SMT’s and steem-engine tokens - Why I think its a waste of time
We have been waiting sometime now for SMTs to be delivered by Steemit Inc, with the ideology that they will drive up the demand for Steem and attract more developers, more businesses and more users to the blockchain.
In the meantime, @aggroed and team have launched steem-engine and the ability to create ones own token. My understanding, and please do correct me if I am wrong, is that these allow developers and businesses create their own tokens just like the promised SMTS, that will also drive up the demand for steem and the engine token its self.
I won’t pretend to know much about blockchain. I don’t fully understand how all this works and so what I am about to say might very well be down to lack of education or even ignorance.
I don’t think SMTs or steem-engine tokens will drive up the demand for steem. I think it makes everything more confusing to the mainstream person and will mean less adoption, not more!
How many mainstream businesses that you know of have begun to utilize the benefits of smart contract? How many home/online-based entrepreneurs have embraced this technology to add value to their business? Not very many, right?
It seems to me, the only people using these are developers that see it as a way of raising funds. Hence the success of ICO’s. however, the market is full of speculators, most of which look for short term gains and so the entire market is volatile, they are not long term institutional investors.
Mainstream organizations have the option to use blockchain services and solutions provided by other mainstream organizations, such as Microsoft. You know that already right?
Have you ever tried to explain and recruit users to steem?
Friend - “What is steem?”
Me - “Steem is a blockchain where you can find content and creations. It ran off a blockchain, where instead of the new coins created going to miners like bitcoin, some of the new coins are used to reward those active on the platform. So, you can reward your favorite blogger or artist with a simple upvote that has a value. And your favorite blogger can reward you back if you engage with them on their posts”
Friend - “Awesome – how do I get started?”
Me - “Well first you need a steem wallet. And then you need to ensure you have like a deposit of steem in the wallet, which you can get back when every you want, but you need this to be active. The larger the deposit the more you can do and the more your vote is worth.
Friend - “So I need to sign up for a steem wallet.”
Me - “Yes”
Friend - “Then I need to put a deposit in it. How do I do that and how do I get the deposit back.
Me - “you need to sign up with an exchange. There are some places you can buy steem for cash, but most you will have to buy bitcoin or other coins first and then swap them for steem and then transfer them to your steem wallet and power it up.”
Friend - “What the fuck Paula…. you must have nothing to do with your life…. that’s way too much hassle.”
Fact are, the mainstream audience is lazy. Online attention span has dropped from 12 seconds a few years back to only 7 seconds now.
Think about this for a second. You land on a website, you like the content, you want to sign up for the newsletter, ah man…this sign up form requires to much work, you couldn’t be bothered. You leave the site. This is the way it is.
Now let’s bring SMTS and steem-engine tokens into this. Let’s pretend I issued an Excel Token for https://theexcelclub.com/ . Here’s how I see the conversation going
Friend - “What’s this Excel token?”
Me - “It's basically value for learning, the more you learn the more you tokens you will be rewarded. You can use them to pay for premium content on my site.”
Friend - “Cool, how do I get started”
Me - “First you need a steem account.”
Friend - “What is steem?”
Me - “Steem is a blockchain where you can find content and creations. It ran off a blockchain, where instead of the new coins created going to miners like bitcoin, some of the new coins are used to reward those active on the platform. So, you can reward your favorite blogger or artist with a simple upvote that has a value. And your favorite blogger can reward you back if you engage with them on their posts”
Friend - “Awesome – how do I get started?”
Me - “Well first you need a steem wallet. And then you need to ensure you have like a deposit of steem in the wallet, which you can get back when ever you want, but you need this to be active. The largest the deposit the more you can do and the more your vote is worth.
Friend - “So I need to sign up for a steem wallet.”
Me - “Yes”
Friend - “Then I need to put a deposit in it. How do I do that and how do I get the deposit back.
Me - “you need to sign up with an exchange. There are some places you can buy steem for cash, but most you will have to buy bitcoin or other coins first and then swap them for steem and then transfer them to your steem wallet”
Friend - “What the fuck Paula…. you must have nothing to do with your life…. that’s way too much hassle.”
Me - “Hold on, I’m not finished. Then you need to go to steem engine and trade the steem for the excel token, or if you have the excel token and want cash, you need to go to steem engine, change it to steem, transfer it to an exchange, trade it for cash or another coin, then transfer it to your bank so you can spend it.”
Really Dudes. You think this is going to work? Please explain to me where I am going wrong and how you see it working.
Don’t get me wrong, I love steem. Heck, I am trying to use it to push my own business forward. I just think, you need to walk before you can run. Things need to be a lot easier for mainstream adoption and until then, its speculation, volatile markets. I would love to see steemit inc focus on making steem a great content discovery and publishing platform, without having to jump between hoops to get up and running. I would love to see steemit inc focus their energy on making steemit.com an awesome platform and go back to the original white paper for utilization of the block. I would love to see the price of steem rise for those reasons alone.
How it feels to me with SMTs is that steemit inc are living in hope that a few ICO type things happen brining in influxes of large steem buyers, short term demand will do. They can exit at a better price and the market will do what it does…the token will become less valuable as just like on steemit they will struggle for human users. But steemit inc will have push out the losses to initial SMT investors. It’s not really a long-term solution to raise the price of steem.
If you can convince me I am wrong, if your opinion differs, I would love to hear from you. Please do drop your comment below.
I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle - i.e. how things are now vs what we're trying to build.
Ideally, the conversation will not start out with "What is Steem?". The end users shouldn't need to know about Steem just like users of Netflix don't need to know that it runs on Amazon Web Services.
Even if it does start out with the question "What is Steem?" then ultimately I think the goal is to have the conversation go something like this:
Friend: "What is Steem"?
Me: "Steem is a blockchain that powers decentralized applications which allow the users to earn rewards for activities they do online. What sort of things do you do online?"
Friend: "I'm a photographer and I post pictures on Instagram."
Me: "Awesome, why don't you give Appics a try? It's very similar to Instagram except that you can earn cryptocurrency tokens which have real monetary value based on the amount of upvotes (or likes) that you get on your photos."
Friend: "Sounds great, how do I join?"
Me: "Just go to the app store and download the Appics app, sign up with your email address, and start posting! You can also earn a bonus for referring your Instagram followers to try it too."
Friend: "What do I do with these APX tokens I'm earning?"
Me: "In the help section in the app it explains all the things you can do with them, or how to sell them for other cryptocurrencies or even dollars."
Obviously we're not there yet, but that's the goal that I am working towards.
Also, having different tokens for different apps shouldn't be confusing to people, or even much different than how things work right now. I have credit card points, airline miles, reward points for various businesses, in-game currencies, etc. The only real difference between all that and app-specific crypto tokens is that the crypto can be exchanged, bought and sold which gives the users a lot more options and control.
Hi @yabapmatt, im really delighted you stopped by. I had thought to my self if anyone can convince me otherwise it will be one of the devs.
"Ideally, the conversation will not start out with "What is Steem?". The end users shouldn't need to know about Steem just like users of Netflix don't need to know that it runs on Amazon Web Services."
Ideally, you are correct. but we are not in that ideal situation yet. to me, that means we are plowing ahead making tools that the technology is not ready to run. Why not make those tools first?
And for steem as a coin, why would there be a need or even a value? steem can be exchanged bought and sold and has much control as one could have over their own coins or tokens. So I dont see how it can give more control. More options often mean more confusion, more choice = more hassle.
I'm sorry but I am still not convinced but wish I was.
"Obviously we're not there yet, but that's the goal that I am working towards."
I am following with keen interest. I want you to succeed. I want to be wrong. And I want to you come back and say "told you so sucker" :-)
We're never going to get to ideally if we don't take the trip through the rapids. What is being done now is not a waste of time. We're navigating the rapids.
as someone who has no idea is this true :D STM is needed so apps can do that. as i got it, apps will be able to handle RC's for it's users. so users of the app would not have to have SP to be able to interact. and steem will have value because apps would need SP so they have enough RC for its users.
i could be off with this, it is just what i picked up from all this talk (have no coding nor blockchain xp)
That's exactly the way I dream of Steem over the next couple of years. Like an iPhone were you'll just run whatever application you need to use and the app itself will handle the rest of it.
I definitely agree with your vision. Steem just needs to remain "under the hood".
I think you are both right and wrong here.
Yes, using cryptocurrency (steem, tokens, bitcoin, whatever) is far too technical and complicated. This is a problem that needs to be solved.
And yes, at their current stage, steem-engine tokens are mostly just rearranging things rather than changing things.
But both of these are problems of a technology still in its infancy. The steem-engine tokens that will be successful will do two things: they will transact seamlessly and the will provide value to the user.
By transact seamlessly I mean that the whole conversation with your hypothetical friend will not happen. XYZ app wants to build a token? Great, do this one log in and all the rest is done in the background automatically. Every action will be a simple task the user takes and all the complicated technical stuff is handled for them. Just as I don't really need to know how the federal reserve moves checkbook money around and interbank overnight loans provide liquidity to front run check clearing to operate a bank account. Incidentally, this is also why I think steem will become a utility token powering the 2nd layer solutions. We don't use dimes to transact USD. We use a 2nd layer (maybe 3rd) solution of digital bank deposits to transact USD.
And then there is the value creation issue. All value is subjective, and for a currency to have and keep value, it must provide a mechanism to transfer that value from party A to party B. The organizations that figure out how to provide value through their tokens are the ones that will succeed. #PALnet provides value to the steem community largely by weeding out the accounts that get in the way of value. #steemleo provides value to its members by focusing on investment topics. The ones that will become really successful will be the ones that offer subjective value to an external audience.
So yes, your conversation with your friend is the state of things today. But that's just temporary technological hurdles.
Three years Steem has been around. This is still a problem:
Last year I bought some Steem Monster Card with a credit card, about $100 in value, I was interested in the game as it was new and seemed like a fun thing, but the primary reason I bought the cards, and the only reason I bought them was because I could get some steem with them. A simple purchase method.
So the technological hurdle is not really an issue. Right now I believe it is more of a Political Issue, especially in the United States. there are countries you can put your credit card in and buy crypto coins, America is behind the power curve and until that changes we will not see much growth from the American sector. Look at the new user tab, look at what countries they are signing up from, look at how many Americans are on the newuser tag. Think about how their countries view crypto coins.
I suppose the technological hurdle, could be because Americans are just stupid compared to place that many consider to be third world countries. Make it simple to buy, and people buy, that is the lesson that Steem (the company) needs to learn. Until that happens:
Is a Fact, at least for me.
Maybe I'm old. 3 years of STEEM doesn't seem like a long time to me. 10 years of BTC doesn't seem like a long time either.
The fact that you could buy SteemMonsters cards with a credit card and operate on the steem blockchain is exactly what I'm talking about. New users are coming into SplinterLands now that have no idea about anything on steem. Which is great!
Steem and crypto, in general, are far from becoming mainstream. Shouldn't even be the focus right now. I'm more concerned about distribution. Keeping the people here help enough to continue doing what they do and being their friends and probably telling other people about this blockchain. Steem-engine is meeting that goal. On steem engine, new tribes are building their ecosystem. Most of it is myopic but it would be great to see a tribe do better, which cannot be ruled out, and seek to attract over users outside the steem ecosystem.
The crypto sphere is basically speculative. There are highly any genuine projects within this sphere, steem is not an exception.
Steem is hard to get for a newbie and rightly so. This is not just a social platform, you have your wallet(money) in it and all these measures and protocol are not going to be simplified anytime soon, well except we start using some form of biometric security measure to access our accounts and funds.
I don't want millions of people and investment here with the mess we have. We need to decentralize further, have a healthier distribution, look at generating revenue (my preferred option would be ads) then maybe we will attract more eyes. But making things easier to understand is quite unlikely, not in the nearest future.
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there are only 2400 dolphins, after 3 years that's a pathetic #, something is obviously highly wrong
agreed
Tokens will make things easier in the long run. Each community will able to on boards users using their own token without the user knowing anything about STEEM. Tokens are easier to understand than multi-purpose STEEM.
STEEM can stay as the backbone architecture that only developers know about. Each front-end can do necessary the exchanges behind the scenes without the user knowing about STEEM Engine.
This. This is the vision I've understood that Steem is going to be. It is complicated now, because we are on the developing phase of it. Onboarding will become easier. I think 3speak already uses a model where they "rent" a Steem account, so they have the custody of it, but once an account starts accumulating wealth (STEEM) the user has an option to take full control over the account. And starting to use 3speak is as simple as using email, Facebook or Twitter account.
Steem is the electricity that powers it all. Those people that own some Steem, will have an ownership of a small piece of that network. Like you said, eventually new people won't even know what Steem is. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, but I'm willing to take the chance. But the existence of Steem Engine is already a step to that direction.
The greatest gains come when there's a great risk and uncertainty. It'll be a great ride – has already been – no matter which way it ends :)
NO token will run without the STEEM behind it...
you can earn hundreds of tokens when you dont have Staked STEEM you run out of Power and cant post , reply or what ever anywhere!
The app can stake the necessary STEEM for the user account operations, either by delegating it or depositing it to the users account without the user knowledge. What I meant you can run everything with STEEM being perfectly hidden from the user while they use a token.
if its run... for me every action i want to run with this wonky page is ending in a new errormessage... so please dont praise the unfinished thingy :D
With HF21 coming up and likely making the bidbot problem on STEEM even bigger than it is today, I think we have a golden opportunity for Scot tribes to make bid bot users as invisible on their sites as they do non-tribe posts. As such I feel Scot tribes may end up saving STEEM from going under in a spiral of bid bot use increase.
At this moment I'm a bit torn as there is no fiction tribe yet, and palnet is nice as a demonstrator, but to general to gain solid adoption by those I follow. I really hope @blocktrades will find it to do what is needed to create a more solid foundation for content oriented Scot Tribes. If something like that happens, I'll be powering down STEEM and powering up whatever fiction tribe token will be there to move towards.
One of the big mistakes that the STEEM people keep making is putting investors first and forgetting the platform is useless and ultimately valueless without users. I think the comunication surrouding HF21 has shown us just how narrow the scope is with those concerned with the main STEEM currency. I feel that if DTEEM is to survive it will be because Scot Tribes (SMT are simply too litle too late right now if you ask me) help create a fibrant collection of user communities that can exist without a spoiled experience because of bid bots. But then, that does imply we all agree that bidbot usage on scot tribe tags is socially unacceptable.
I think that when HF21 hits I'll try to use my free downvotes for bid bot use on Scot tribe tagged posts.
Creatives tribe works or it's too general?
Hi @paulag!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 6.823 which ranks you at #113 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 1 places in the last three days (old rank 114).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 173 contributions, your post is ranked at #2. Congratulations!
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
it is up to communities, go to steemmonsters website, pay 10$ with paypal and you have it all, that should be the message to your friend
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The only thing you don't have and probably you won't have for a while is a method as simple to withdraw as it is to deposit. But SteemMonsters is simply fantastic in so many ways!
Agree. I hope future will be only crypto though, withdrawing to fiat no need
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oh sign up for this game you know nothing about if you want access......that's not going to work either.....
Wow, someone speaking her mind on steem.
Most people will disagree with you, because they think 'download this app it will do everything and you earn money' is enough of an explanation for people. They will do fishy analogies like 'the driver doesnt need to know how the engine works'.
It's obvious that adding another layer on top of it won't make it simpler, but hey, look at the way it's integrated in steempeak already, if most UIs adapt to this and make it a standard, you can't deny that it serves a purpose.
You forgot to mention delegating your token SP to a me.excel account to be able to manage Steem VP and EXCEL VP effectively.
I agree the difficulty level is tough, and even before stepping into steem-engine.
The choice though is either to stand still or continue pushing the boundaries and for that reason i'm for SMT and steem-engine.
I don't think the only choice is to stand still or push on with tokens from whatever source. Content creators and curators, if they had the delegations dev's have had, would help attract and retain more content creators and consumers. there is massive value in alternative revenue for content creators and consumers, removing the middle man that take the bigger cut....along with censorship resistance, ownership of content and all the other benefits steem has. Im all for progression, but progression in a sustainable way.
I think you've hit a massive nail on the head here... the content creators and consumers will ultimately make this place go viral... they're the users of all of these dApps and as with any app, the content creators and consumers drive it. if they're not happy....
im totally with you... all i can see atm was a lot of people started to power down their STEEM to buy this new Frontendtoken , and they forgot they will loose RC too when they do it this way... so the complete system get wonky by going this way... I see also a small problem.. For my Post a i need to use Frontend A ( or its # ) for the next a completely other one .. So this sets Borders in middle of STEEMIT, i dont know if i like this but in my first thoughts i need to say .. NOPE i dont like it... I love the Community of STEEMIT , but all this selfmade Borders will show up one thing... People will start to refund their operation Delegations to get the SP back to power up their own Vote again because they will get less by their own posts... And try to invest it in all NEW WAYS... so what will happen ?? Yeah i think a lot of Actual Communities will die in this progress. Yeah there will come a Community Reward POOL, but hey you need to pay a lot to get on this List to have a CHANCE to pay out of it, so next stuff which is made to DISS the small Communities because they cant efford the Payment to get on this lists...
Yeah so The Community showed hey STEEMIT wqe dont need YOU and the SMT we re going to make ourselfs Token and going forward so , ahm why we did this ???
And yeah im using this frontends because with only steem its nearly not worthy anymore to create a post because all are swopping
STEEMIT i LOVE you but imm not okay with the momentum
well actually, you don't have to use the different front ends. You can simply use the relevant tag on your Steem post and more than one if you wish which will stack the earned tokens. You really only need to go to the relevant front ends if you want to see your posts displayed with their token.
the problems you highlight are real problems. it's not a very positive feeling watching all of this godown. And there is still way to much demand the rewards pool to fund all these things that are only hurting us further.
prob is , i tried to show em up, all i got was something like a more bad FEELING about it, because at least i was a LEECHER, ( i used the Word earlier in conversation ) because i dont Invest Hundreds of $ into steem,
And i said hey im a STEEMIT user, i got invited by the Inforrmations doing some BLOG Stuff and get paid for... Okay i see its really less i get paid but hey i had fun by doin it...
but the upcoming 50/50 change it into another mess as well...
Why im saying this... See...
if a Creator got today 75% of his Post and 25 % to the Voters it means you get 75 Cent of a Dollar for you, seems like a fair deal but is it a real fair deal...
Its liek a Hey i buy a newspapoer at you for a Dollar but hey when i read it i want 50 cent back of you... this is the NEW 50/50 way...
Hey i know a lot of People Ionvest into STEEM, and hey its a Crypto , yeah you can win you can loose ....,
but now to say hey i dont get enough out of it, i will change the System...
When i joined here everyone told me i need to see there is on one side STEEM as a Crypto and BASE of all Steemit stuff ... okay
And there is on the other side STEEMIT the blogging stuff which uses the STEEM Blockchain and generate STEEM and SBD by CREATE Things....
OOOAKY ... i think its still same... But something changed ..The People mixed it up they see their Investioon into STEEM in same as the PAYOUT SYSTEM of STEEMIT but it isnt same and we shouldnt start to mix it up, but it happened already . It started by HF 20 when it got made totally easy for these Bots... now they say , hey the Bots are a problem... okay lets change it again , but STOP why it should get changed only in a bad way for Smaller Users, creators... Because for big ones it s nice to get more from the Cake , but it wont change up for the Small ones... because the big ones will still vote EMSELF to Maximize the Efford...
I know anyone will come and tell me hey im completley wrong , and i will say again i see people want more, but whats the prize...
If we KILL the Small Communities the Stuff which made STEEMIT this special will be lost, because the Big ones all Vote their own Automated created stuff...
and please nah im not moaning for dont have a whale voting me, im okay with the system as it was....
so in effect, there is so much to work on....and we are moving ahead with these smts when we dont even have the basics right
there only 2 ways.. Do it or leave it
You're OK with getting 75% even though, that 75% is coming from an ever smaller 20 some %, instead of trying to get 50% coming from a larger slice because to you the whales will not take advantage of the free downvotes to curb those who abuse (whales are lazy, or short term gains focused, correct?) and you don't think that with increased curation rewards it'll make it so that curation is more profitable than delegations to bidbots, which are far more profitable than either self voting and organic curation? You think that it's bad that smaller users will have a larger portion of rewards being distributed to them, both because self voting and overpriced content can be curbed with free downvotes, and also because now that curation rewards can compete with the other means it will translate directly into more rewards for all, big and small content creators, exactly like smoke.io and palnet.io have demonstrated with their 50/50 split?
Are you really thinking the SUPER Whales are going and take the time to SEARCH for good content !! NO...
Hey we re talking about STEEM not PALNET or whatever, there could be come hundreds of new Frontends because take a look everyone build now a new one, everyone is creating tokens , but where is it worth it... I see a lot of borders with this tokens, why, see everyone want People Using their tokens their Frontend, and at the end you will see it will break the community stuff as we know it
To use this FREE DOWNVOTES the people need to start to invest LOADS of hours to read the stuff which get voted,m do you really think it will happens...
Take a look how much trash is around and nobody is doin a thing yeah we have some communities but thats almost all small users ...
What are you talking about? Curation rewards being able to compete with delegations to bidbots which encourages vote selling and buying, and therefore not curation, will most certainly make some of the whales who are delegating so as a desperate bid to keep up with the competition, the bidbots, who continue to consolidate power, as both a way to combat the bidbots (removing their delegations) and they will be most certainly incentivized to punish things that are overpriced AND especially the ones that cheat, as will everyone else.
They don't have to find content, as if it's a chore. Heck it's so simple to scroll through any one tag for the last 24-48 hours of posts that yes I do not find it hard to imagine them doing so, after all you think that they don't want to consume new things? Regardless, they will have no trouble finding what is overpriced or what is bidboted/cheating, and what do you think, that they are too lazy to click a button and consider how much to downvote for?
What are you talking about again? Did I say anything about a frontend? No, I was talking about their distribution, and said that it's a demonstration that 50/50 is working. Where did you think that it was about the front end. If I vote for a post tagged palnet from ANY frontend, I distribute rewards to the post both in steem and in pal coin, but it's not about that at all, just had to clear your confusion.
Why do you think that opening trending and downvoting paid for content takes loads of hours or even reading. One can simply skim and decide what the article deserves, and things like crap engagement or no engagement under the post will be a dead giveaway so they can theoretically skip even the skimming.
Then get the fuck out of here. You're no different than the trash, you have a low brow opinion of the people here, you seem very miserable, as everything is seemingly crap, trash, and lazy profiteers with big pockets, and "small users". Why stick it out, go fuck off elsewhere. People are actually trying to do something about it, but you don't expect shit from them, which is because you think they are idiots and lazy, they don't know how to take care of their investments and what, you don't expect them to use free downvotes, something that they want, because they're lazy? Ugh, retards everywhere: "they aren't going to use the tools they want, to do the work that is needed, because look at them not working right now, because why not expect them to work with tools that are as poor for the job as almost not having the tool, why expect them to take advantage of better tools, they are lazy because they're not using the shitty tools".
STEEMPEAK (steempeak.com) does a good job of integrating all the communities/tokens together on one website and wallet. You can check and interact with Palnet, dtube, travelfeed, dsound, 3Speak., SportsTalk... all in one place.
you can Interact from STEEMIT.COM as well to this Frontends , because without the STEEMIT page and the RC you have over there all this others dont WORK...
But hey thx for letting us know what we already knew :)
Not really. Steemit.com does not integrate. Yes you can see the post and hit the like button. But that's not integration. Integration means they work flawlessly in place and display all relevant information.
p.s. Steemit.com can go down and everything else will keep working. RC can be bought from the blockchain by the dapps on behalf of their users while they use a token.
" Steemit.com can go down and everything else will keep working. RC can be bought from the blockchain by the dapps on behalf of their users while they use a token."
very true, just like any blockchain as its ran by witnesses and miners