RE: STEEM Economic Changes Update (@officialfuzzy's thoughts & concerns)
FYI All the Dan naysaying in this thread is misplaced. Dan argued with me for weeks not wanting to change "property rights" while I am looking for a system that we can make successful and not be susceptible to some of the current economic and cognitive handicaps of Steem Power and hyper inflation.
Much of the OP argument is about word of mouth marketing. Well being on the front line here I will tell you, marketing can be much more effective when your product does not alienate certain groups of people.
I have potential employees refusing to come work for us under these current conditions. I have investors completely miffed by the concept of a no medium-run speculation and two year lock-up environment. It's very clear what walls were up against in the current system.
At the end of the day, blockchains are tools for supporting community interests. As part of the community, these proposed changes are Steemit's desires being expressed to the community.
As I've mentioned before, I, too think that the existing model, although experimental, had legs. It just hadn't found them yet.
BUT
@ned, I usually work as CTO, and I'm usually the founder. When I bring on a CEO, I'm always clear about many things but one is the biggest: You're here to ensure this thing makes money. If I get in the way of that, yo usay so, because if we don't make money this whole thing won't be here at all. So:
My advice: Take one last look around, have a beer/whisky/joint with @dan and the rest of the crew, too, get everyone's opinion, feel out their ideas, and then take an instinctive jump in what you think is the right direction for the site. Tell the internal and external stakeholders exactly why you think it's the right direction, and don't look back.
In the end, either way, everything might go to shit, and it might be your fault. The saving grace?
You'll have fulfilled your role to the best of your abilities.
The other saving grace?
You just might have jumped in the right direction. So, my bottom line here is like this:
And with this call, win, lose or draw,one thing that I hope will enable you to sleep (Sleep? WTF is that? I bet you're thinking) is that this site has positively impacted a great many people. I don't think it's a scam, I think it's a technosocial roller-coaster. Get everyone buckled up, and let's go!
It's not just that. It's also the goals of the investors that matter to a blockchain. With Steem (and previously BitShares) we do have a blockchain that distinguishes between how users use the platform (e.g. with Steemdollars, or simply by posting) and how investors use the platform (e.g. SteemPower). In Bitcoin, we can't distinguish those groups, but in Steem, we fortunately can. However, we learned that the pricing aspect also affects the users (euphoria and despair) further, we make regular users become investors by paying them SteemPower. Thus we don't necessarily have two distinct user/investor groups but rather a strange mix. Let's make sure we understand that something like this has not happened before (at least not to this extend).
That said, I like that the Steemit team is now actively approaching the difficulties we experienced. Looking for some fruitful discussion on Steemfest!
The proposed changes do precisely that--alienate certain people...with your most valuable ones...the ones who actually power up, being the ones hurt by this. I go back to this point because if there is going to be a hardfork that so foundationally shakes steem community to the core, it should be done with the knowledge of this fact.
But what concerns me most is that these gold nuggets we call long term thinkers within community not only will be upset by these changes, but will potentially have theor energy turned against steem.
To me the worst idea is to anger people who could have been our biggest advertisers and participants through the hard times, and turn their energy against us...
I am wondering though what you mean by dan naysaying. It has little to do with naysaying as i put in the very beginning of my post. If you are talking about other people talking down to dan, it is because they have seen this type of stuff before. Big changes like these bring out old memories of big changes that didnt go so well in the past.
And like i said before and cant say enough--give people like tone vays fuel for their firepit.
Thanks for responding and i look forward to more discussion.
P.S. it is less about marketinf and much more about the blockchain changing rules so abruptly and starkly in contrast to the original model that brought is to a 400 mil marketcap. I personally think we will get back there without changes...but big changes will potentially lose more users than it will gain. And as stated before...these are not normal users...but the among the most loyal and resilient to boot. If im gonna makr enemies...id prefer them to be the type of perso who is weak and gives up quickly. sp holders are not that demographic.
Only long term thinkers that don't understand how steemit works will be upset since the new changes will reduce the inflation slightly on steem power holders, so they will benefit from such change.
You know how many BTC brought the market cap to these levels? About 600 BTC. Basically when there is no liquidity you can shoot the price up very easily with very little money but it is a false representation which is why it went back to it's pre spike level.
In a healthy system you would have price consolidation phases, which means the price will find a bottom higher than where it started, from there it would go higher and so on, thats how a real marketcap builds up.
However similar amount invested by @hendrikdegrote could just stop the downtrend for a few days, didn't it ?
Not sure what you're saying. But no one in the 'community' is my investor unless they are on the Steemit Inc cap table. In Steem there is only the community of Steem holders (SP, SD, Steem). And only SP holders have blockchain-level voting rights for Witnesses (and through their proxy, upgrades).
If we are finding opinions by channeling Tone Vays, the guy who doesn't believe Steem is a blockchain, then I'm sorry we are getting nowhere.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill
No. Im saying there is an army of people like him and this will just make it harder to combat them. Whether or not you or I like it, toney and people like him will actually have something to point to. Its like givig ammo to your enemy when you are at your weakest (aka pissing off many people who have powered up and paid in blood sweat and tears for it.
As for who your investors are, your definition and the market's may not be the same. I hope for the stake of all steemit and those working hard on it yours is the correct perception. I think its wrong though. Piss off the community enough and see what happens. This isnt a threat. Ive simply seen it all before.
Break the contract once. Breaking trust once is all it takes. I dont care who says otherwise...this is not how it will belooked at.
Final point. What happens if, after another 6 months steemit needs to completely change what makes it steem again? How many big changes will it survive without a large community sharig the weight and believing in the vision?
I dont have a dog in this fight. I have only beem there since day 4 of PTS and right on the field for every piece of history that gives me a background and opinion that should carry some weight.
This, to me, is making the same kinds of mistakes we did in the past. Changing the foundation of steem should be a last resort. Are we at the point of last resorts?
I agree with the changes. The fact is that no matter what you do you will get criticised. This is a "beta" platform and nothing is written in stone. I don't remember any silly promises being made like "code is law". Iteration makes sense while the platform is small and the general community response has been positive.
Beta level platform does not mean changes to the very foundation of the software's incentivization model at a moments notice. And if it does, be sure the market will price thst uncertainty in (making price go down).
The price was already going down. I don't think it will do any harm. We will see what happens in the long term as none of us know for sure.
Cant disagree, but maybe just maybe the simole offering of a choice for whales to power down % of their sp instead of forcing 100% power down would have helped. Maybe not but maybe there are plenty of other options that could. Why go through surgery when you can try to prevent it?
At smooth my point really is that these things are not even in the interface and we are still looking at foundationally changing everyting when people arent even abke to use and test these strategies. Again its lime wanting to give a patient surgery. You only do it as a last choice. Sure we can cite that it is just an experiment, but to my relatively well-versed self, i have never seen an experiment change the foundations of all its prior assumptions before the experiment comes to a close and you move onto another.
You could always power down a portion of your SP using the CLI wallet. However, its largely pointless, since you might as well just power down the full amount for a shorter period if you want to remove a percentage.
Discussion is good, I get fussy's point about the market finding a price and more SP options might be the way to keep everyone happy. I actually think the proposed changes are ultimately better for all as it stands. Ned, you're doing great, keep pushing on. Any dan bashing is retarded and should just be ignored.
We're in beta....lets get it right then gear up for a massive push ;))
Dan has a point about honoring property rights. If we don't honor property rights then what exactly is the stance that Steemit developers have on participant rights protection?
Does the Steemit team honor the property rights of participants? For example if someone has Steem Power but they don't want to convert to the new economics well it appears they have no choice in the matter. They are arbitrary switched to the new smart contract which has new economics. What if they want to be locked in for 2 years and don't want to be able to drain the account in 3 months?
I can think of many security benefits for why someone would want a slow drip over years when it's a significant amount and not the ability to wipe out an account in 3 months. Fuzzy mentions giving people the choice and I think that is a choice some of us would want to have but now it appears there is no way to have that choice.
Here is the deal, Steemit Inc needs to outline a bill of rights, a manifesto, or something so that there is some predictability for these sorts of changes. If there is some set of rules for when the economics can be changed and only when it meets certain criteria then the community can accept it. It's hard to accept it when it looks completely arbitrary or when it's done merely because one group of people feel like it and voted to do it over the interest of the minority group.
+1. A constitution could help guide behavior in situations of suggested change. It would also help manage situations in which tragedy (hacks) occur. Ultimately, blockchains are here to support communities. I'd suggest a Steem constitution reflect that.