DECENTRALIZED BLOCKCHAINS NEED CENTRALIZED PROMOTION. It is ironic!
If you understand blockchains and decentralization, and crypto, THIS POST IS FOR YOU!
It is becoming quite apparent, that decentralized technologies, need centralized promotion.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
Anonymous holders of cryptocurrency, can privately hold cryptocurrency value individually, and no cooperation is required.
Together (and most often individually), you can hold your own value on a blockchain. That's the beauty and the downfall of it all.
The ironic part, is that a blockchain can't succeed without centralized cooperative effort.
Huh?
I know it sounds complex, and it is.. The point of this story is to identify a real problematic issue that most cryptocurrency solutions face.
A blockchain is a trustless mechanism. You can hold value on a blockchain, and be a shareholder, simply by holding private keys to value that exists on the chain.
Great, so now what?
We're all part of a solution, and holders of private keys that tie us to value on a blockchain.
Now the blockchain, whether it be Bitcoin, Peercoin, Ethereum, Bitshares, NXT, it doesn't matter.. needs to promote itself.
CALLING ALL VALUE HOLDERS. LET'S PROMOTE THE USEFULNESS OF OUR CHAIN
What happens? Everyone goes silent. "We're decentralized", they say.
We have no obligation to get involved. It's decentralized right? I have no obligation to get involved in promotion. I hold the keys to value. That should be enough. I'm not a founder. I'm not a developer. I didn't create the chain. Why are you asking me to get involved in promotion?
Therein lies the flaw with every single blockchain in existence except for steem.
..thats bitcoin, that's peercoin, that's ethereum, that's 100 other alt-blockchain coins.
Except for steem? - Yes. Read @onceuponatime's comment in the discussion below this article
It's something that Satoshi Nakamoto never designed into the system when he/she (or the group) released Bitcoin.
Blockchain self-preservation. Blockchain self-promotion. Blockchain-marketing
That's a quite difficult problem that people feel, but haven't solved yet...
Everyone who holds value on a decentralized blockchain believes that "someone else" will volunteer their time. Especially the whales who hold a lot... everyone thinks that surely whales will pool funds to do it.
What happens when no one does? Or everyone thinks the same?
If any of you are old enough to remember "Life Cereal". No one today even knows what that is.. But it had a real decent name for a cereal for multiple reasons.
..but the commercial ran right.
"Try Life Cereal" .... "I'm not eating it. You try it. I'm not trying it.. you try it. Mikey will eat it".. and sure enough the junior kid, the youngest, ate it, and loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQ0LZSnJFE
That's what most decentralized blockchains are hoping and waiting for.. a Mikey, that is young enough, and dumb enough, to try his hand at promoting something at his own risk, peril, and investment, so that no one else has to..
(P.S. What happened to Life Cereal? It never became mainstream. No one was willing to try it. LOL)
Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is a fanastic invention in this current decade.
The solution on how to promote and market it? That's something we have to figure out in the next decade.
Most of you would have been lost by some of this before you read this far..
If those of you who understand crypto and blockchains have read this far... please do comment below. You're one of the few I'm talking to..
How we solve this?
Answer:
@alexgr : Bitcoin never had centralized promotion but its adoption is growing. Is it a slow adoption? Yes it is. Could it be faster with centralized promotion? Yes it could. But is it "necessary"? No.
Response:
I think that the problem HAS been solved by Steem.
Posters on steem are incentivized to build a base of followers who will vote up their posts. We begin to see now influential people (for instance Jeff Berwick) are starting to post on steemit.com and then actively promote steem to their followers for the personal benefit of more upvoters and increasing the worth of their stake.
Current steem holders are incentivized to upvote the initial post of those deemed influential in order to incentivize them to bring over their followers.
No centralized marketing necessary.
To be honest, I didn't even consider that aspect. I think you may be right! That's how we're different.
Now everyone go out, find some influential people, and other celebrities, and get them on steem. :)
I think that so long as a cryptocurrency has value, i.e, is useful and serves a purpose to a company. It will have it's own silent promotion due to it giving that company an edge that others will want to follow.
That sounds like a misnomer. "What is a silent promotion" ?
In that other competing parties want to use the same technology that is not being actively promoted by their competition.
There is a difference between being a desirable feature and being a needed feature.
Promotion is a desirable feature to accelerate the adoption curve. But it should not be confused with a needed feature. Bitcoin never had centralized promotion but its adoption is growing. Is it a slow adoption? Yes it is. Could it be faster with centralized promotion? Yes it could. But is it "necessary"? No.
Interesting stance. Do you realize that 0.0001% of the internet even knows what Bitcoin is? All of us feel like "sure" we constantly read about bitcoin in the news, and when we do, we spot it right away.
Go on a tour of your neighborhood. Ask 2 questions:
It isn't desirable. It's 100% a needed feature.
P.S. I see that you didn't upvote this post. You must really think I'm out to lunch on this concept. For that, I apologize. I really thought I was identifying a real problem. Oops.
I understand it's a personal position and as such I do not necessarily share it. You could say the same about my position. I just like to be more precise with terminology. We live in a fast paced world of instant gratification and we think that if something doesn't skyrocket in a month or a year then it's a failure. Yet that's not how things work in the real world. Some technologies may take years to get traction and that's normal.
I'm also of the opinion that when you have incentives like those we have at steemit, you don't need to "sell it" aggressively. You give free coins to signups, you give the opportunity to make money by posting (who does that) so why would you also need to "sell it"? The interested party might think "what's the catch? Sounds fishy!!!"... People will tend to appreciate more what they found themselves rather than what they were told to do. It's just human psychology...
As for the upvotes I shot a few around - don't worry about it, it's not that it's worth anything (1-2 cents).
If you ever said the following at a Coke or Pepsi board meeting, you'd be fired.
(Not your words or context. Using this as an example for my context)
..and I do agree with you. People appreciate more what they find themselves.... like when there is an Easter Egg hunt, or a scavenger hunt in the park. However, letting the world know about steemit (or any other chain) takes a lot of effort.
It seems like we're growing virally. But in the grand scheme of things we're really not. We're just popular in crypto, and we have lots of friends/family and friends of friends here.
Personally I don't think we're quite ready to explode marketing wise yet. But when we do, the problem I'm talking about will be self evident. Don't believe me? Look at Bitshares. It's a fantastic product, but not enough people know about it, or know how to use it. No one wants to go broke advertising Bitshares, because we don't have a Mikey...
Plus bitshares is hard to sell due to being ...complex crypto. Bitcoin is already "complex" for most people, imagine things like bitshares, ethereum, etc.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=637645.msg7114149#msg7114149
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=637645.msg7116563#msg7116563
I believe ETH is the only exception so far, and that's not because it captures exo-crypto demographics or was "easy to grasp", but rather due to huge investments in the hundreds of millions by corporate money. So the money made it rise and then people were kind of forced to look at it.
I don't think is a good way of thinking. Of course blockchains/DAOs should have more efficient ways to market themselves. DAO is just a new type of company – and like normal companies, without efficient marketing it's really hard to get customers. Hoping that they will get a nice customerbase with organic growth is usually dangerous thinking because it happens very rarely.
You might be interested in my newest post: How to design efficient and resilient DAO.
I think Steemit should provide a referral reward that is a small percentage of whatever your referrals earn.
I have no doubt that it may be coming. Just not tomorrow. We need over 500,000 users first.
wow thanks for aport is very interest
Easier user interfaces is how to solve mass adoption. People will see the value when they aren't spending $40 USD on a wire transfer when instead they can transfer money between Bitcoin accounts for pennies (in comparison) - that's just one example. And once it's super ABC to get a crypto-wallet (and doesn't look confusing to newbs because it's all pretty and simple) - once the user interface is so so so easy (like current centralized tech) then mass adoption will happen SO fast! That's my 2 cents. New system replaces old system. Easy. Also, better partnering between tech (much like SuperNet has done).