Taking Off Our Steem Goggles - Humbly Learning From Steem's Competition To Reinforce Our Weaknesses
I believe that Steem can level up much faster if we make a more concerted effort to respect, analyze, and learn from our competition.
I think it's critical to accept that much of our competition is clearly doing something right. With this reality, there should be practical and viable ways to translate some of that success and innovation over to our blockchain, especially if they address any of Steem's weaknesses.
Confirmation bias is normal and hard to avoid, but let's not get left in the dust. Steem has its flaws and struggles.
For exercise, think about how many times we've seen pro-Steem content proclaiming it the greatest thing since sliced bread.
- Steem is awesome because of this.
- Steem should be a top 5 token because of that.
- Steem has the best tech to plug into and the fastest free tx's.
- Tokenized businesses and communities will be all over Steem in the future.
- Once Steem is on more exchanges, we'll take off.
- SMTs, NFTs, DPOS, etc., etc...
Now think about how many times you've heard people bashing Steem's competition.
Why do people bash other coins when they're compared to Steem? It seems to be a knee-jerk reaction for some, and I think that's the wrong way to go about it.
How many times have wars, sporting matches, or business opportunities been lost because people didn't respect their competition? Countless times. Bashing is not the way. Studying their strengths and weaknesses is.
Sure, Steem in its entirety is exciting. People have spent tons of their personal time engaging on the chain and with others doing the same. Bias is understandably massive. People have gone all-in or spent many years here devoted to the cause.
While pro-Steem content and marketing is often good to keep our eyes on the prize, reality says that we're behind on attaining that said prize.
Buy and sell volume is routinely super low, a fraction of the top tokens. Price action tends to lag other ALTs, potentially due to liquid Steem sell pressure in thin order books. The active user base also hasn't experienced any strong level of new user growth in ages. In fact, it seems to have shrunk significantly, bear market excuse or not.
It could be great that we're a hidden diamond in the rough at a meteoric discount before the masses... or MAYBE we need to revisit our competition with a bit more respect to make sure we're keeping up. Are many highly-staked leaders stuck in a sunk-cost fallacy mindset where they're no longer able to see the playing field clearly? I don't know. Just a thought.
We all see posts, interviews, vlogs, and Tweets pumping Steem. They tend to focus on why Steem is different, better, and will be better. This framing bias perpetuates it for others. That's generally ok with me, as we need people with a big vision to help Steem and sell it overall to those who need a hook. This does subconsciously keep me involved in the community, slowly earning Steem as a personal experiment.
On the flip side, I'm not sure I see the same energy put into why Steem is NOT as successful as many other blockchains to date. It's time to pause and run some analysis. Critical thinking is required. Steem has been around for enough time now, with plenty of exposure to expect more users and investors by now -- regardless of price. The adoption/retention stats and trading volumes tell the true story, and this has always been a concern for me to hold me back from stocking up on Steem.
Self reflection:
Maybe it's not...
So... I ask those got this far, how are other blockchains BETTER than Steem? Think about it. Why are you invested elsewhere? Get specific. Do you know, or is Steem your only true love?
I think we can do a much better job of actively pinpointing what other major chains feature and excel at, and recognizing that the cryptosphere clearly respects them for it.
I believe that doing this will show our devs and witnesses that we have lots of work to do outside of dreaming about how our Field Of Dreams will attract the best and brightest down the line. We're clearly miles ahead of some chains, but I think we're also a bit behind others. A good hard critical look at both sides can ultimately help Steem stay in tune and also start to attract more of the critical crypto base mass that seems to have eluded us for many years.
I think some of it is due to so much attention being placed on Steemit. Cardano is a great example that we shouldn't be focusing on price at all. They have landed contracts to make national IDs and a central bank, partnered with New Balance to authenticate their upper level shoes, yet their value is still where it was before that.
I disagree with many who think the more coins/tokens the merrier. Perhaps once they become more mainstream this will be the case, but right now the interest for the masses just isn't here. Most don't want to be their own bank, don't want to risk losing things through carelessness. Of all the things I think Steem addressed (although only partially) was the ability to make ones wallet a name.
It seems (to me) that a chain that wants the masses to come will have to figure out how to offer a centralized exterior that will handle the hassles most don't want, while allowing those who prefer decentralized (along with the accompanying risks) their ability to access.
The one question I keep asking (as someone ignorant on coding and much of the tech world) is if this is open source and so great, something that will make companies more streamlined, why aren't they interested either? Why aren't programmers hustling up applications to make their fortunes? Back in the day I remember people of various code skill designing games and giving away freeware to get people to buy the unlocked version. Why is this not happening in the crypto sphere? Why not here on Steem?
I have exposure to a lot of blockchains. This is the only one I can shitpost and actually participate in governance. It's fun, even if I don't get rich doing it.
Is there anything you see blatantly missing from Steemt that some of those other chains feature which aren’t a bad idea to consider integrating or modeling?
Hell yeah, hardware wallet support hands down. Even if I had to have a have a numbered account with no friendly name. As long as I had the ability to sign simple transactions like sending, delegating, and setting proxies, I'd be all over it.
And just to be clear, I have the ability to vote on proposals for other blockchains as well, but it's all very clinical.
What's going on with your comments being flagged?
Desperate trolls branching out to downvoting comments, and downvoting people by association. Sad really.
I am with ya there!
There's too many humans here and also not enough..
Posted using Partiko Android
Hey I've got a good one. I just complained yet again how mobile steem sucks, specifically steempeak.. They asked for input so I told them copy partiko. They replied they want actual specific input. That's the model here, put the onus on the user to do devs jobs.. Sure they're not hired but that's business in the start up world. Why should I spell out for them how to make something decent for mobile FFS.. I don't get dick for my time here so I give what I get..
All very true. Unfortunately the reward structure doesn't necessarily lend itself toward critical analysis.
I'm not sure if it's the rewards structure alone, or those doing the bulk of the rewarding.
Yes perhaps the latter...
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