RE: Why Steemit Probably Won't Replace Facebook
You are correct in peoples motivations but comparing facebook and steem is incorrect.
I personally think they are not even in the same league, Steem(it) is better compared to medium, tumblr or wordpress.com. I see Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest(fucking hate it) , and even that stupid Reddit all just as portals. They are not for original content they are for regurgitating content.
Ps. I feel if we want a facebook style site they need to change views on what gets posted and value ratings diminished based on how many times the content has been posted before not a voters choice, or make voters work much harder for their power if they want to be able to spend whatever they want. Maybe have actually power go down if the content is not original content. Or make a new blockchain.... reddcoin + steem.
Yeah, you're right.
I was more comparing Steemit than Steem in general though.
I think it might be possible to build a blockchain based site that's easier to use and might eventually be a Facebook replacement. I somewhat doubt it could be done on Steem though unless it were somehow separated from the current Steemit ecosystem. Of course, you could just make a Steem site, just with a lot easier interface, and maybe have a built-in chat of some type.
There are already some problems on Steem with the different sites sharing the same blockchain, so it's likely that someone is already working on the ability to separate parts of the blockchain. I know I have seen discussion of it.
You actually present an incredible advancement for the platform, that might actually be a fully valid reason to do a fork of Steem to create a new coin. You could use pattern recognition to determine text and images that are substantially similar, as in the same, with just minor differences, and use that to not only reduce the reward but the cost for hosting the data as well. So, you might store a post that's substantially similar as if it were an edit of the original post, recording only the changes.
The extra rewards could then either be returned to the system, or given to the original author, possibly with a system in place to pay out to copyright owners that aren't even on the site.
Of course, if it's too sensitive, it could have issues, such as if it ended up viewing music in the background as being the same or similar to someone posting the song with a picture slideshow. YouTube can't seem to get this distinction right.
Yes automating too much will just give us youtubes shit they have now, we have a nice mix of humans here they just need the tech.
On a simpler level interfaces can change how people thing so a like button would vastly increase the value of the vote button, likes for crap and votes for real things, if likes out weigh votes by 50% then votes get reduced by 50% currently that would be flagging it down to the right worth.
on a tech level maybe even a good metadata reader to start with or some kind of binary signature that files get tagged with so if the file is 90% match they are duplicates in a sense , so that even if you voted on them the system will diminish the vote amount.
Comments though must either not be monetized or be but at far less than a post.
I like the storing posts that are similar as edits, like codepen.
I've said that the interface needs a like button as well, for new users especially. We often want to like something, but not necessarily increase the earnings for it.
I'm not certain about it diminishing the rewards though. Perhaps to a lesser degree than you suggested.
There are a lot of different ways that sites could go. I look forward to the future. It might be that we have dozens of smaller Steem based communities that each have their own sites. Some of them may be running on forks, while others are on the Steem blockchain, and even some of those may be on the blockchain, but separated.
I upvote comments to encourage them. Possibly occasionally more than I should. I have a different scale for good comments than good posts though. I think contributing to a post through comments is very important. I'm not certain the rewards should be reduced, even though some people abuse the system. I instead prefer reducing rewards for people that vote for the same people.