There's A Waiting List If You Want To Open A Steemit Account Now. And That's A Very Good Thing
If you want to join Steemit, your account will have to go through a validation process. Which, for now, consists mainly in manual approval. And if because the site is getting really popular, there's a huge backlog (a few thousands accounts) waiting to be processed.
Before getting into the nitty gritty of why this is happening and how we got here, let me just saying that this is a good thing. I will gloss over it at the end of the article, but for now just take this: yes, this is a very good thing, for everybody.
User Acquisition Costs
If you ever wanted to start an audience based business (like Steemit) you know there is a very important metric, called user acquisition cost. In other words, it's the amount of money you need to spend in order to actually convince somebody to create an account in your platform. In the gaming industry, "buying users" is a relatively common practice. The price per user can go as high as $60-$90, in some cases.
Steemit has these costs too and they were ingrained in the business logic, from the very early days. But it was a bit counter-intuitive. In order to make an account, you have to pay a fee. That's because creating an account is a special type of transaction and you have to pay in order to broadcast it (it's the same in Ethereum, for instance, every transaction costs some gas). There is a blockchain property called account_creation_feee, which is set up by the witnesses. The confusing thing for the majority of users is that this fee was paid until now by Steemit itself. This is the user acquisition cost and Steemit has a certain account (I guess it's the @steemit account itself) which is designed specifically for this. Every time you open an account, from the @steemit account goes to your account a certain amount of Steem.
Back in the early days of Steemit, the account fee was around $5. When Steem was trading at $0.16, the total amount of Steem you were getting in your wallet was around 30. Now Steem trades at $2.45, so you would probably get 2-3 Steem in your wallet. I think by now you start to realize both the complexity of the platform and the problem Steemit is facing. Because if somebody decides to create 1000 accounts, he will be up for raking $5000 AND he will dump a significant amount of Steem on the market, which, theoretically, will draw the price down. Ups.
3-4 months ago, I was very concerned with this account fee. I had a few discussions in the chat and I even opened a request on Github asking for a way to dynamically adjust this, fearing the consequences of a quick, massive influx of new users, which could have create - potentially - quite a damage to the @steemit account. At that moment, the main feeling about my inquiry was: "well, this is a problem we really wish to have and we will deal with it when we'll have it", hinting at the fact that an influx of new users was the best thing that could happen to Steemit. Well, there you go. Here's your problem.
How do you deal with it?
At the moment, the basic approach is to manually approve all the accounts. But there are many other ways, and some of them can be solved with code. Here are a few directions:
- create a more complex onboarding process (one in which you could also measure some of the activities of new users) including questionnaires and tutorials (i.e. make sure the people understand how the blockchain works, what is a witness, from where the money comes and some basic netiquette rules)
- delay the moment of the first power down for a new account, up to 45 days (a new user will not be able to power down immediately after the creation of the account)
- freezing the
account_creation_feeat the code level (i.e. not having it set by witnesses consensus), peg it to a value in US that will make sense from a business point of view (ex: we, Steemit INC, consider that the cost of acquisition is profitable at $5/user, so that will be always the cost, converted in Steem. If Steem trades at $5, then a user only gets 1 Steem) - block the account fee in an escrow account and don't make it available to the user until he / she passes certain tasks: a certain number of followers, a certain number of posts, a certain level of reputation. Along the same lines will be temporary limitation of the access to all the funds generated: you have first to play around, give some value, and then you will have access to the funds)
I'm open to a discussion with people in charge form Steemit INC if there's a need to take this further (although I'm not holding my breath about a potential interaction, based on past experiences).
Anyway, back to our initial point of view. So,
Why Is This Good For Everybody?
First of all, because this project is not your regular paying site. It's not tsu, it's not Amazon Mechanical Turks, it's something completely new, sitting at a crossroad between utopian Universal Basic Income and the creation of an incumbent attention economy, all of this placed in a very advanced blockchain. Where you mine by blogging.
Huh. Yes, this is an experimental product and if the site will allow a massive influx of people looking for free (or cheap) money, then it may fall hard.
Second, because this waiting list act as a filter. Truth is this filter is a bit expensive right now (because it involve manual labor) and I'm sure it can be improved (hint: look at the directions above). But the result of the filter is good: if you really want to join, you will make your due diligences and wait. If it's important for you, then you'll keep reading articles, educate yourself and start to build a strategy. Because where there's money to be made, it has to be a strategy. Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, if you read this and you're just the regular internet freeloader drooling at the prospect of having free blockchain money, don't take it personally. I think you're a good person, but this is not your place. Really. Peace.
And third, this is a good thing because it forces Steemit to find solutions. Now that Dan, the architect of the initial project, is on another path, the team has to find solutions to overcame these shortcomings. I'm optimistic about the tech competences. And I'm not saying this because some recent improvements in the UI (which aren't) or some major improvements in the next HardFork (which, at the technical level, are not impressive) but because I follow closely the Github repository and I'm aware of all the new sub-projects that are flying under the radar now. These sub-projects will be able to empower the potential developers on the Steemit blockchain very soon. I'm talking about maturing JavaScript libraries, about sbds (a way to access the blockchain via SQL) and many other technical tidbits that are not so spectacular or mainstream, but are very, very relevant medium and long term. So the tech is good. It's the marketing that worries me a bit, but hey, I'll just do that crossing fingers thing and hope for the best.
There are some pains that Steemit has to go through right now. Luckily, these are growth pains. And hopefully, they will be solved.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
Posted from steem.city - an experimental service on the Steem blockchain.
Beneficiaries: @dragosroua, @raluca, @steem.city
Could Steemit end up being a platform just for the elite?
Would it survive?
If by elite you understand the typical Medium-enrolled blogger, then by all means, yes. I think Steemit is the real Medium. The main differentiator is that in Steemit both parties are making money: authors as well as commenters (and even curators). So yes, I can see a future in which there is a core made of influencers, each with his own audience which is upvoting /downvoting to express approval /disapproval.
One way of avoiding the waiting list is to use a service such as AnonSteem.
If you don't already have BTC or LTC, @thankyoujay wrote a nice little guide from buying the coins, to getting an account: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@thankyoujay/how-i-got-a-new-steem-account-in-minutes-and-how-you-can-too-introducing-thankyoujay
Thanks for stoping by ;)
Yup, this is a simple and great way to get your friends onto the Steem platform.
I was just mailing with a friend of mine, who created his account, but is still waiting for it to be finalized. I guess this does help us gain actual interested users. I won't pretend to understand all of the consequences of what you just wrote here, but I do hope a good and workable solution will be found for an influx of new users. We do want to get many new ones in eventually, right?
Yes, we obviously want that :)
I really like all of your proposed options. Any or all could work. None of them would hinder the new user completely and make it unusable but would still create that hype. People are impatient but they also want what is hard to get.
Good ideas for the onboarding process. But how about having new users write their first post as part of the sign up process? These posts could be collected by a bot and posted to a single "new-user-candidates" account, or something like that. If their posts are upvoted enough by the community, which would also weed out plagiarism and reposting, the account is created. Just an idea.
From an economics standpoint, the way account acquisition has been designed in Steemit, is wrong.
While other companies may pay for advertisement and split these expenses among all users who have joined their platform and call it account acquisition, Steemit is just giving away money, AFTER the user has joined the platform. No one joins Steemit for the initial couple of dollars, they join it, hoping to become millionaires - handing out a couple of dollars is absolutely unnecessary, but it also does not hurt an economy, which never stops printing money. So there's nothing to be worried about.
Talking about everyone wanting to become millionaires brings another point - most users abandon the platform quick enough, leaving thousands of abandoned accounts with locked Steem in them. And you know the market logic dictates - the less there is of a product, the higher its price.
So the solution is simple - allow all new accounts to automatically join, but don't offer them any free Steem. In several months, most of the discouraged wannabe millionaires will leave the platform and lock a huge amount of Steem, which they've earned in the process, thus keeping the price of Steem up (in fact abandoned accounts should be deleted after a certain period of time and all locked Steem in them).
Which, on a side note, Steem will desperately need, as its price will soon plummet, unless there's a new ransomware on its way.
If people are leaving, they're all taking out their Steem. Powering down takes 13 weeks, but most of the people leaving are taking it out. So I don't think this theory checks. Just my 2 cents.
That's what you and I would do and what sounds logical. But instead check out your dead followers (at least 1/3 of your subscribers are no longer on Steemit) and open their accounts one by one - you will see several hundred dollars locked in every account and almost no one powering down.
And that was my 2 million cents on the issue.
I think you are confusing two types of user statuses:
active userandinvestor. Many, many accounts are opened just for financial speculation and those are "traders", not really bloggers. If you see money in their account but no posts, that usually means they're waiting for a better price to sell.I know accounts with hundreds of thousands of Steem which don't have a single post. That doesn't mean they're "not on Steemit" anymore, they simply wear a different "hat".
Like I told you, this is not the regular website we all know :))
I'm not talking about investors, I'm talking about regular users with regular posts, who haven't posted in months (most left last year, when Steem hit rock bottom) and their accounts typically hold somewhere between 50 to 1-2k USD, and almost none are powering down.
I don't think that category is big enough to drive the price up or down because of the locked in Steem. And, as Steemit gains more visibility, many of them will come back, if only to cash in. Some of them already started to.
Also, I don't know if you're aware of that, but there is an experiment in which whales are required not to vote. It was started (quite abruptly) by a group of whales who wanted to give more power to minnows / dolphins. But in the process a flag war ensued (because the experimenters counteracted the votes of whales with their own votes, to drive the reward down) and many users were caught in the middle. I took a one and a half month hiatus from Steemit for the same reason. The overall atmosphere was rather gloomy.
The promise is that, starting HF 19 , this experiment will be over. I expect a lot of users will dip their toes in the Steemit waves again around that moment.
Waiting lists make things more exclusive, which can be a good thing. Can't the user fee be charged on the user itself? This will incentivise quality posts and participation and some level of commitment I think, at least until the user breaks even. Or the new accounts could start with a negative balance, where the user doesn't actually start earning until the fee has been covered? I know it is a barrier for sign up, but I'm just wondering...
Technically, having a negative balance is a good coverup, but psychologically it's a huge turnoff. I like it from a technical point of view but I don't think it will work as we want it to work. It may drive users away. It's better to see you already have the funds, but you have to do something to access them, IMHO.
I see your point and I agree, it will be off-putting. However, when more and more people start becoming aware of the "success stories" and these stories begin to get covered by the mainstream media, I think people might still want to go ahead and pursue the "Steemian dream", but maybe it's still too early for that now...
Funding new accounts seems the only way to not turn away prospects. The only reason my posts are up is because of delegated Steem. Absent the delegation, I would not be able to participate. I am not exaggerating.
Now, I received a Steem in addition to the delegated Steem, which was mine to keep. I have earned more than that at this point by posting and curating. I am willing to return that initial Steem to a new user pool, so that new users can be brought on board and be able to post and comment right away.
I expect that anyone who's gonna hang would be similarly happy to refund the gifted initial Steem. I don't think that 1 Steem is necessary for me to post, as the delegation is sufficient for that purpose.
It's nice to get a sum just for signing up, but I don't believe it's necessary going forward, as the opportunity to earn Steem is nominal to attract and keep good users.
Just my $.02
Thanks for keeping me up to speed on issues that impact Steem.
Waiting make you appreciate it more when you eventually have it. Gratitude is a good thing. It also makes it more desired. By making it a bit exclusive it increased the value and demand for it. It raised the worth of being a part. NICE for the rest of us that are now in. Thanks.
Is there a way atm for secondary accounts to setup fast? Without "welcome" steem?
I was thinking about splitting my German posts from the rest.
Right now you can get an account via annonsteem or steemconnect, but you'll have to pay the account creation fee. That's the fastest way. For annonsteem you can contact @someguy123 and for steemconnect I know @timcliff has a very nice tutorial.
And is steemconnect save? You use your highest private keys, right?
I thin it's safe.