Are Witnesses Relevant Today?
I know nobody would believe me if I would say that I got the question in the title as a comment to one of my posts, so here's the screenshot:
This confirmed me once again that the biggest enemy of decentralization is not buggy tech, angry governments or some other conspiracy.
The biggest enemy of decentralization is lack of education. The biggest enemy of decentralization is confusion about how things work and inflated expectations. It's greed, or, when it's not greed, it's ignorance.
To all who are reading this post now, and to all who will read this post in one year, or in two years, or in ten years:
Witnesses are the building blocks of a DPoS blockchain, such as Steem. Without witness nodes to validate blocks, there will be no STEEM tokens, no posts, no comments, no votes, no transactions. Each and every thing that happens on the Steem blockchain is because of witnesses.
Hopefully, if I keep repeating this more often than every year, more people will understand why witnesses are fundamental and why voting for witnesses is paramount.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Wanna know when you're getting paid?
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I know the feeling. That's why I created steem.supply, an easy to use and accurate tool for calculating your Steemit rewards |
Its like asking, are miners important to bitcoin. If there are no block producers, there will be no blockchain and hence no reward and no crypto. Lack of knowledge is not just limited to steemit. There ia a lot of confusion about blockchain and cryptocurrency and that is because of 2 reasons -
people are more interested in price and not tech. YouTubers who talk about top 5 cryptos have more views than someone talking about technical underpinnings or the github code. Views are also higher if you tell which crypto will make you a millionaire next.
influential people from the centralised world talk down cryptos. Blockchain good bitcoin bad kind of stuff. Most people want knowledge to be given to them as opposed to seeking it.
Agree. That's why educating people is a priority. Also, new people coming into this field should really take the time to learn before making any moves. Otherwise, it's like jumping into water hoping you'll learn to swim, somehow, eventually. Some of them are swimming, if they're trying hard enough, but the vast majority are "drowning", meaning they get disappointed and just leave. That's the real danger.
Absolutely true. I wonder how many people got burnt during this year chasing money in cryptos. And specifically to steemit, there are many people who express disappointment because they arent getting successful. Both require investment of time to understand and people who are early adopters can chip in by educating people more, which i think they are already doing but they cant control what newcomers are interested in.
I'm sure there are plenty. The FOMO was especially real last December, leaving a lot of bag holders. If a person knows nothing about investing and the technology, it's a double whammy kind of dangerous.
They literally do not know what they are jumping into. This also somewhat addresses why Bitconnect was so successful at scamming.
that's very good point. that's why bitconnect was successful. Yeah mate, i agree, it is very important to not only understand basic principles of investing, but also to some extent the tech behind all this. You should know where your money is going.
@dragosroua: Pardon my ignorance. I am pretty new to this blockchain based platform. I am still trying to find my feet here. I started reading FAQ articles in Steemit. One link led to another and I finally landed into your article which was the only one which spoke about witness. I am just trying to learn and get familiar. Thanks for the response.
You're welcome and I salute your desire to know more and your diligence. Keep being a curious person and try to educate yourself, and the world will slowly become a better place. Not only for you, but for everybody.
Most people understand spreadsheets, as they can see all the pieces therein.
Most people do not understand databases.
As they can't see how it is structured.
You can't see it on the screen, you have to see it in your mind.
And a distributed database is even worse. Most people have no idea of the complexity of a central database. They have even less of an idea about a database that is being run on a bunch of servers.
The gossiping algorithms go over most people's heads, and that is the easy part to understand.
And, as you said, most people do not care, they just want to use it.
Whatever f-c-book is doing is fine, as long as they don't start censoring what i see and type.
I do agree that it has to do with the education! I am now 5 months here on the Steem Blockchain and it did take me 3 months to understand the importance of the witnesses!
When starting out there is some much to learn and people tend to focus more on trying to understand the steem game. Then slowly they will understand the importance of the witnesses. Then the investigation should start who to vote for.
I did my votes based on several aspects. The witnesses which are doing something great for the chain, like you with steem.supply, witnesses who do find engagement very important (@steemcommunity for instance) and witnesses which are interactive and not just mining block to get rewarded. I don't mind that the witnesses get rewarded but I won't vote for one who only does it for the reward and doesn't care about what is going on!
Cheers,
Peter
It is important to understand the reason why Steemit is working and benefitting us all. Without the fundamental knowledge, we may not be maneuvering well on the platform and may do some silly blunders due to our lack of knowledge. Without witness, there will be no Steem blockchain and the system will just crumble down. I see being a witness is not an easy task either, which I respect every bit of effort from them. Kudos to @dragosroua!
This is like a democratic system, if you are not voting for someone that you believe in, someone who you don't trust will represent you.
Witnesses are to steemit, what blood is to the body of humans.
Witnesses are important part in any work .
Steem is a very good work side , this side witness is very important issue .
Upvote you .
And thanks for sharing @dragosroua
well said ignorance is our biggest enemy. It's so nice of you, you shared the importance of witness in blockchain. Actually Blockchain technology is new for newbies, so they always ask same questions repeatedly. even many minnows don't know about the concept of witness.Thanks for educating newbiews. @dragosroua
I never know it before :O Witnesses are so important.
Yes, but also because we're decentralised here the obligation to provide a comprehensive FAQ and how-to for noobs falls into nobody's hands!
And then all geeks come down stomping on people, who struggle to understand the basics of steem blockchain or simply don't know how to find the right info.
I love decentralisation, but every stick has two ends unfortunately!
If by ""all geeks" you are referring to me, well, I filmed and published on dTube and Skillshare a "Steemit 101" 30 minutes course, I have in my signature, always, links to more than 10 articles about the Steem blockchain and I do my best to respond personally to all Steem related inquiries (as you could see from the screenshot above). I do this constantly as I firmly believe this is part of my role, as witness.
If newcomers see a text like this: "Pssst, new to Steemit?" and then a link "Start here", but they don't even bother to click on it, whose responsibility is this?
Maybe there is a certain reluctancy from some geeks to do this like I do it, constantly, but that doesn't mean newcomers have to take everything for granted and not even bother to read the white paper. It's the most basic things of all: read the fucking white paper, because you are on a blockchain-based website, which has everything lined up from its inception. Not like Facebook or Twitter, who don't have anything like that, and who are stealing your personal data.
I will agree to disagree with you on the comment above: there is not stick. There are just two kinds of people: folks who realize they are confused and struggle to get out of it, by educating themselves, and sleepwalkers.
No, I meant the other ones, cause you're actually making an effort to guide the noobs through complicated reality of steem blockchain.
Ok, let's take the example of White Paper, which I read, and it does provide the answers to basic questions, but it doesn't address the practical issues of working with blockchain... and obviously it doesn't address the politics on steemit.
But I can bet 90% of newcomers don't even know that there's such a thing as White Paper, and that's the problem IMO!