We built this city

Someone asked in a comment, who is the platform? The answer is simple. We are.

Without us, there is no platform of use, it is a ghost town. But, People seem to want Steemit Inc to swoop in and save the day. As much as their hearts and lungs scream for freedom, old habits die hard, they want a government.

I am going to continue a little with my city analogy from yesterday, just a bit.

I can't speak for others but, in my view Steemit is being the government that we might actually kind of want. One that builds the infrastructure we require but, who don't interfere too heavily in how we use it. They build the streets and the utilities, we build the buildings, the schools, the businesses, the hospitals, the community.

However, without taxing us, they benefit from our community. The more it grows, the deeper it gets, the diversity in business and customer all make money for them, the largest stakeholders. The stronger our community, the stronger they become yet, if they step in and engineer the strength, they become like every other government, corrupted.

The witnesses are kind of like our council members who take care of the day to day operations and decide upon whether they are going to affect changes on the government to support new infrastructure. Bridges, tunnels and the like. We could perhaps see Hardforks as government funded initiatives. Not all work and all have unintended consequences but, if the witnesses do their jobs, they are acting with the community in mind, not their own position. And, if we are doing our job, the witnesses are doing their jobs.

But, this is self governance and the city is not some utopia where every citizen. ( I wrote a post about 6 months back that covers some of this idea ). There are all kinds of various people and all kind of behaviors and all people want t get something out of it. It might not only be money, it could be friendship, connection or a place to create and display their talents.

Over the last two years, the city has grown from a handful of users with a relatively narrow interest set and varying motivations into a very large town. We are not a city yet. At first, there was the excitement of something new but soon, routines came in and the various motivations and behaviors of users became culture. Rules were developed and with such a small group, decisions were relatively easy to reach and still satisfy many. Also, with such a small group, people could keep an eye on whether people were manipulating the system for their own gain too heavily. Everyone knew everyone.

As the community grew, more and more unfamiliar faces came into town and started questioning the rules and recognizing that the culture was set up with the desires and motivations of others in mind, not them. Now that they were in town though, they wanted to have a home here also and started driving for their own changes and building new buildings and suburbs. This kept happening of course until where we are today.

We have a very large town that has several suburbs. Some are more affluent than others and some are really struggling but, every new citizen comes in starting off in the slums, unless they come in with investment. This all doesn't seem fair to many considering they are placed in a slum regardless of heir actual talents or what they can offer and soon, they want out. They want to rebel but, the culture has them constrained.

Many turn to crime. Many came in as criminals (This is of course analogous as well). But, from their view, much of the city is dominated by crime and it pervades every suburb, no matter the average income level. At the lower end there is petty theft but at the higher end, white collar crimes. Much of it mimics the other except in scale. Yet, because the infrastructure allows it, it is not criminal at all and in many cases, it is encouraged.

However, some citizens have the view that this city could function better if it worked more as a community and less as independent actors only in it for their own gain. They think that it could be something better and brighter no matter the infrastructure. However, some want the government to do something about this, to change the infrastructure but, their will is filtered through the council.

The town has grown into a small city, motivations have shifted, people disconnected and no longer know each other directly. Agreeing on what needs to be done has become impossible and the council struggles to get even minor tweaks of infrastructure agreed upon, let alone made. And, Steemit, the Government, stays largely silent, they don't step in.

People don't like this as they recognize that Steemit Inc has the power and resources to ease their suffering and take care of a lot of the crime that plagues the city, but they don't move. This makes them feel that the government just doesn't care although this might not be the case at all as their value depends on our value, the value of the citizens. Their holdings are valuable because we think our holdings are valuable, that our city has potential.

Yet, if they step in, they become potentially corrupt, they become the governments we don't want as they go beyond building infrastructure for our needs to add to our value and are much more likely to do what increases only their own. In time, they are dictators and we are slaves once again.

We are the platform, the city is ours and no one is coming to save us. Of course though, it doesn't have to be that way. We can have Batman like Gotham or Superman like Metropolis but, we are the ones that have to build them. They have to be community super heroes. We wouldn't need them at all of course if people did the unexpected and worked for the community.

Unfortunately, it isn't a city of miracles. It is a city that requires a lot of work. If that work gets done, the city will grow and function well and give space for all the fun and games a city can whilst still handling all of the negative aspects of the darkened alleys. Perhaps there are too many alleys built and not enough lit streets at the moment but, we are the ones who built this city, and it wasn't on Rock n' Roll.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]