The myths of decentralized social media platforms versus the economic realities.
The myths of decentralized social media platforms versus the economic realities.
Many cryptocurrency supporters love to praise decentralized social media platforms, and there are alternatives to the very successful centralized social media platforms, we must not lose sight of a few inconvenient facts.
First, centralization has its advantages and disadvantages, the centralized platforms like Facebook and YouTube provide the platform to content producers for free and with literally millions of people using these platforms daily, the content producers get free exposure of their content to potentially to a very huge market. But the disadvantages include no guarantees of renumeration and the potential loss of your account and all your content, at the discretion of the owners and operators of these platforms. The terms of service clearly spell out that these are private for profit businesses and that they have the right to operate primarily in their own best interest. Plus content creators give up all rights of ownership of their own content, under voluntary Terms of Service which clearly spell out your lack of rights.
Second, decentralized alternatives to Facebook and YouTube exist, which offer censorship resistance, ownership of your account and your content. But despite the hype about getting paid for your content, the same lack of a guarantee of any renumeration for your content is the rule on decentralized platforms. Additionally the number of users is much smaller then their centralized counterparts right now, and the challenge of signing up new followers or even moving large numbers of subscribers from centralized to decentralized alternatives is very challenging.
Lastly, let’s be honest, decentralized social media platforms based on Delegated Proof of Stake are not inherently decentralized. I realize that may be a tough pill to swallow, but hear me out and allow me to explain my point. Hive is an excellent example of distributed proof of stake and stake based distributed consensus. But it is stake which allows you to have a voice and influence on this platform. Remember that the DPOS decentralized platforms all start out relatively centralized with the majority of the stake concentrated in the hands of the early participants, early adopters and others who bought or were awarded significant amounts of stake early on. But the power and influence can become more decentralized as rewards are earned, Tokens sold by early adopters are purchased by newcomers, tokens thus redistributed and then powered up by a larger and larger number of participants.
So it is the nature I believe of DPOS to start out relatively centralized and it is up to the community to participate through earning or purchasing the Token, and then Powering it up to distribute the Token widely. It is this widening distribution of the a Token, and the power and influence which comes with it, that creates a decentralized platform. In other words, I feel truly Decentralized platforms are not born, but become decentralized by the community buying and earning tokens and spreading out the power and influence on the platform until it’s truly decentralized.
In short, the dream of a truly decentralized platform alternative to Facebook and YouTube is not a fantasy, but it’s complicated goal to achieve and requires hard work producing content and the investment of fiat currency to buy stake to obtain a voice in governance and the right to vote.
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Title: The myths of decentralized social media platforms versus the economic realities.
Good explanation.
I disagree about eventually Dpos get more decentralized.
With the price of token growing more big speculators will enter and don't forget about exchanges owning big chunks of tokens.
I understand. These are additional challenges to decentralization, as success, in terms of increasing coin price attracts the attention of investors and exchanges, which is a double edged sword.
DPOS is dangerous to rouge exchange that plans a hostile takeover.
Hi @cloudspyder, I agree, but do you see any improvement on that? This is not black & white, there could be some kind of a solution, right?
Yes DPOS is vulnerable to exchanges when large amounts of a Token are not powered up, but instead held on exchanges or when the success of a coin attracts exchanges to buy large amounts of the Token. I think it is part of the learning process and evolution process of DPOS projects to learn from these challenges.
Welp, time will tell now won't it?
Yes.
Decentralized social media platforms offer different opportunities....
Yes it does. The different DPOS projects are all a bit different.
Hi, @shortsegments I had just read this post, you had published a good blog about the decentralized platform and also thanks for sharing your views on the decentralization platform. After a long time, I rejoined this platform. I have some years of experience in trading coins in different exchanges and I shared some thoughts about #eth in my blog. If you are interested then you can check it. Please check @analizo
Thanks for this post.
Hi @analizo
I will check your blog and cross post it here.
Thanks for your comment.
In latin america a project bought I think the name was Taringa, a social media platform with the intent of decentralizing it and spreading crypto! So there are economic realities that include social medias in the crypto space.
Hi @kemoglo
I haven’t heard of Taringa before. I will check it out. Do you have a link?
Thanks
I think you definitely make great points. It is important to be able to look at the facts objectively without emotion. You have done that here.
I think there are other opportunities to further decentralize the chain, but I think it will have to depend on the creation of a hybrid system in which something other than DPOS is brought in as sort of a checks-and-balances type system.
Thanks for your comment.
I agree that current DPOS needs to evolve into a better or hybrid form.
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Thank you for your comment and welcome to Steemit.
good one
Thank you for your comment.
Hi @shortsegments, I got your point and I agree. But, do you see any chance to improve DPoS system to be more fair? Do you have any ideas?
I think a few things which may help include: The voting for witnesses needs to change to a formula where wishes of the majority of the people cannot be over ridden by a very large account. The Steem on exchanges should not be used by exchanges to control governance, so a delay in the ability to vote for witnesses is needed.
Yes, the exchanges are a bit problematic. But how can you make the first thing - the majority of people not overvoted by very large accounts? Isn't it fair for those who have big stake to have a huge voice? I am thinking of it but no decision came to my mind. Also, the circle-voting which might be happening between those who are delegated, is there any chance to avoid it?
Hi,I think decreasing the amount of votes for witnesses and limiting the ability to power up Steem stored on exchanges would be helpful starting points.