Porn-Based Steem Blockchain Fork "Vice Industry Token" - White Paper Mini-Review

in #steem6 years ago

TLDR: It sucks. (See what I did there?)

OK, not really, but I could neither resist the wordplay, nor be too impressed after reading (most) of the whitepaper...which I mostly did because I'm sure those of you that want to hear about weren't about to ask.

And yes, I am withholding all content moral/ethical/personal judgments when making this assessment. I merely don't find the core idea all that viable...that is, paying people to consume (free) content that they were already over-consuming at no cost.

Vice 1.png

No complaints about page 1, I guess.

For those unaware, the Vice token is a project based on a fork of the Steem block-chain that aims to pay users for viewing pornographic material, similar (but, uh, not really) to how users are "paid" for engaging with content on Steem (in this context, curation is the closest analogy.)

Distribution will be partially handled by an air-drop to all Steem holders "at block 18,500,000," which makes this a project of particular interest for all Steem hodlers, regardless of their puritanical leanings (or lack thereof.)

Even in theory, this is a tough proposition. I would consider proper realization of the "vision" for this project as near-herculean in difficulty. Attempting to pay users for porn viewing is only going to drive the value of your metric (clicks, videos viewed, etc.) down to the rate of the lowest Chinese or Malaysian click-farms. When I got priced out of the "online game gold sales" market, that was about 11 cents/hour for Chinese farming labor, and this was a decade ago, before automation really took over.

Vice 2.png

Page 2, on the other hand...we're not off to a good start.

If Vice pays out any decent amount for use, it will be abused. If it doesn't, who exactly will pay cold, hard cash to buy tokens whose main value proposition is to get themselves paid for engaging in "vice"? Of course, perhaps the project's future will unexpectedly ride on the percentage of sex addicts who are also Steem whales =)

One might also presume, based on the following passage, that privacy when engaging in, ahem, one's online activities will not exactly be a core feature:

"The foundation of ViceToken.com is built on a “fork” of the code that powers the opensource Steem blockchain, which generates and distributes Steem tokens as users consume internet content..."

" simultaneously recording proof of such interactions on an immutable ledger."

However, there is one thing you certainly can't fault the team for - their bullishness on Steem. They seem rather assured of Steem's viability well into the future, as you can see in their token distribution info:

Vice 3.png

Unfortunately, they are not burning the excess tokens, instead choosing to retain them; better luck next time, investors.

"All unsold tokens at end of the crowdsale will be retained by Vice Industry Token Inc.."

It would certainly be good for all Steem users (and, uh, regular porn viewers) if this project turned out to be a resounding success.

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Sources: https://vicetoken.com/static/Vice_Industry_Token_Whitepaper.pdf
Copyright: Vice

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Good, hard-headed analysis^

If Vice pays out any decent amount for use, it will be abused. If it doesn't, who exactly will pay cold, hard cash to buy tokens whose main value proposition is to get themselves paid for engaging in "vice"?

That's the weak point for VICE the cryptocurrency. Who would buy it, and why? The record of Golos, the earlier fork that catered to Russians, doesn't give cause for much hope.

True, it could be bought to get "Vice Power" to redirect user rewards. VICE and "Vice Dollars" could be used as a tipping coin.

But to be honest, I don't see VICE getting more traction than Golos unless the devs break with Steemit tradition and put paid adverts for porn on their network site. Then, they can boost the value of both by making both VICE and VD^^ good-in-trade to pay for the adverts. (Perhaps with resstrictions, to allow the parent company to make fiat money directly from the adverts.)

The above is the only way I can see for VICE to take off as a cryptocurrency.

^ (Yes, I did see what I did there.)
^^ (Yes, there too.)

"The record of Golos, the earlier fork that catered to Russians, doesn't give cause for much hope."

An interesting example to take note of.

"True, it could be bought to get "Vice Power" to redirect user rewards. VICE and "Vice Dollars" could be used as a tipping coin."

One would have thought that increasing privacy, rather than decreasing it, would have been preferred for such an application to reach a large market in the current cultural context.

"unless the devs break with Steemit tradition and put paid adverts for porn on their network site."

I see no reason why they wouldn't, if it can be shown to be more profitable.

"^^ (Yes, there too.)"

Clever, but you cheated! VBD is a much harder pun.

It’s very simple.

If the porn quality is good, people will use it. Obviously it’s always better to getting paid for doing something you would do either way...

The internet porn traffic is huge, so there is certainly a market for it.

The key thing is how would porn producers benefit for using Vice platform? I suppose they would receive tokens as well?

Either way, crypto has arrive in the porn business, that means there will be an even bigger abundance of porn content so expect big changes. Everytime crypto arrives in something, massive and important changes start to happen.

"Obviously it’s always better to getting paid for doing something you would do either way..."

See, it was under this assumption that I first entered Steemit, but the reality is that people have a minimum-value threshold, which is subjective to the person, for what they are willing to do to get micropayments. This is why rebates are so profitable for companies - many people will not fill out and mail a form for $20 or more dollars.

They also won't swap their social-media site to make 8 cents on their shit-posts about cats, nor will they reveal their (presumed) anonymity from behind their computers and their "erotic activity schedule" for a few pennies a day. That won't even get them over the "ugh, I have to register" threshold.

I'm eager to see what happens, either way.

Almost 80% of Steemians do not vote!
I'd say that's conservative.
Not everyone is interested in politics....that's NOT why they are here.

regarding the porn....and HF20...I hear it has 'communities'...inside of which there will be different rules..

perhaps no one could enter certain communities with a 'key' to decrypt everything inside...which , being encrypted, would be unintelligable to anyone outside?

"perhaps no one could enter certain communities with a 'key' to decrypt everything inside...which , being encrypted, would be unintelligable to anyone outside?"

This sounds as practical a way as any to implement the promised features. I have no idea how it is being done. I'm not sure this is ready for HF20 though, which I think mostly contains improvements to user onboarding and some minor changes to curation for self-voting, etc. I don't think communities were ready? Could be wrong, didn't research.

I dunno either.
it'd be kinda nice if Steemit would pay a little more attention to keeping us updated?
ya think?

Probably because 80% of Steemians are NOT Steem Whales, and very quickly find out that their vote is worth 1 CENT or less in voting power.

I think lexiconical is talking about witness votes.

Hah, yes, I am. I think @everittdmickey is aware of that, though, and he means Steemit politics. He's right either way.

It's the very reason I'm probably going to remove that from my signature. I'm not sure I want to keep up with the drama well enough to manage witness voting as actively as I have been previously.

interesting...

Thanks for the info. I don't believe I made the cutoff for the air drop though. Will be interesting to see how this project develops.

I think it will be a game changer... for the porn industry... it’s going to take off... however, like you said we will just have to see how it develops...

80% no vote? Holy cow.

censor does not help

Okay now this is a funny one. Not trying to judge or anything though, but I think the idea behind the coin doesn't appear so viable in my opinion. And this has nothing to do with the kind of industry it deals with, but the idea of rewarding people for consuming content they already consume of their own accord. I don't see how they add to the system nor make it more valuable.

However, I think I might be talking myopic because I haven't really read the whitepaper. I'm sure the creators of this such coin would have reasoned in this direction before going ahead to still implement it.

After all, Steem is one such revolution- paying people for their content which was already free somewhere else

"However, I think I might be talking myopic because I haven't really read the whitepaper."

I mostly agree with you, and have read the majority of the white paper. It's not a highly-technical paper at all. They mostly just sell you on the idea (I'm not sold on monetary viability), then tell you about distribution. I do like their distribution model, since anything not pure-ICO is interesting and potentially distributes more widely.

Jerry Banfield talked a bit about this crypto recently when he had a 1 hour video (yes, I watched the whole thing to see if he stopped to get a drink of water or lost his voice. He did neither:) but I learned quite bit) It was an example of using the new SMT that is starting to roll out. You mentioned that they are actually doing a hard fork of the steem blockchain. Do you have any insight into how SMT would actually work with this new blockchain "business"? I read the SMT white paper and my eyes glazed over with all the discussion of code.

Yes, I heard him mention it as well.

Since they are hardforking the chain, they can simply issue a pre-mined allocation that mirrors the publicly visible stake on the Steem chain. I guess it wouldn't really be an SMT at all, as a separate token from Steem - much like Pivx is a fork of Dash.

IMHO they just should have used Steem and set up their own environment, kind of like @bescouted did with bescouted.com for photography. No need to build a new economy, just enabling a niche to grow. Nobody is going to buy "photography coins" (Kodak, are you listening?! 😂) and nobody in their right mind will buy "porn coins". There is no incentive for either the consumer or producer.
There are a few erotica/ porn producers on Steem, but their income pales in comparison to account that just recycle Tumblr GIFs😒
So yeah, agree, Vice tokens are stupid.

"MHO they just should have used Steem and set up their own environment"

Agreed. This would appear to be the whole reason the STINC team has focused so much on SMTs.

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