Dtube review // Steem blockchain

So… @oracle-d decided to create another task for us Homo Steemiens to write about. You can read more about it here so i dont go on needlessly. LINK: https://steemit.com/social/@dapplovers/review-a-social-dapp-and-earn-rewards-ft-state-of-the-dapps

Theres going to be enough needless text below.

I was deliberating with myself for a while as to which Dapp i should choose for review. Yesterday i reviewed Trybe (EOS) and i found the current state of it, in reviewer terms (or 6th grader terms), to be "blagh".
Few days before that i reviewed the new Whaleshares look.
This time i was going to be smart about my pick. Maximize what i could earn from the review by picking a dapp with a ton of Nedelegation that will reward me for being a jolly good sweet talker..
That is why i picked:

Dlive!

oh wait. whoops

No, no.
Its Dtube, im picking @dtube.

The youtube of STEEM with a capital "D".
"D", because you know they're packing, good ideas.

Anyways… The review, um.

There are a few reasons why i picked Dtube. For one, its one of the most resource intensive projects on the STEEM blockchain that has an extremely ambitious goal of becoming competitive in the global market of video sharing platforms.
This is something that i actually think Dtube could achieve.
We have seen time and time again that any video sharing platform that would even try to challenge Youtube would fail tremendously. They would fail for the simple reason of not being to take off because of the magic circle of: Creator-consumer-advertiser.
All 3 need to exist on the platform, for a platform to take off, be sustainable, but unfortunately no other platform could achieve the trifecta no matter how much they would reduce their cut of their revenue.

Dtube is different, not to go into a lot of detail, because it uses the power of the STEEM blockchain. There is no complete dependence on advertiser money and the wealth distribution is such, that while in "legacy markets" the earning potential existed only for the platform+Creator, with STEEM consumer is added to the mix. Monetizing their attention and engagement.
But you already know this so lets get into something else. The user experience.

Oh boy.

Content placement.

Ok. If im being completely honest, i have never in my one year using STEEM clicked on Dtubes "Hot/Trending" page. Not one time. And im someone that (from another account) uploaded dozens of videos to Dtube and was using dtube almost daily for 6 months.
Still, never once did i look at the trending page.
Ill try to explain why that is as simply as i can.

When the content placement depends on vote cast by "1 person + DTube", then what users of your site are seeing isnt "the wisdom of the crowd" on the trending page but rather the_autovoter_ preferences of a whale and the continuity rewarding tendency of the DTUBE curation team.
In a way, there is more centralization in what im being told to watch on Dtube then there is on Youtube.

And this is not something that is hard to change. Dtube has control over how it wants to show its content.

Design.

There is really not much to say here. The design is basic.
As i said in the intro, i made a Trybe review yesterday and i pointed out a few things that bothered me. The site itself had some terrible design ideas, was extremely convoluted and it ran poorly.
Dtube does not run poorly and is not convoluted, on the contrary, but it does look extremely basic and does a poor job explaining what anything is about..
Take this for example.
Dtalk-Push my Dtalk key on Steem.

A person clicking on the Dtalk tab will see this and think:

What is Steem? What is Dtalk? What conversation?

Its very unintuitive and even though you could say that Dtube is early in development, the fact remains that you can always add a few sentences of explanation. That excuse does not hold.
That is something i dont only see with Dtube but rather where ever i look in the crypto space.

Not considering what a new user sees/understands when they are introduced to new information.

I could point out a few other things but its just the same criticism that stems from us forgetting what a new user experiences once they arrive to STEEM.

Mowing lawn!

Folks would probably assume i would talk about the videos that are "gone with the wind" in a few weeks, but theres really nothing to say. @thejohalfiles (a whale that upvotes Dtube content) a few weeks ago pointed out in the Dtube discord that exact thing and the reply was basically: "It is as it is."

The problem is that folks dont understand that video hosting is about the most expensive thing there is online.
While there are ways for you to keep your videos online indefinitely by running your own IPFS node (my knowledge is limited there) most creators wont know how to do such a thing so providing that service on platform would be a great way for Dtube to gather some funds if they explained whats going on with your videos (when uploading) and provided an easy way for you to keep your videos indefinitely (for a fee) without having to educate yourself on IPFS hosting and every other single thing that has to do with Dtube.
The name of the game is not Football, ole ole, we are the champs. The name of the game is: "How to explain complex topics in the simplest of ways".

There is really not much else to say here. Uploading works pretty well and is about as fast as uploading to Youtube. The video quality is inferior to youtube but you dont really notice it most of the times. When was the last time you used 4k on youtube?
Im assuming theres a dtube node somewhere close to Croatia since i have no problems viewing any videos.

At this point the success of Dtube is pretty much dependent on the success of STEEM. The time of the Dapps has not arrived yet and the majority of investment is still going into "infrastructure".

Example: Projects like LISK are 38th in market cap (10 above STEEM) and i dont think there is a single person using any of their dapps. I looked into it.
Once the market matures im certain that many projects that arent driven by hype but rather user numbers will start getting a lot of attention from investors, Dtube among them. The focus will eventually shift towards "what has real world application and what do users want" and away from the simple:

"i got this cool idea!"

Substratum had a cool idea.

And thats about it for this review. Thought i should mix it up a bit.

Conclusion:

I think we need to be realistic at all times. We hype up everything and partake in tribal behavior without ever taking an objective look at the limitations and the potential of a project. Realizing the limitations and potential is extremely important in cases like this. @ned dropped a million STEEM delegation on Dtube.

Was that foolish?

No. Because i dont think Ned saw Dtube "changing the world". He saw that small advantage i talked about in the beginning existing that could make Dtube a "contender".

Dtube cant re-invent the wheel but it sure can rock the boat.

And there you have it folks. Let me know what you think. Was i too harsh, was i not harsh enough. Ill take it on the chin.

Flies away.

Keep on Steeming!

---

Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://scrips.io/blog/lordbutterfly/dtube-review-steem-blockchain/

---