HF20, Pay To Play, and RC Pools
Everyone is calling HF20 pay to play, and nothing could be farther from the truth. Granted, most of the outrage and apocalyptic gloom and doom has settled now that the cost of comments has been brought to a reasonable level, but wasn't that obviously going to be the case?
The heinous HF20 transition really brought out the worst in people. It is yet another reminder that we've been conditioned to have a tempter tantrum if we fail to receive instant gratification. Have you ever heard the expression "watching the grass grow"? Those days are dead. If the grass doesn't grow in the next five minutes I'm not interested.
Pay To Play
The concept of pay to play is simple. You are paying someone to use their service. Even if the service is technically free many users who want more are forced to pay. This tactic is known as Pay To Win, and it's not hard to see why Steemians would make the mistake of assuming that HF20 is a big step forward in the Pay To Win direction.
There's only one problem: Resource Credits are still free. Could you imagine playing a game, paying for a resource, spending it, but still having a more valuable commodity left in your possession afterwards? Steem coins are this commodity. How can it possibly be pay to play if you haven't lost any money?
How much are we willing to spend on a video game anyway? Like $60. Anyone who spends that much on Steem right now will have more than enough RCs to interact. More importantly, those coins belong to them for as long as they choose.
Cost of decentralization.
Why do we assume that posting information to the blockchain (FOREVER) should be free in the first place? Because that's how traditional social media operates? That stance implies you'd rather let a corporation monetize your identity than pay a little bit to own your data. It is ironically a mindset born from both entitlement and scarcity at the same time.
Why would you sell your online identity to a corporation for less than it's worth? Because you don't have the means to monetize it like they can. It was worthless to you, so you gave it away for a free profile. Well, my friend, those days are coming to an end. Crypto allows us to own ourselves. Soon™.
Decentralization is highly inefficient. Expecting to pay nothing for a service that uses a lot of resources shows a complete lack of understanding concerning what this sphere is all about. Every node in the network has to validate the blockchain to ensure that it is kept immutable and abides the rules at all times.
The only reasons this inefficiency is even possible are due to the exponential gains we see in technology combined with the fact that only simple text is stored on the blockchain. Text is Cheap. Imagine how much Youtube would cost to run if they had 100 copies running all at once.
Resource Pools
I read that the lead developer at Steemit Inc wants to create an object called a resource pool. So, not only will we be allowed to delegate RCs separately from SP, we can also delegate it to a pool that multiple users can draw from. I'm not even a dolphin and I still have enough stake to let like 30 people post as much as they want to at these prices.
Here's how it would work:
I could create a resource pool with 1000 mana in it and let 10 users in. If i gave each user 10% access to the pool this would be the same as delegating them all 100 mana separately. However, I could give them all 50% or even 100% access to the pool. This would allow all of them to post as much as they wanted until the entire pool was depleted.
It is with this new pooling model that we see the whole pay to play argument completely disappear. Instead, everyone with stake gets to pick and choose who they think will bring the platform the most value, and act accordingly. If someone is abusing your pool you can limit their access or completely remove them altogether.
This is a proof-of brain mechanic that will reduce spam, allow us to scale, and prevent waste. We clearly have the resources to onboard millions of users for free. Once those users acquire some stake we can onboard millions more all over again.
Conclusion
HF20 is primed to become a huge blessing in disguise for this platform. Out of thin air, an entirely new proof-of-brain resource has been created, and we all receive it for "free". There is no reason to complain about this new system. It will only benefit us in the long run. The botched implementation was a very small price to pay for this gift.
Having a resource pool and allowing high quality new users to post more than they typically can is a good idea.
lets hope that hf20 helps us more...and the blotch up was a short term glitch
I think Steem is moving towards pay to play which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing and may be necessary. I'm glad I got in while it was free. :)
You had me right up to RC delegations.
You don't agree or you're confused?
Yes, opening the door to RC trading, when voting bots are still with their own controversy, seems a mistake to me.
Ah yes, right you are. However, I'm working on a plan to seriously undercut all those vipers so I'm not worried about it.
Will follow with interest then. 🖒
Well I’m not going to fault people for how they reacted to the inability of so many newbies to post that led to the 10x change. That change happened because of the outcry. One of the responsibilities of participating in a decentralized environment is having an opinion and contributing it.
Not everyone is going to communicate the same way we would. For one thing, for an awful lot of people fear comes out as anger. It’s a less vulnerable emotion. And I think a lot of people have been genuinely afraid for the future prospects of this platform they live, and which some even depend on for support.
That said, yes, there is a lot of potential here. As soon as you create a way to track real costs you empower people to make better decisions. Decentralization puts more of that responsibility on each of us too. I do think we’re still needing to adjust the calculations for initial allocation of RCs, maybe make the 3 into a 15 so people start with RCs as if they had 30SP. But we’re ina system where those tweaks can happen now, assuming people keep voicing their desire that they do.
Pay to win is different from pay to ply indeed. But if you’re living in Bangladesh, you’re not spending $60 on video games. And you can’t spend it on steem either. I think one of the things we have to address is what equal access looks like in such an economically diverse world. I for one find the greatest value in this being a global platform. I’d hate to lose that. But folks who can buy no steem right now are reliant on quickly figuring out how to find someone to delegate to them (pool or no pool). It is hard enough for them to figure out the 3 coins, SP, VP/mana and now what RCs are. They have just a few comments per day in which to also find their way into the sites of someone looking to delegate. That’s such a high bar to entry that for most it does effectively make it pay to play, because those in the developed world who can throw money at the problem don’t have to manage that.
The way I see your pool idea being able to work to make it more “show me your quality to play” for newbies is if the platform adds the requirements and path to them within the welcome material prominently.
The pool idea actually isn't mine. It's my understanding that the lead developer at Steemit is making it happening for sure. Soon™. I view it less as "show me your quality" and more as "don't spam the network with garbage and you can stay".
It's true that even dirt-poor Americans have money to throw at non-essentials. Other people aren't so lucky. The truth is, we haven't lost anything. We've actually gained the ability to onboard a lot more users than we otherwise could have.
The network effect that we are creating here is going to help the poorest nations first (as long as they have internet access of course). When I spend an hour writing a post and I get $5, financially I almost feel like I'm wasting my time. To other people $5 is a lot of money, and hopefully they don't live in a culture that encourages spending money on frivolous things at every turn.
SMTs will provide a way to distance ourselves from the Steem currency. Let's say I made an amazing app that will go viral. Do I want to make haejin rich at the same time? No thanks. Instead I use SMT protocol to quarantine my app and capture all the value. But what if people with no RCs want to use my app? Well, no problem, they can join my pool and use my app all they want.
Without HF20 the Steem network cannot guarantee a sable and safe space for SMTs. With HF20, Steem is now delegating the responsibility of blockchain interaction to the entire community.
I was mildly inconvenienced for a week!!!!!!!
While i do agree that they have the basis of a better resource allocation system, i do not agree that it was a small price to pay, and i do not feel that it has been fixed.
They really needed to do this in two steps.
They needed the time to play around with the numbers.
Now that opportunity is gone.
Basically any linear allocation of resources based on vests will create a cliff. Where those above can do anything they want, and those below are seriously curtailed.
For instance, at the first settings for the RC numbers, i was barely above the line where i could basically make most of the comments i normally do, but none of the votes. Now i can't post fast enough to get my RCs below 99%.
I really don't need 99% of my RCs. (at current refill rates and prices)
But new accounts are still way down.
And bots are still being able to run ruffshod.
I never understood why the witnesses don't shutter step these rollouts. Isn't it obvious that half the witnesses should not upgrade so we have a fallback? Whatever, the outrage of this HF will bring some change to subsequent ones.
Probably most witnesses never heard of shutter step.
They just know, download the latest, patch, reboot, replay. (when the developers say so)
I do hope this fiasco does lead to better planning.
Instead of developers upset that they have to waste time telling "know nothing" witnesses what they are doing, having to painfully walk them through it...
Or witnesses trying to understand what is going on, don't because they are not in the loop and can't get in the loop because they are not a programmer and spent all their nights reviewing code.
Oh, I really like the resource pool! I'm delegating SP so others can transact at all way too often...
Thanks for summarizing all this so well. It's amazing how many people are pissed about the changes that, ultimately? Limit spam and keep the blockchain neater.
I'm in the same boat. I look forward to delegating RCs, but I'm happy to delegate SP for now.
Limiting spam is something I've been promoting for a long time, although I'm less vocal about it because I'm distracted with other things in the short term.
Delegating RC is a dream come true. Giving others the freedom to grow their account without losing your own vote worth?! Awesome right? I now have to choose between supporting 1 person with my SP which means other I support will get a bit less from my vote. I'd love to delegate my now unused RC credits which I doubt wel ever go below 90%.