More Time Travel, It's not about steem, it's about its kids!

 Disclaimer: 

To introduce this post I want to make a few things very clear. I think Appics looks awesome. I am excited for it and think its an awesome addition to the Steem blockchain. Seeing advertisements for its ICO got me very curious about how all of these SMT's are going to work. I read a bit of the Appics and SMT whitepaper, but by no means did I read them all. This is meant to be a critical conversation starter about the future of Steemit.com in a future world full of Smart Media Tokens. Appics just got the ball rolling on this thought process. This is not a shot at Appics... I think Appics looks great. This is a critical look at the larger Steem ecosystem and how it will look in the future.  (Go Appics!)

I am not a financial adviser.  I am a time traveller but anyone who knows about time travel also knows that there are different timelines and the future that I came back from could differ from the future we experience.  Don't put all of your eggs in one timelines basket.

With that being said, here is my more critical stance. 

Appics looks pretty cool:

 

There is a wonderful new ICO called Appics, seriously. It is the first of its kind and is going to revolutionize the way we do social media (not quite so seriously). I am going to let their website explain... as they can say it best. 

"Users who spend their time and creativity, posting and voting on content are the source of revenue for any social platform. The users are like the engine of the network. Unlike on any other popular social media site, where 100% of the platform’s value goes to the shareholders, APPICS enables all users to earn a fair share, as well as influence in the network, through a cryptocurrency reward-token (XAP)." (https://appics.com/) 

Sounds familiar and not too revolutionary? You guessed it. It is exactly what steemit.com already is. (Although Appics is going to be more of an Instagram). To make things even more interesting... Steemit Inc. is in on the project. The XAP token is going to be one of the first major Smart Media Tokens (the future of the Steem Blockchain). 

This post by @zeartful is really good at explaining what Appics is. I cannot do Appics justice like this post can. (https://steemit.com/steemit/@zeartul/appics-or-steem-s-or-first-smart-media-token) 

Now I know that there are many people praising @ned for the SMT idea and in a lot of ways it likely is a good idea... but I see a few problems. Let me get into it. 

Steemit and Steem: 

I am a big fan of the Steem blockchain and the Steem token because I am a big fan of Steemit. Not the other way around. I am not investing in Steem because I want to be the owner of bandwidth on "the advertising blockchain", I am investing in Steem because I think Steemit is a revolutionary social media site and I want to be a part of it. 

What am I talking about with this "advertising blockchain"? This is all to be found in the SMT whitepaper. I didn't read the whole thing, because it is written to ensure that nobody does, likely to shelter us steemians from the truth until it is too late. 

From what I am seeing, Appics and all other SMT's will be directly competing with Steemit for our social media usage (meaning that content creators and curators won't need steemit anymore, they can create, curate and earn with any SMT site). 

XAP will be cooperating with Steem in that in order to use Appics, you will need to hold some steempower to have bandwidth on the Steem blockchain (which Appics is being built upon). Appics, unlike Dtube or Dsound, will be rewarded not with steem, but with its own token, XAP. 

It is confusing, I know, but stick with me on this. Appics does not threaten Steem. In fact, Appics is VERY good for Steem. There will be more demand for Steem because there will be more traffic and transactions happening on the Steem blockchain. This is all very good for Steem and holders of Steem and/or steempower. It is also very good that the steem blockchain will have an instagram type app that monetizes that style of social network.

 Appics and SMT's do threaten Steemit.com. If I can now post and be rewarded for quality content on Appics or any other SMT site, then I don't need steemit.com. These sites are 100% like steemit.com with a different token. 

Smart Media Tokens essentially will be using the steemit.com model to make new (relevant) networks with monetized content creation and curation. This means with each new SMT, (ie basketball coin, the coin that monetizes posts about basketball) there will be less reason to go onto steemit to post and or read. The whitepaper is very clear on what this means for STEEM.

I will quote page 57 of the SMT whitpaper: "From a potential utility perspective, demand for STEEM increases as each SMT is created with Influence Sharing for Steem Power over a SMT’s rewards pool. The advent of each trace of Steem Power-based Shared Influence over an SMT’s Reward Pool gives new rights and usage to STEEM, which in turn drives demand for STEEM. These rights can also be granted from SMT to SMT, and the flow of value follows an identical pattern." 

To summarize, people using Appics or any other SMT will need Steem. All SMT's will be using the Steem blockchain. Steem's future is secure and holding that steempower is looking like an alright investment. Steemit.com, however, will go the way of the dodobird, or myspace because of SMT's. Correction, steemit.com will be our wallet page, the place we go to power up, power down, move, buy, sell and delegate steem. That is all we will use Steemit.com for. 

To go into the whitepaper of SMT's a little bit further, we can learn what the SMT vision for the Steem Blockchain is... and this pretty much kills the vote bot debate dead (It kills more than that for me). Page 57 still... 

"Along with these new value creating mechanisms, it is imperative to recognize the original value created for STEEM as an implicit attention and advertising network that now applies to all SMTs that utilize Proof-of-Brain rewards. Smart Media Tokens, such as STEEM, have inherent curation properties, such as their Rewards Pools, that give them reliability and credentials as an implicit advertising network. The Rewards Pool in SMTs demands that fully-SMT-integrated interfaces, such as steemit.com, respect the pending SMT payouts on posts and then rank these posts from highest to lowest pending payout in pages often referred to as “Trending” - such that the posts can be audited by the community of SMT holders. The effect of this, which applies equally to STEEM as other SMTs, is a sorted “Trending” page that users (bloggers, vloggers, advertisers) can reliably use to evaluate the potential returns on buying higher placement on the page to attain more attention, and then these participants make decisions to buy or rent STEEM and SMTs to promote content. Through this process, as advertisers choose to buy and rent STEEM/SMTs to gain exposure, demand for STEEM/SMTs increases. These value driving properties can be described in a way similar to “Ethereum: the world computer”, but instead as “Steem: The world’s advertising network.”" 

To summarize, (I know that is some dry reading) the Steem Blockchain is attempting to be the "Advertising" blockchain where people pay money to get attention. AKA, they pay to get into the trending page. He who pays for attention, will get it. This is the vision for the future of the Steem Blockchain. People pay to get into trending. It sounds like the present of the Steem blockchain too?! 

Competition!? 

When @ned said, "Read me right: Competition is a good thing. Embrace it. Flaunt it. Savor it. Build better product. When you have competitors—make them known to you—find them—analyze them—pick them apart—find good things—see weaknesses—take ideas—beat them. Enjoy it." in this thread (https://steemit.com/steemit/@clayboyn/an-open-letter-to-ned#@sgt-dan/re-ned-re-sgt-dan-re-ned-re-sgt-dan-re-ned-re-sgt-dan-re-drpuffnstuff-re-ned-re-clayboyn-an-open-letter-to-ned-20180214t173304967z), he was obviously not talking about competition with steemit.com, but with competition with other sites not on the steem blockchain. 

I do see Smart Media Tokens competing directly with Steemit.com for our time and content. I may be wrong on this, and perhaps all SMT content will end up on Steemit.com, but I find it hard to see how it will work when there are different rewards tokens at play. 

The future of Steem (SMH SMT)

I see steemit.com becoming totally irrelevant as Smart Media tokens begin to take over. I see Steem becoming more valuable and also even GREASIER due to the vision of paying for publicity. The more linked Steem is with advertising, the less of a paradigm shift it is. Perhaps I am a quixotic revolutionary upset that the future (of social media) is going to be exactly like the present with new players in control, but this is how I see it. 

Facebook made tons of money through advertising. Steemit is the facebook killer, but really Steemit Inc. just wants to be the number 1 advertiser on the blockchain. Kill facebook, become them. It is too bad. I saw steemit as a forum for some of the best minds to get their work out there and to get paid for it. That was the dream, but it is far from the reality that Steemit Inc. wants to create. 

At least my steem will be worth something... we won't be any closer to real freedom, but at least I will be an advertising mogul (please read the scarcasm in that one). I hope EOS gets this social media thing right. Power down initiated. 

I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic. I know I might not have all of the facts, I am basing this on what I have read and how I interpreted what I read. I am hoping that this will start a conversation on what SMT's will do to Steemit and if we as Steemians are alright with that (it doesn't matter, this is going to happen whether we like it or not). I used vote bots because that is the future of the steem blockchain (and I wanted people to see this post to get into the conversation).