missing something?
Currently, the account creation fee is powered up to the new account. If you create a another account for yourself now, all STEEM that you spend ends up in the new account.
In HF20, there is an option to create accounts with RCs without spending STEEM. But as far as I understand, these accounts then have 0 SP. There is some minimal bandwidth, but in order to "spam", they'd still need a delegation or power-up like before.
No you are probably correct and I’m just too much a cynic lol I am the one I assume that is missing something :)
haha, I could have guessed the cynicism from tarazkp's reply :)
Cheers!
I mean it. @tarazkp24-7 @tarazkp4ever @alltimetarazkp @thebestoftarazkp .... you get the idea :D
I am going to run resteem services for my own articles only.
Long awaited changes coming. As you said no way to be perfect across the board, but maybe what is more important is that what is good for one is bad for another. There is just no way to please everyone.
We've strayed so far from the original vision of Steemit where individuals could "bootstrap" their way to success.
Maybe one day we'll learn that this automated bot/profit model that's being perpetuated will not grow a community, but stifle it..
I hope that the changes in hardfork 20 will bring more users to Steemit. The main problem right now is for a new user wait almost 1-2 weeks to get an account approved. It should be instant.
I am in two minds about instant signup, I think some waiting period is actually a good thing, if they know they will have to wait a bit.
As far as I saw there is nothing in HF20 which isn’t user friendly. Add to that the additional protections built in against the real bottom feeders (check the amount of faucet accounts upvoting my Steemhunt posts) and that is even more thinking ahead and longevity of the platform, ergo pro-user again.
PS: we are not investors. Earning it doesn’t make us investors. Nope. Just like an employee who receives equity isn’t an investor. We are users and we hold our respective shares. Investors buy in. But in with money (or other tokens).
As said, it will harm some. :D
I have done both but, most has been earned on platform. However once one chooses not to sell, they are keeping their earnings here instead if investing into something else.
That’s savings. This is a piggy bank.
Opting to not sell, and keep growing, doesn’t make use investors. On Steem it makes us smart though, smarter than at least
80%90% of the accounts.We aren’t invited to the table. Let’s not delude ourselves and call a spade a spade. Btw... being an “investor” is a less exciting prospect than being an earning and saving user. Most investors don’t have awesome track records, that’s why they prefer investing in [managed] funds. ;)
Not enough. :/
But the price has to be reasonable enough to stay welcoming and also allow [poor] dApps to grow and invite.
I Will say am excited to see what it brings; I am because it's the first change am taking note of since I came on board
The last time was quite different changes but, changed a lot in the way the platform works.
Nothing anyone can do but go with the flow. As you quite rightly said it is in beta still so there are going to be issues until it is finally ready. What is good for one may be not so good for the other. I am here long term so will deal with it as issues arise. Remain positive as we honestly don't know what these changes mean long term to everyone.
I think just the nature of the place means that things have to continually change to keep up with the developing blockchain world.
I couldn't agree more. You can't afford to stand still otherwise you will be left behind.
The problem I see is that just a small group of people decide what has to be changed, shouldn't everyone have an equal say in what happens on this platform? Everyone goes on about how it is decentralized and nobody runs it, but that is not what I see, a small group makes all the decisions. I am not saying the changes that come with the hard fork will be good or bad, we won't know until they happen, but actually I think these are just things the witnesses have decided upon without giving users a say, that being said I do hope they work.
have you voted for witnesses? That is your say. You need not vote for anyone who you think doesn't have your best interest in mind. Other users have their say too by voting in witnesses they think will help the platform.
Actually very few people decide who is a witness, because witnesses are decided by the SP of the voters not by the number of voters.
Yes, I know that because it is a stake based platform where those who have stake have more influence. People may not like it that way but it is at the core of the platform and has been since the start. If everyone had a direct say, not much good would get done because, people only have their interests in mind without understanding the complexities of the system. We see this in the world now as people vote based on emotion rather than understanding of economic systems.
But that is what I said at the beginning, a few people get to decide what is done, so the decentralization that Steemit supposedly has is just a pipe dream. Is this bad? I really don't know.
Hopefully the changes will bring some improvement and pave the way for smts and communties. Interesting perspective @tarazkp!
Hopefully it helps people transition over.