chainBB beta beneficiaries moving to 15%

in #chainbb7 years ago

This may be a somewhat controversial move - but it's probably best done before the project goes on any longer.

As of this post, I am raising the post beneficiaries amount (the amount shared with the platform) up to 15% of rewards. Previously this value was set at 1% for testing while I discussed the options for growing chainBB with others.

The goal of this post is to explain why and potentially even spark some excitement about it.

Why the increase?

I want chainBB to grow into something big, and in order to effectively grow it, it needs to establish a steady stream of revenue for itself and those who contribute to it.

The site you see on beta.chainbb.com today is incredibly minimal in it's features. I'd estimate about 200-300 hours went into the initial prototype on steemdb and the development that went into chainBB itself. These hours were all put in by me - primarily because I love prototyping out applications and doing things no one's done.

However, to move beyond the prototype state it's going to take a lot more than just my efforts. It will take a couple people, some decent infrastructure, and a lot of time. I am still working on the estimates on what it would take to make chainBB "feature complete" and launch a community platform, but my initial guess is somewhere between 3-6 months with a small team.

What does the new rewards model for chainBB look like?

The current model on the Steem blockchain (and steemit.com) divides the reward pool up like so:

  • 75% to the Authors
  • 25% to the Curators

This new model, which only applies to posts created using chainBB, will further divide the 75% to Authors, creating the following model:

  • 60% to the Authors
  • 25% to the Curators
  • 15% to the Platform (chainBB)

If I could instead take a cut of curation rewards instead of author rewards, I would. Curation is effectively meaningless on chainBB since voting don't impact visibility and is purely for support.

Why was 15% chosen?

I won't dive too much into detail, as this post is growing large enough, but I sat down and created a list of all the people that should be rewarded for participating within a forum-type ecosystem:

  • chainBB team (devs/marketers/designers/etc)
  • participants
  • moderators
  • forum organizers/owners
  • forum operators
  • investors

The "participants" (e.g. people writing posts) are already rewarded for participation through the blockchain - but none of these other crucial roles have any opportunity to be rewarded unless they write posts. 15% is the number deducted from the Author Rewards, but in the end it won't all go to chainBB. A portion of the rewards earned will go to the roles outlined above for their incredibly valuable contributions to the platform.

As a note - the communities protocol (once released) may reward some of these roles to a degree. It will be implemented within chainBB and adjustments may be made at that time as to how this all works.

Why not crowdfund?

This post isn't meant to say that's not in the plans. This isn't replacing crowdfunding, it's designed to supplement it. When/if some sort of crowdfunding campaign begins, being able to point at a functional reward model that has helped sustain chainBB will inspire confidence in how the idea can work.

If I were an investor and had the opportunity to invest in either a business with no income or a business with income, I'd choose the one with income.

Where will these rewards go?

At this very beginning stage, the rewards will be routed to the @chainbb account and used to cover my time, potential contract developers time, server costs, legal fees, advisors and any other expenses that arise. The rewards are also paid out in Steem Power, so powering down 1/13th of this balance every week into Steem will occur.

Will it change from 15% in the future?

It might, I can't say for certain. What I can say is that I currently have no plans to increase it beyond 15%.

To the other projects out there - you should consider the same

There are a lot of great apps being built on the Steem blockchain and I'd like to see those also reach their full potential.

Having a low beneficiaries percentage (or no beneficiaries) might be a great way to attract users vs another platform, but you need to take care of yourself and your product too. We can't keep working for free, and I don't think any magical fairy is going to just drop money on your doorstep because you're doing what you said you would. Demonstrating a viable revenue model for your business is important to any current or future investors, and I don't think "writing posts and earning rewards" would be good enough.

There's also the issue of raising it once you're established. If you've run your app for a year and have grown a userbase who's used to it being free, there's likely to be a little shock (and disillusionment) once you do raise it. The smaller your userbase is when you set your beneficiaries, likely the better. If it turns out to be too much - your users will also be happy if you decrease it.

What do you think?

I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this kind of setup. As a community, we need to develop business models that will help Steem grow into a multi-site ecosystem where users have a choice on what platform they use. The biggest platform (steemit.com) doesn't have this issue because they have a mountain of Steem - but the rest of us wanting to enter this space need to find our groove.

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Thank for you great work @jesta!

Great work, Lets hope it works out for better

I recently joined chainbb, and I'll tell you.. it's really user friendly. The work is very much appreciated. Thank you guys.

You already have it well thought out. As to my personal opinion as owner of Steem power:

I'd like to steer way more resources for devs that build on Steem. There needs to be more info and more support so newcomers feel like they should be building on here rather than on some other chain. Cough, ethereum.

15% cut is reasonable, as your project could really be a huge deal.
Every gaming clan and community for example uses forums. That alone is a good market to tap in to.

From there it could spread like wildfire.

Exactly :)

As I mentioned, I'd also want to reward the people starting/managing those gaming clan forums and communities as well. By going to 15% from the Author Rewards, a few % of that 15% could then go to these community builders. Maybe if a gaming clan came along and ran a forum, they'd get 1% of the rewards and chainBB would get 14%, or some other split.

Once more time is devoted to building chainBB, doing multiple splits like that to multiple accounts won't be all that difficult, all while the author still gets the 60%.

edit - fixed math

"By going to 15% from the Author Rewards, a few % of that 15% could then go to these community builders.".

Well that's just great news, nothing wrong with giving people that extra incentive to adopt chainBB.

I would like to start a gaming thread or two, I plan on running a community on here when it starts. How do the rewards work for authors on that site compared to steemit?

Wise sayings @igster, hopefully @jesta could give it a try.

I support it, and I think it is a great model for similar platforms to use going forward. We want great developers to be building tools/platforms for Steem, and it is not right to expect that these highly skilled developers put their talents to use for free.

If you can guarantee me that you wont start your own blockchain in the future for chainBB, i will be blogging using chainBB as long as the eye can see.

Putting me on the spot huh? ;)

Unfortunately I can't make that promise.

I can't predict or control exactly what the future holds for the Steem blockchain. I only have 1/20th of the power that witnesses hold in steering, and have no say what Steemit Inc does otherwise. On the other hand, if I was in charge of it all, I imagine that promise would be a bit easier to make.

There's a number of possible situations I can come up that would cause me to go back on my word:

  • a change to Steem in order improve steemit.com/busy/etc model, yet cripples the concept of a forum
  • opposite of that, the forums are super successful, and activity generated by the forums start actually causing problems for steemit.com/busy/etc
  • the blockchain itself ends up growing so large that it needs to be split somehow
  • investors enter the equation and demanded a alternative path

What we say here is etched into the blockchain forever, so I won't make a promise to you that I can't keep.

I still occasionally hear rumblings of people wanting to bring back 50% curation rewards... which now I'm more biased against because I'm pretty sure that'd be terrible for forums.

I think that it's great that anyone can monetize the STEEM blockchain in a way that they want. I think it's smart of you to already have your eyes on the future and realize to implement this change now before it becomes a bigger struggle. My first thought was 15% sounds high. Then I read the explanation and now think it's fair. Thanks for everything you do to make the Steem blockchain better.

Thanks for taking the time to dive in and understand! You had the same reaction I did as well, where it seemed high that it might even turn people away. It does make sense though, and most likely steemit.com would have to do the same thing if they didn't have the funding they do.

It's an awesome business tool and I think to really plan long term, those in the space need to find ways to use it and bring value in exchange for it. My plan is to make some awesome forums :)

Was ChainBB the forum arm of Steemit? Am I right?

Sort of? I'm not any way affiliated with Steemit.com, but it is the forum interfacec for the Steem blockchain ;)

Do you plan to place Ads or sell ad space?

I think it would be website/project dependent really.

I personally don't have any plans to put ads on the chainBB platform itself or any of the communities that pop up and run within it. The post beneficiaries are designed to prevent the need for that. However, that doesn't mean other forums couldn't exist (different websites even) and sell advertising through them - still powered by the same chainBB systems, and on the blockchain. There may be situations where the community wants to run ads, who knows.

Was this question because you don't want ads or was it because you like ads and wanted to buy them? hah :)

I'm thinking about like a signature campaign ads, an ad space to user's post, so additional profit to the users.

Definitely a possibility, I hadn't even considered the addition of forum signatures yet. If that does happen, it'll probably be down the road, gotta get things like profile pages and editing posts working first ;)

I wouldn't even be mad if you did, just crypto only advertising please :p

Hah, that was one of the first things that came to mind. I actually bought icoforum.com the other day because I thought it might be neat to launch it as a place to talk about all these crazy ICOs happening lately. That would be the perfect spot for some crypto advertising.

Can't agree more for the moment!

In the first few steps now needed, development becomes paramount , along with a progressively rising amount of proper advertisement. Great job, looking forward to seeing the results of your work as time moves on. Namaste :)

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