Did minds.com fail?
I think I opened an account there, but I can't remember to be honest. The system was full of Alex Jonesian posts, left and right and I felt like it was not somewhere where I could find a community. That being said, I was interested in the concept, still am, but I struggled to understand how the monetization was going to take off.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Purple123/v4/09/30/fa/0930fa75-ef97-2f58-6feb-02ce835cc4e1/AppIcon-0-1x_U007emarketing-0-85-220-0-10.png/1200x630wa.png)
minds.com
Ethereum's shortcomings
I'm not anti-ether and I want to make that clear before anyone goes after my throat. I just know, and this is not debatable at this point, that it's not ideal for microtransactions. Let's face the music, the cost of gas alone would render microtransactions painfully expensive, and this is on top of the fact that network confirmations take ten sometimes 20 minutes on any given day.
I fully realize there's a roadmap, and in the future, potentially, when Ethereum 2.0 is actually a thing, we will be looking at a system that can handle all of these things. There's the idea of sharding, for example, which if implemented, in my opinion, would be the game changer that would set Ethereum as the true king of smart contracts, but... I digress.
Point is that minds.com and hence the mind token runs on Ethereum, and because of this the very concept is flawed to begin with. They are running a mile with heavy boots on a very, very sandy beach and calling it efficient.
Utility token Mind
The concept somewhat simple: The token is not tradable (sounds like #voice), you have to earn it through content creation and interaction, or purchase it directly from them (not like #voice). At this very second they are 15 cents to buy, but if you take into account GAS prices, you would be paying close to 70 cents or so per token.
Since there's a demand for them, although relatively small, you can trade them peer to peer with other users of the platform. Since there's no actual market to do this, the whole thing is based on trust, and if you can't see the problem here, I don't know what to tell you.
So what does the Mind token do? Apparently, one thing: It boosts posts to the top. Yes, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. So might ask yourself: Why would I buy a token on an obscure platform to boost content to a tiny audience? And I don't actually have an answer for you at this very moment.
Economic Models
Are not easy, and even more importantly they are difficult to setup within a legal framework. In other words, nobody can just open up a stripe/paypal account and begin selling tokens, without taking all the steps to avoid being sued into oblivion.
It's probably because of this that minds.com has kept its functionality and economic model very simple. But, simple to the point where I don't really think its actually working. Of course, I could be wrong here, I just don't see how.
So to answer the question...
Did it fail?
I see it standing on very feeble legs at the moment. It's an echo chamber for a very niched group and unless I'm missing a big chunk of the picture, I don't know how the funds they've collected, since it's inception and through the overpriced and cumbersome token sales.
What are your thoughts on minds.com?
I'm very interested in it also, but there is no community of gamers there or people who do alternative healing from abuse. Those are two topics I talk a lot about and I can't find an audience there. Right now I'm sticking to YouTube for that and Dtube for other things. I feel that at the moment, these alternative platforms have very specific groups of people and very few people there share the same interests as many with whom I connect on Steemit or YT.
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Yeah, I remember you writing about trying out Minds. But that's very odd, why do I remember something so minor like this while you don't? :P
I vaguely remember my experience with it... and can't for the life of me remember the password (just tried), so it's as good as dead.
Start using a password manager. I've been using LastPass for over a year now and I'm pretty happy with it. All my passwords are crazy 30 character long random messes that nobody will ever guess...including me. :)
I recently looked at it and it looked to have quite a few improvements since I last saw it. But I don't know since I haven't fully explored that platform. Ignoring what has taken a presence there, do you see it as something you would use if others went to it? I know there's the thing about gas but just focusing on the website itself. And eventually of eth is successful at solving its scaling issues that could all get resolved.
I don't really think I could use it... I'm not convinced on tokenomics that are very rigid.
Greed is an ugly word, so we've invented more palatable concepts to embrace it's necessity, and ambition is part of the gamification of an economic system. If there's no real reason to stack up MIND tokens, and no exchange, the only way the go up is if minds.com becomes the new facebook. What is the likelihood of that?
and I only say this because if the amount of eyes on minds.com is in the billions, then it would make sense for people to pay more for the visibility. But the problem is circular. It's not no visibility, so the token is cheap, the token is cheap because it has no visibility.
@freebornangel recently had this comment that suggested the people behind minds.com wanted to speak with the Steem-engine folks.
That could be epic
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I joined. It looked quite nice is all I can say. Zero diversity of user ....but every few weeks I get an email giving me some free tokens or other but as you say, erc-20 tokens are slow and cumbersome.
It's not going to last
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It's always difficult to create anything with significant impact when you're working against someone who has the "First Mover Advantage."
I have a Minds account. Last I checked, I could still log into it. I have about 14 tokens. I have no idea what that means, or whether the site will live or die.
I tried it for a while, it is boring
Did they run their app on Steem? No? Well, there’s your answer.
(Okay, okay, I will also read your post.)
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I want to say I got an email from them today... Or maybe it was an article about it on medium... Too much input, sn0n42 is behind on caching.. memory error... Bleep bloop... LoL. Rebooting * flatlines *
Not an unexpected fate to such a failed attempt at a social network, just like yours.org and honest.cash on the BCH team.
Hey it might just be the blocks aren't big enough!
Block size doesn't matter :^) (That's what she said)