Shocked at Dlive's bombshell!
I got up this morning, checked my emails, looking for news about a mountain trip – and there was a bombshell.
Dlive is leaving the Steem blockchain!
I read the email several times, wondering if I was missing something. It said that Dlive would be migrating to the Lino blockchain testnet on Monday, September 24th. That's just three days away!
A glance at the Dlive trending tag on Steemit confirmed the news – it wasn't my sleep-addled brain playing tricks on me.
It's not all bad news
I am writing this while still slightly in shock. And as I write, I start to realise that there are a couple of positives in this.
On the downside:
• The price of Steem has been low for some time now. One thing that gives me a lot of faith in Steemit over the long term is the incredible development taking place on the Steem blockchain. Therefore it's unsettling to see a platform like Dlive leaving.
• Using Dlive has been a joy, and when problems have cropped up, the interaction with the Dlive team has been fantastic. Dtube was the trigger that got me actually posting on Steemit, yet I've never succeeded in actually uploading a video to it. Until I bought a new tablet computer, I was unable to even view videos on Dtube, or look at their front page, and even on my new tablet with the latest version of Google Chrome, I was still unable to post videos. So I was delighted to find that I was able to easily post videos on Dlive using my new tablet. I was even able to view those videos on my ageing computer.
On the upside:
I've recently built a Wordpress blog for my Steemit posts, which in a way is a kind of "hedge" against what I see as a very unlikely prospect. There is always a possibility, however remote, that Steemit could go up in a puff of smoke. And if that happens, my Wordpress blog means I will still have a record of everything I published on it.
I use the Steempress plugin to send my posts to Steemit. But when I post videos, I have to post them directly from Dlive. From now on, I will post my videos on Lino, or on another platform, and then embed them in my Wordpress blog for posting to Steemit, just as some Steemians embed their YouTube videos in Steemit posts.
Short-sighted?
I can see why Dlive is doing this, though I'm sad that they appear to have lost faith in the Steemit model, or in some aspects of it. They are looking at the long-term growth of their platform, and with new competitors like BitTube and VIMM.TV springing up they need to ensure that their business model is solid and that they are able to reward their developers.
Dlive's stated reasons for the move appear – in my view – to be short-sighted. In a post explaining their move, @wa7 says:
...we were not able to reward our content creators with the true value of their content.and
...the current economic model of Steem incentivizes large Steem holders to continuously upvote their own content and other creators who specifically support their content. This creates an ecosystem where a content’s true value can't be recognized or be fairly rewarded.As someone who was interested in Bitcoin back in 2012, but who didn't trust it enough to actually buy it, and who purchased 100 Ether in the crowdsale but then sold out shortly before the price exploded, I think this is a short-sighted view.We believe that this problem, along with the current market conditions has led to a decreased consumption rate of live streams and videos on the platform and is one of the most important issues we are looking to resolve.
Source
When a post I have spent a lot of time on earns less than $1, I think – that amount could easily be multiplied by 100 or more at any time within the next few years.
OK, so that's speculation, but it's based on my solid experience of cryptocurrencies over the past few years. The pump-and-dump schemes have evaporated into nothing, but when a truly innovative concept arrives, it just takes a bit of time for most people to cotton onto it – and when they do, it explodes.
Long-term investment
So I don't look at the "earnings" at the bottom of my Steemit or Dlive posts as their actual value in today's terms. I see it as a longer-term investment, as early Bitcoins, or early Ether. Who cares how much the whales are earning? Good for them! They are the ones who saw the long-term value of Steemit early on, and stuck with it.
Try starting a YouTube account from scratch, or a conventional internet blog, and see how long it takes to make even a cent!
Having said that, I can see why Dlive feels the need to get itself onto a more financially sound footing where it can reward its hard-working team. I will be checking out Lino.
These are exciting times.
Main photo source
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://ramblingandscrambling.co.uk/uncategorized/shocked-at-dlives-bombshell/
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Yeah I was also a bit in shock when I heard the news. It was right before I was about to go to sleep, suffice to say I stayed up longer.
I'm not sure if they were telling the truth in that post though. I kinda feel like they might have been planning this longer than it would seem.
Oh yes, definitely. And it raises so many questions. Will the videos I've been making for Dlive be available on their blockchain now? Could they be used to sell ads without me making a penny from them? We're swimming in uncharted waters here. I'll be very interested to see how it pans out.
I was also surprised to see dlive leaving the steemit blockchain. I have never heard of Lino but I guess I will be looking into it now since i believe dlive had a pretty good platform and will to continue to grow. I really wish they would stay but i wish them luck in leaving..
I feel the same. I think Lino is the creation of Dlive. They seem to be quite a dynamic team. Definitely one to keep an eye on.
I think you have the right attitude with the tokens/price. We need to be thinking in terms of tokens, and not the USD value at the bottom of the page. That is the important thing that I think many people lose sight of. The USD is for when you cash out, the tokens are for your long-term investment goal.
Spot on. In fact I'd prefer it if it was the Steem price at the bottom of the post, instead of a dollar amount.
Steempeak shows STU instead of dollars. It is also a much better experience!
I took a very brief look at it the other day. I'll need to look into it further. It sounds good.
You know you can upload a video directly to wordpress if you're on a self hosted site which you would be if you're using Steempress. The only problem is that the video doesn't come over to Steemit. Have asked the team a couple of times in Discord but got no response on that.
Thanks @livinguktaiwan. In fact, that's what I'm going to try to do. I didn't do that previously, as I wanted my videos to be part of the Dlive community. That's why none of my videos are on my WordPress blog... yet! But I can see some exciting ways of doing this – if they work out!
This really doesn't affect me personally since I don't do videos but it does affect the steemit platform because lots of people do use it. So I was mainly interested in reading your take on it from e regular user point of view.
It may be a short sighted play on their part or it may just be a rocket ship taking off over there on Lino. Only time will tell I guess.
I suppose it shows that we can't rely on anything on Steemit. It's a decentralised platform, so dapp owners can come and go as they please. They've lost their delegation though, so it's a risky move for them.
My guess would be that there will be another delegation for them at their new "home", strictly a guess though on my part.
Actually I think they are the creators of the Lino platform.
Couple of things really jump out at me. I actually have a perfectly serviceable WP blog site that I am currently not using. I'm going to seriously re think that. Thank you!
I'm not a video guy, at least not yet. I am quietly collecting videos that I want to share and will have 'on the hook' when I am ready. My biggest problem is to find an intuitive editor for Linux. Everybody seems to assume that since I use Linux that I don't really need remedial instruction. I do.
Anyway, thanks for the post. As always well thought and spoken,
Thanks for your comment @bigtom13. I really recommend Steempress. It's very easy to use - just a few easy tweaks to the plugin in Settings and you're ready to go.
The only issue I've had is with sizing images – until I worked out what was causing the problem. Not sure if it's just on the WP template I'm using, but my photos looked great on the WP blog, but on Steemit they were either tiny or massive sizes, taking ages to load. Then I worked out what the problem was.
When you go into the picture editor in the Wordpress editor, there's a bit that says "Link to" and a drop-down menu. By default it was set to "Media File". You have to change it to "None".
I can't help you with Linux though. I find it difficult enough getting my videos into a suitable size and format to upload!