You don't care about Steemit.
And no one else will, either. There are too many problems with the distribution of holdings and how new coins will be distributed for an end to this problem to be in sight given that hard fork 20 doesn't solve any of these issues. Almost no one is, whether intentionally or not, giving serious thought to why no one actually wants to use steemit. Vested interests will cripple the long-term success of steemit.com and the adoption of Steem as a coin.
If you do care about steemit's ultimate success then you owe it to yourself to read the comments in https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/hardfork-20-velocity-development-update
I admit, I am not feeling particularly sanguine about these changes. From a user perspective, particularly one who is interested in the social network aspects of the system, these look to dis-incentivize interaction with the blockchain as a person, dis-incentivize being a creator even over what the situation is now, and open the door to even more bots at every turn.
It's as though the expected use case was never for people to be using the system at all.
and part of another of his responses
I've learned a few useful things in my life, amongst which is went to look at a system and realize it is too far gone for the kind of changes that it will take to make it run well, or at least to run to the specifications set out in the documentation.
I will remind you that "stable system first," has but one outcome: "a system that no one uses." In on you system is perfectly stable, nothing comes along and disturbs its sweet interlude, no equilibrium is thrown free by accident or intent. If you are reaching for a stable system first, you will always find a system in which actually doing things is dis-incentivized – and such do we see.
After more than a year of operation, myriad automated means of curating have been developed, and most users depend on them. Those that are either not willing, or not able, to use automated curation leave. Of the accounts opened in 2016 but ~11% remained active as of Nov. 2017, and this includes bots, and multiples. No more than 10% of people that opened an account on Steemit in 2016, and probably less than 5% of them, remain on Steemit today.
This should be revelatory. At least 90% of people that came to Steemit and opened an account, interested in a social media platform and new cryptocurrency rewards mechanism would be interested in a platform that didn't feature either a) bots and automated curation, b) oligarchical concentration and control of rewards, or c) some combination of those with other perceived problems of Steemit, such as it's flagging/censorship mechanism, UI, or so forth.
Where would Farkbork be today if it had such user retention? Youtool? Twatter?
The world is ripe for a social media platform that rewards content creators fairly.
People are waiting for that platform today, and HF20 won't deliver it.
Worst of all, Farkbork just acquired Charlie Lee's stake in Litecoin. ZuckerBorg is about to start monetizing likes. Steemit's window of opportunity may already have closed.
HF 20 is too little, too late, and Steemit has screwed up a huge opportunity to actually change the social media landscape. The <1% who have >90% want to protect what they have, and in doing so aren't willing to risk what trivial amount of monetary power they have now in return for the potential social media marketshare they can only dream of. They're gripping the golden goose by the neck too tightly, and it's scaring any sane users away.
Normal people won't use steemit, only those desperate enough and impoverished enough for what small trickle of steem comes their way will stay after a few days' use. The lack of honest content discovery mechanisms will continue to push high-quality content producers away. If everyone who comes in and uses logic does the math sees how payouts are calculated see it as one big, fat pyramid steem, will they really be all that wrong?
Keep it up.
You too, friend.
I hear you, even though your account name doesn´t make it very appealing to interact tbh. ;)
These are valuable point, but I have to say, that over the past weeks, I had much more meaningful interactions here than in all the years in Facebook combined.
You seem pissed and you have every right to be, but the other side of the coin is, that STEEM is only in its infancy and as with every technology out there, it´s what the people are making out of it.
Cheers!
It was somewhat ironically chosen, though I'm not sure if I want to identify as a bot or not. Robot rights are looking tenuous right now.
I'm not angry, but it's very apparent that the direction steemit has been going and seems to be headed is squandering a very strong opportunity. Without more honest discussions on what should be improved and why, we will continue to see increased interest from the masses only when the price goes up. Retention will continue to be abysmal because exponential price growth isn't possible in the long-run, but it's definitely possible to be a billion-plus user website.
I guess the main problem with mass adoption is that the inner workings and economy of Steem is way too complicated for an average user. Last week I tried to explain Steem to some Facebook friends and even though I was explaining it like to an 5 year old, I saw how hard even the concept was to grasp for them. Even I as an "advanced user" needed 2 weeks to get the basics and most people won´t take the time for that. So I think that before Steem can attract a broader audience, the basic functions have to get simplified - and while people like Dan are already busy with other projects, there has to be someone (or the community) to step up - but this is what I´m seeing here on many occasions and in different groups - so I´m still very positive, even though I have to agree to most of your points too...