Are the clones dying?

It's been many months now since the last time I touched on the subject, and truthfully I've not changed my stance a whole lot. The way I saw it back then, and the way I see it still, is that if there are projects that are attempting to create a better Steemit like experience, that is a good thing for the markets in a macro sense. That being said, I don't know if anyone has pulled it off, so to speak.

To be fair, all of crypto has suffered, so it's not entirely out of the norm that projects like Whaleshares and Smoke.io have suffered too. Truth is that I'm not entirely sure how the costs of running the nodes are being met, since the valuation of the tokens, combined with the low volume and liquidity, don't seem to add up to a whole lot.

On the other hand, we can draw some interesting conclusions regarding these projects, projects that mind you are still active, still running, but seem to have lost a lot of their initial drive. As a matter of fact, another clone named Weku went offline for weeks if I'm not mistaken, and the obscurity of that project has kept it from away from almost any sort of limelight.

As far as I know, all if not all of the Steemit clones have a token being traded on bitshares, which to me just validates the importance of the Bitshare blockchain even more. But, what's interesting to me is the reasons as to why they've not been able to really take off, even when they attempted to fix the problems of Steem and Steemit with their own implementations and variations.

Of course I can only speculate that a platform like Smoke.io has failed to grow in its user base, due to the niche where it operates. I mean, not everyone smokes cannabis, and since no other content is welcome, the answer seems quite clear. But in the case of Whaleshares for example, What would be the reasons for the bleedout?

There are a few Steemians who've also created accounts there, me included. I've always sustained that Whaleshares has interesting proposition on the economic gamification, simply because of the payout system, (100% powered up) and the way powerdowns work(10% access to WLS). You could say that it should have made, almost unwillingly, more hodlers, but this seems to not to have played a big enough role on demand.

To me, the main mistake that is being made with these clones, is to hold ideals that are extremely utopian to begin with. Let's be honest, to say that Capitalism is bad, while using cryptocurrencies is like swimming in an ocean, while declaring utter hatred for sodium. In other words, it's not logically consistent at all.

A few days ago, I read a comment made by Neoxian. A well known Steem whale, witness and overall good guy who just so happens to run a bank as his business model. He tried to move his business to Whaleshares at some point in time, and was met with a lot of hostility. Regardless of where you stand on the idea of Banking and Loans morally, there's something that nobody should fail to grasp here. People should be free to make financial choices, and if there's a demand for it, then it's no doubt a net positive for a platform.

The recent events, the conversations I've been reading on the clone platforms that are struggling should make anyone reconsider their position on bidbots too. Which is to say, the idea that they brought nothing to the platform, and the idea that they are the sole reason why STEEM has struggled as much as it has, is proving to not only be false, but possibly be in complete opposition of the reality. After all, without investment, without crypto moguls trading in their BTC to build things on this platform, even if it's a bot, we would have a hard time keeping on the lights.

So what's the point I'm trying to make? I guess, the main point is this. I can understand the emotional necessity to create systems that are more aligned with our personal concepts of merit and equality. But, we must not be so blind as to think that if we eliminate all elements of capitalism and free markets, we would be creating a Utopia. These rivaling philosophies, these somewhat conflicting ideologies need one another, and only trough finding the delicate balance we can edify something meaningful and lasting, although it can never be truly perfect.

MenO