Convergence: The Key To STEEM's Massive Explosion In The Near Future: Part 5

This is the 5th part of a series as to why I believe we are going to see an explosion in STEEM due to a convergence of many variables all aligning up properly.

To review the reasoning:

1. The advancement of cryptocurrencies in general over the last 9 years: there were some successes and a host of failures, failures that led to knowledge causing developers to approach things differently.

2. People are fed up with government: Even governments are fed up with each other as evidenced by Venezuela and Russia discussing a currency together to break the USD stranglehold on them. Even governments are tired of the tyranny of fiat currency.

https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/convergence-the-key-to-steem-s-massive-explosion-in-the-near-future-part-1

1. Wall Street is here: $140B increase in crypto market cap can be only be done by the money-raising power of the Street. They love a good story which means the "next Facebook" really excites them.

2. Rich and Poor alike can acquire STEEM: Wall Street can buy whatever it wants but the average person does not have that advantage. STEEM offers people the opportunity to get involved without any money. In fact, steemit pays people a small amount of STEEM to get started.

https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/convergence-the-key-to-steem-s-massive-explosion-in-the-near-future-part-2

1. People realize they are not only being monitored online but the data collected is being used to profile individuals. This information is used to influence behavior by being sold to advertisers. Also, people realize that news is not news but propaganda given by those with an agenda.

2. Censorship: Your account can disappear from Facebook and Youtube if you are not toeing what they deem acceptable. People are getting fed up with having their voices censored.

https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/convergence-the-key-to-steem-s-massive-explosion-in-the-near-future-part-3

1. The steem blockchain is does more to secure its tokens, natively, than any other chain. This feature extends to any organization joining whether they are using STEEM or their own token. Token security has always been an issue and steem jumped to the head of the line in that area.

2. Steem is one of the fastest blockchains in existence. Unlike bitcoin and ethereum which are suffering from tremendous traffic congestion, steem is plugging along using under 2 minutes of its total capacity a day. Steem simply is a better mousetrap.

Major technological innovations do not happen in a vacuum. Instead, they are the result of years of research in many different fields which all came together at one time. It is almost as if everything magically lined up at that moment in history. Often, some will attribute it to luck but it is far from it. This convergence of breakthroughs is what makes revolutionary ideas happen in technology.

It's the economy stupid

In the blockchain world, it is not the economy that matters but the apps. People tend to focus on cryptocurrencies then mention something about the blockchain underneath. While they are correct, few take the time to really consider the relationship. To start, a token is an app. It is the first use for most blockchains: currency transfer. As noted in the last post, the steem blockchain does exceptional in this area. With speeds up to 100K per second and no transaction fees, this makes STEEM one of the most appealing tokens there is.

That, however is just the start of things.

When I started here 4 months ago, the apps were garbage. This is common in the software world since bugs are part of the deal. That is why software has updates. Until the programs are running, it is impossible to anticipate and clear up everything. I was amazed that people got so upset considering that we live in a Windows world and Microsoft has as many patches, updates, and fixes as Gates has billions. It seems like Windows is updating every 10 minutes. Android isn't much better. This simply is the nature of the beast in the software realm.

Sadly, people seemed to forget that when looking at the steem blockchain. Part of what prompted me to starting writing these posts was to counteract all the negativity and whining about what was taking place here. Steemit was having problems, DTube was a wreck, Zappl was not introduced (and then had problems when it was), and Steepshot was just emerging. Each app had its challenges which, on the grand scheme of things, is no big deal.

From what I can see, the development teams working on each of these are very good. Since that time, each app came forward light years. Steemit is the main horse and it is working a lot better than two months ago. The update just before Steemfest really helped the functionality of this site. Amazing what a single update can do.

Another wonderful creation is Utopian.io. This is a development team that is working on creating open source applications for people to use. Having an entity like this really helps speed things up since they create the basic packages which others can take, since they are open source, and amend. Hence we will most likely see a radical increase in the number of apps brought out by developers and entrepreneurs next year. Laying a foundation like this really is helpful for others to build upon.

That said, when it comes to apps, I look to Steepshot, DTube, and Zappl as game changers. The overall reason I like these is because there is almost no learning curve for them. These apps, in terms of use and functionality, mirror to a large degree the traditional ones people are using. If one can load a video onto YouTube, then he or she can do the same with DTube. Tweeting is rather easy and so is sending out a Zap. And for those who like Instagram and cannot resist snapping a selfie on the phone to post, Steepshot is almost identical.

The counterpart for these three apps have over a billion users worldwide. That is a massive market. Since there is no learning curve, people could start to migrate over immediately and be in operation. In the early stages, people will use both the steem app and the traditional one. And why not? That is exactly how we should market it. In fact, that is what DTube is doing. DTube was just delegated 1M SP to reward content creators as an incentive to lure people over who are using YouTube. While the goal is to get them to post here exclusively, there is no reason to start with that. Simply stating upload "your video here in addition to YouTube and get paid for it" should suffice. Over time, people will see the money off Dtube really outpaces that off YouTube.

Dtube really made strides since the last update and, from what I can see, is working almost flawlessly. There are bumps in the road periodically yet, for the most part, I haven't had any trouble. Zappl is a bit further behind and that development team is hard at work. They have some neat features being added like private messaging and I expect them to be ready for prime time in the first part of the year. These are two big pieces which can lure millions onto the steem blockchain with little effort.

This is a specialized blockchain, designed to cater to the content creation market, that has an app to cover each aspect of the social media spectrum. Now it is just a matter of fine tuning them before being unleashed upon the masses.

Part of that fine tuning means adding features that will greatly enhance the user experience. This applies to Steemit the most. At present, this app is a cross between Reddit and Blogger but on steroids. It is better than both of those sites (albeit not nearly as popular) in terms of the functionality that it offers. Reddit is really just a linking site while blogger fails to have the follow and search features that steemit offers.

Nevertheless, to play in this arena, one needs to be mindful of the Death Star....Facebook. That is the entity where social media starts, and ends. Boasting over 2 Billion users a month, half of which may not exist (remember that trust I wrote about in the last post), Facebook has the sheer power in numbers. Between them and Google, they control 85% of all Internet traffic according to reports. One thing FB has going for it is that it is a feature rich site. There is a ton of stuff to do on there.

Steemit is no where near that point. However, there is one feature the development team is said to be working on which I think will be a huge difference. This series is about convergence and the variables that are going to lead to mass explosion. The addition of communities, supposedly coming in the first quarter of 2018, will move Steemit closer to the Facebook realm. This single change provides the possibility to attract millions of people in the next 12 months. Why is that? Because a community feature allows people to attract all their family and friends while providing them with a place to interact. That is what Facebook does so well. Getting people together, online, means that you rarely pull in one person. The first person to sign up usually brings 3-5 more.

Therefore, 2018 should see an explosion in the user growth rate. With the advancement of Dtube, Zappl (another app that isn't going to lure just one person over), Steepshot, and the addition of communities to Steemit, we have a lineup of apps that will provide most of the social networking needs that people have. This puts the steem blockchain a lot closer to being a legitimate threat. The kicker is that steem offers the ability to get paid for one's content without being tracked, monitored, or censored. Let's see YouTube and Facebook compare with that.

We are finally starting to see what is on top of the steem blockchain is as good as the blockchain itself.

It was a while in the making but we are almost there.

If you found this article to be helpful and informative, please upvote/re-steem.

Pictures by Google Images.