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RE: [STEEMPEAK STEEM] Steampeak and the Community Architecture
thanks for articulating very clearly the far ranging impacts of the reward-focused approach to user experience and development. I think we are more likely to see a team like steempeak take this post to heart and actually work toward true communities than we are likely to see steemit inc do anything of the sort.
At this point, I'm just happy to see that Steemit Inc. has come in to work in the morning. It's been a while since I've been really happy to see what they've been working on – probably about the time of hard fork 20 and the roadmap that they pushed out around then. Maybe it was 19? Regardless, everything from them since then has been relentlessly about SMTs and promoting SMTs and deliberately avoiding discussing the fact that what they are trying to build the system for is a social media platform.
It's true that SteemPeak is more likely to see the need for a proper social media support architecture than Steemit Inc. is. SteemPeak is much more dependent on users coming, staying, and using the platform than Steemit.
The main negative that I've seen regarding them is that it's taken this long for them to really be engaging on a level that looks at the social media platform itself and thinking about how it should be molded to fit the user. And I'm still a little disappointed that they always start by talking about the token and not about the user experience.
Still, it's the most promising thing going on right now – so I'll take it.
If the Steem blockchain wants to truly grow, the development environment has to change aggressively, and if there is one idea that needs to be that change, it's that the reward for engaging with the platform should not be the token. The reward should be the content that you get exposed to. The content should make you happy. It should gratify you. It should be part of your daily routine because doing so is good for you, gives you something that you want. The token should be a decorator on top of that, a signifier, a convenient means of getting more of what you want. Yes, it's nice that if you get really lucky and write something that a lot of people really like, maybe you can buy a sandwich that afternoon. But more importantly, in an ideal sense, if someone creates something that you really like – you should be able to buy them a sandwich that afternoon (or at least a part of one).
Flipping around the purpose for users being on the platform is something that absolutely needs to happen if it wants to get better. If it wants to be a better place. If it wants to be a place where investors bring their money, it needs to have an experience that people want that aching give them. That's what investors want. They want to buy part of the thing that works.
Step one: Make it work.