Steemit (De)Evolution

Oh look, some original content from me that's actually not a contest entry. Instead, you get an editorial from me!

(Should you be calm? Well, I was when I found the image here)

I read a post by @malicered recently, and I feel it echoes with what a lot of Steemians are thinking. I don't know him personally, I only know of him because he had been brought up in conversations with @someguy123 a while back. For those of you who might be interested, here is the post: The State of Steemit: My thoughts about the present and future of steemit.

I do not disagree with him about Steemit not actually being the social platform that it advertises. He also made it clear that he does not disagree with the way things are operating from an objective stand point. Let's leave out the SMTs, or Hivemind, and all the other promises that @ned and co. have yet to deliver for a moment. I'm going to write more on the subject @malicered discussed based on the assumption that everything operates at a status quo, including the current stagnant top Witness list.

On that post that I mentioned, you'll see folks like @yabapmatt explain away about expectations and what it takes to "succeed". It's preaching to the choir. Most sane people on Steemit understand bots, vote buying/selling, delegations, etc. are part of the economy. It's what the market demands and there's nothing wrong with them objectively.

What separates @malicered concerns from most typical anti-bot, or whatever, crowd is that he believes that current setup of Steemit is not conducive for a social platform that promotes quality content creators. This does not mean that there are no great authors out there. It simply means that the current system is not optimized for achieving its supposed mission statement.

The real questions become:

What defines success? Is it wealth or fame? Or is it wealth and fame?

Extraction of Value:

Many of you have heard the expression of "mining" the Steem blockchain via "proof of brain". People do that differently. They include, but are not limited to:

1. Bot owners profiting off of bids in return for visibility.
2. Vote sellers receives some liquidity in exchange for upvoting someone else's content.
3. Delegators that sponsor projects, or in the cases of huge stakes, use them as a mean of passive income.
4. Contests/community-driven events that promise payout. (Which reminds me, I still need to fill out my World Cup picks for @blocktrades.)

To make things clear again, I am not against any of those practices. They are the result of the economy that sprang from the demands of the users.

Contents:

Do people actually care about contents? In @malicered's own words, he wrote:

I've been on steemit for a very long time, and my audience is extremely small. The only reason my content gets viewed even remotely is because of friends.

This is an interesting statement. If you look at his contents, he routinely receives $20+ SBD per post; sometimes more when he chose to use promotional services. A lot of you probably think he is insane for complaining about making decent rewards on the platform.

Prior to that quote, he wrote about a friend who he brought to Steemit:

When I asked why she stopped blogging, and she explained that she felt like no one was really looking at her content.

I can somewhat relate because I have noticed that only people I associate with on daily basis tend to comment on the random scribbles I make on the blockchain. It doesn't bother me since I am not a professional content creator. However, that was an example of how Steemit is not living up to its expectations as a platform for content creators.

Some people are simply not here for the contents. You can even read about it in one of @paulag's more recent posts. You have dolphin-leveled accounts come in, delegate, and just sit tight.

Abuses:

In my opinion, the only reason why there is even an effort to curb "abuses" is to preserve the integrity of a supposed social platform that rewards its content creators. Being involved in groups such as @steemflagrewards, @flagawhale, etc. while working with subsidiaries of @steemcleaners, has been a fun pastime for me. I am weird. I know. However, will they always be relevant?

Within a few months, I have seen all sorts of methods to extract value from the blockchain that would be deemed as abuse by the community moderation teams. The reason why I brought this up is due to the fact that we fight these abuses based on the notion of preserving Steemit's environment.

What if majority of users decided that none of the social elements matter and Steemit is just an UI for a mining operation? Then, it would immediately make all anti-abuse efforts obsolete.

Witnesses:

Witness voting shows another aspect of how fun and interactive the blockchain has been since its inception. There was a post about Steemians not even participating in Witness voting two and half weeks ago by @abh12345.

I pointed out the irony of how many dolphins and orcas simply do not vote when it could be potentially detrimental for their investments if they do not choose who to maintain the blockchain.

Not that it really matters, news coming from the top seems to be far and in-between unless you are actively scouting for them. Even then, they may not be of interest or use for the average Steemian.

So What Happens?

Let's suppose nothing changes and people eventually lose all desires in the social aspect of the platform.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. The beauty of an open platform is that it can be whatever it needs to be based on the consensus at the top and the actions of its users.

(I found it here.)

What if one day, all Steemians decided that extraction of value is more important and all the unspoken rules about abuse are pushed aside for maximum gains? Before a new set of rules could be implemented from the top (if ever), here's a wild and imaginative scenario:

1. You will still have the 4 operations mentioned above running
2. Lots of self votes and comment farms
3. Probably zero flags because it's a waste of money
4. Burn operations become crucial in maintaining supply and circulation

What could happen is a mining town scenario where we are all here to get some tokens for sale; by any mean necessary. Some people get more. Some people get less. Everyone wins!

Sounds awesome, right? Not really. The reality is if extraction of value becomes the only objective, then only the biggest stake holders win. The reward pool is limited. You could never outvote them. Well, not unless the platform adopts concepts similar to staking pools and battle for market shares against other pools. Back to @malicered's point, people are not interested in what you put down, they are more interested in what they can get out of it.

Of course, by that point, Steem would be a useless token as it would serve no function. Also, the scenario I described would (probably) never happen. As greedy as some Steemians might be, there is no point if Steem/SBD are rendered meaningless.

What does an average Steemian do? Well, if you actually care about Steemit's development as a social platform, just carrying on what you are doing in the community. Interact with other people. Participate in Witness voting, even if you have a small stake right now.

Solutions to the platform's issues have been discussed to death on places like @utopian-io or @steemstarnetwork. I am sure many of you hear Witnesses such as @sircork or @jackmiller discussing about the problems that are apparent. If the Top 20 and STINC are not budging, chances are there will be no changes in the matter.

With uprising competition against Steemit and the Steem blockchain, hopefully the system will learn to adapt, or it will die as the market dictates. If Steemit cannot evolve and adapt to its competitions, then you will know it's a dodo from the start.

Until drastic changes happen, I will continue to spend my time here as a hobby blogger, listen to rants on radio shows, and occasionally indulge myself in @sherlockholmes's snide remarks.

So um...whatever happened to @johnwatson after the Polish girl who signed up to Steemit?