Follow Those Who Do The Research
There is a lot posted on Steem that makes a great deal of sense. At the same time, there is also a lot of stuff that stems from lack of understanding what is taking place.
One of Steem's biggest assets is also a detriment. We allow anyone to post whatever they way and, often, it is from a position of not knowing.
Steem is a complicated platform. There is no doubt about it. Trying to understand the Internet in the early stages was a bear also. We have a lot taking place, much of which will fail. Experimentation is on-going while ideas are being implemented that might not make sense at this time. It will be only after the foundation is laid that the ideas that look foolish today are revealed to be genius. This is the case for the entire industry.
There is someone who has an axe to grind. I thought it was just me but evidently not. Usually I don't call people out individually but, since this person was afraid I would mute him, I decided to give him whatever spotlight I can.
Here is a comment that was left in a post I made a little over a week ago.
Ironically, the comment highlighted was actually making my point in the entire post. It was a post about the price of Steem ceasing its fall. I was using the 2M and 10SP as examples how little it will take to soak up a lot of the free floating STEEM.
I actually agree that 10SP does not let one do anything on this blockchain. The reality is, as the settings presently are, it is more like 40-50SP to have a decent amount of interaction. At that level, almost all the free floating STEEM would be sucked up.
Looking at things from those levels, we are talking 400K-500K active users.
Leaving that aside, there is the thought that 2M people on Steem is foolish. Actually, when it comes to the Internet, that is nothing. It is little more than a rounding error.
If Steem were an application, 2M users would not even put it in the top 500 applications. Hell, it might not even be in the top 10,000. This is how small an amount 2M online users is. And if we go to the 400K-500K, it gets even more absurd.
Fitbit, the exercise wearable/application has 25M users. Did you ever hear of Seeking Alpha? It is a posting site for business/financial information; it has 15M users. Is there the possibility that @steemelo can attain even a small percentage of that amount?
But let us get even more foolish in our search. How do you feel about giants such as Cafemom, eToro, Fishbrain, and GetGlue?
Fishbrain? Yeah and its 2.2M users. There is an online community with over 2M people dedicated to fishing. Not exactly a target market that jumps into people's minds.
Here is the list posted on Wikipedia. Look at the stats of sites with over 1M users and how many are far from household names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virtual_communities_with_more_than_1_million_users
So thus, 2M users is nothing. It is a drop in the bucket for the online world.
Which brings me to the point of not understanding.
It takes a lot of time to research what is taking place on here. This is something that I know personally and from reading/watching others. Nevertheless, a lot of what is espoused about has a solution, either in the works or with a quick update.
Getting back to the SP issue, it is true the present system is hindered. In my view, the number 1 problem on Steem is the on-boarding issue. This is something that is holding Steem back greatly.
Of course, there are a couple things that pertain to this if one is paying attention. The first is the fact the Witnesses have the ability to alter the parameters, to a degree, of how the Resource Credit System operates. This is not something that is done lightly since there is a delicate balance that the system achieves for consistency across many differing operations. Nevertheless, in certain situations, it can be altered.
The second, and more important aspect to all of this, is the Resource Credit Pool. Like most things with Steemit Inc, we are waiting for the code. That said, this is being worked on along with the SMTs and, most likely, will be in Hard Fork 22. The code is being laid down and, what is done, can be viewed by anyone interested. The posts by @steemitblog even link to the GitHub numbers.
Thus, anyone who seeks out the solution, can find it. Of course, giving Steemit Inc the benefit of the doubt might be dangerous considering their track record. Yet, to their credit, they did produce MIRA switching the data storage to hard drive from RAM and the code for Hard Fork 21 was completed.
Speaking of Hard Fork 21, this was another bone that was picked by the individual cited in another comment. What is ironic is this person put up a post full of sarcasm aimed @exyle.
The irony is that Exyle was one of the people who expressed serious reservations about Hard Fork 21 and the changes being made.
At the same time, he is being blasted for putting his "money where is mouth" is. Each day the guy talks about his excitement for Steem and how he feels it is the opportunity of a lifetime. Certainly, anyone is free to disagree with this view. However, to fault him for announcing the actions he is taking that align with this view is rather interesting.
I guess we should hate upon those who show some congruence, matching their actions with what they say.
The reason I bring up Exyle is very simple. I do not know the guy nor have I ever talked to him. I certainly have no idea what he is like in person. Perhaps he is a first class jerk when you get to know him.
What I do know is he puts in an incredible amount of time researching what is taking place on Steem. He is one of the people I consider "very knowledgeable" with what is what is being developed. He talks to a ton of people and looks into things at a deep level. Just watching his show over the last few weeks leads me to understand how much he prepares and investigates the Steem topics that he is covering. This is actually nothing new for him since I found many of his videos to be of equal preparation.
Another one I follow is @theycallmedan. He is one who also showed his intense desire to research all he can about what is taking place.
The point I am making is the value of their viewpoints has nothing to do with their stake or the fact they are Orca/Whale. It is the knowledge they convey that is gained through talking with others, reading, and delving into the matter full force.
Their stake enters the picture as a sign of how committed they are. There would be a problem if they were talking up Steem while powering down every week. If Exyle was posting how wonderful Steem was, then threw up a post stating "I powered down another 2,500 SP", it would leave the rest of us scratching out heads.
It is easy to be negative and a naysayer. Newer technologies get it all the time. The masses, incidentally, follow that, often shooting themselves in the foot. How many people held Kodak stock to the end since it was a "film company" and the world of photography was based upon film? Nokia, which, I presume, had some pretty smart people working for them, totally missed the smart phone revolution. I am sure there were many who sold their stock in Amazon when it was just a "little online bookstore".
Early adopters tend to profit the most because it is not easy to sift through the noise to uncover what is really taking place. There are often legitimate barriers that need overcoming for something to succeed. This turns most people away. However, for those who dig into what is taking place, things can turn out a lot differently.
How many of us wished we delved into Bitcoin in 2011-2012 and got involved? Actually, I was looking into it at the point and still dropped the ball. For me, I had a bit of understanding what I was witnessing but not near the level of those who truly comprehended what was taking place. They were the ones that were moved to drop some money and, unless involved in Mt Gox, I would say, made out very well.
Those who do the research and take the time to fully understand what is taking place (as much as that is possible) are the ones who tend to get drowned out. It is a lot easier to just look at things from the surface and blast it. We see this happen with many technologies, especially as they take time to evolve.
I will give you an example: some are out there blasting Musk and the fires caused by batteries in electric cars. They believe this is a reason to stop this because of the danger. Leaving aside the number of ICE that catch on fire, this is a prime example how people forget what took place.
Most of us fly on planes without a second thought. Air travel is relatively safe with a plane crash being major news. That was not always the case. Planes in the 1940s and 1950s had a much higher failure rate. A lot of people died in the quest to perfect the technology we now call air travel.
Certainly, I can't speak if electric cars will ever be more than a niche thing or not. What I can say is that, if it does become mainstream, it is the failures of today which will drive the advancement to get the masses using them.
Of course, those that tend to invest in this technology, if it hits, will benefit greatly. I would presume, this does not include the naysayers who sit there attacking the technology and what is taking place.
Nokia didn't like that smart phone thing either. Those that supported that viewpoint instead of listening to Jobs missed a grand opportunity.
It is easy to sit back and look in hindsight. However, the key is to gain the ability to link up where things are now compared to where they might be going. It is not an easy endeavor or, as they say, everyone would do it.
Having a much information as possible is key. Next time the a naysayer crops up, ask if he or she knows what is happening with Oracle-D? What does the next update for 3Speak look like? How is the advancement of Steemhunt going? What is Steem-Engine about to roll out? Where is Splinterlands looking to target next? How is Steemleo and Sportstalk going to market their platforms? What is Actifit doing with an exchange token?
There are hundreds of other questions that can be added to these. Having some of these answers might provide one with some insight as to what is going on.
This is a much different view than simply saying nobody will be interested in this platform. To reach that conclusion requires no effort whatsoever.
Start to delve into things yourself so you have the answers. It could be life changing no matter what you decide.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and resteem.
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Certainly that guy seems to have an axe to grind like you said. However, touching on some things relating to 'onboarding the masses,' @heimindanger made a post regarding the need for a separate blockchain for dTube. I hate to be the next naysayer and all, and I do have tremedous hope and see amazing potential in steem. However, like @heimindanger correctly pointed out, "You wouldn't be able to fit Instagram in a blockchain, ever, even with the most scalable blockchain tech on the world's best hardware. "
Is it just me or is this a bit of an elephant in the room that nobody seems to want to address? Or am I missing something here? If we're all betting on Steem becoming the next facebook/insta/twitter/youname it all running on the same chain, aren't we going to start to run into some sort of bottlenecks before long? Granted the transaction/second capabilities of Steem and other DPOS blockchains are among the highest of the blockchain techs, are we still not simply missing the vast enormity of facebook/insta's user base and the generated activities of the masses? I mean I already seem to see witnesses complaining about mira playback speeds... how well is this going to scale exponentially or is stinc just running some sort of super-elaborate ponzi? I'd like to hear some other people's opinons on this...
I agree storing large data files in the blockchain would make it unwieldy. Look how big the bitcoin blockchain is and each of its records are small compared to just one photo! There are distributed file storage projects out there now - maybe we need a page from their playbook?
Yes to the elephant. Bitcoin had the same elephant until the newer chains and leader-based systems. Now we can convert BTC to STEEM and pay for a meal with STEEM, with the merchant being 100.00% sure about having the money in <1 minute.
We pushed the scalability issues further by getting rid of the PoW basically. On https://blocktivity.info you can see EOS is currently at 30% load and growing quick :) When it reaches ~80%+ people will start worrying and leaders will find ways to reduce the number of transactions (i.e. increasing the number of tokens needed to be stake to generate X ressources), then that's when the ponzi starts turning sour (small stake users unable to cashout or transact, developers will create forks with low-reputation block producers and run away from EOS, probably the big stake holders of EOS will exit at this point too...)
Honestly I don't think this problem will be solved for blockchains. If you want everyone on the planet to use blockchains on a daily basis, then it has to be a combination of hundreds of chains interconnected through multi coin/auth wallets and interoperable UIs, or other solutions that aren't strictly blockchains but similar to it (i.e. newer low-level techs like HOLO)
Thanks for your comment @synrg.
Without a doubt, @heimindanger knows what he is talking about. The idea of putting the Facebook family on blockchain right now is a bit outlandish. What I am proposing here is 2 MILLION users versus 2-3 BILLION for the Facebook family. Couple that over all the transactions and you are looking at how many? 5B a day? 3B? Whatever it is, the number is very big.
Technology unfolds over time. Facebook couldnt handle 2B accounts when it was released either. The technology in 2004-2005 simply was not there.
As for DTube, they made a decision on multiple levels. They are a prime example of how the Steem blockchain does not fit every case. DTube needed options outside Steem's base content/reward system. That said, they remain completely commited to Steem as evidence by all they did since the update.
I enjoy the new feature of dTube, I agree with the post. Like you said they couldn't have done it on steem in regards to what their specific goals are. And of course I appreciate still sticking with steem. Unlike the 'other' video platform from a while back... haha. And I guess really only time will tell how things scale up, I hate to play devils advocate with this one but just wanting to get some second opinions. However I think they are many people more technically savvy than I am in regards to these things so I will for the time being rest assured we're still onto something good here! ;) And my pleasure for the comment, thanks for the insights along the way - first time actually commenting but have enjoyed following, so thank you! 👌
Powered some Steem today to help improve our @untersatz witness position. Love reading your positive thoughts and I'm glad I'm following one of the most knowledgeable authors on Steem which is you.
I know exyle (from steemfest3) and he really is a nice guy. And he does put his money where his mouth is. Is it right or wrong will be shown in the future. I am also powering up (not as much as Mark) and writing about it. Steem has potential but indeed not everything with potential was ever successful. Lets hope for the ones that stick with it that that potential becomes reality. For those that leave it does not matter anyway
some live to be negative.. interestingly enough I had a similar experience with him.
Steemit is added to the wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virtual_communities_with_more_than_1_million_users
Wow. How about that?
The power of the Steem community.
Great words my friend! I continue to power through it all and continue my accumulation and optimism as I see the potential and the utilities while enjoying the time I spend engaging here!
Posted using Partiko iOS
The worst part is years from now, this guy will either regret his dumb decision or will be buying STEEM when it goes up and then will blame all the small things he can find...
Highly rEsteemed!
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