Mirror mirror: replacing the internet

We all have different views of Steem and due to our various positions, the direction we might think or want it to go in can vary greatly. Due to the interconnected complexity, the multiple digital mediums, the inclusion of financial incentive and economies of various kinds and a host of other factors, it is difficult to image where it could all lead.

Personally, I try to firstly imagine Steem in its simplest form, a content management system. All it does is store content links in a ledger that just happens to be distributed. It is pretty easy to see it in this way for me but once all the other layers get brought in on top with all of the various personalized positions included, the view can change a lot. What I try to do is to build my basic framework and import views into their appropriate slots to create a robust picture. It is a slow and ever evolving process.

On my last post about content creators moving to Steem a comment from just such a person came in saying that while they were happy to join and benefited as prices rose, they see Steem as just another backup location for their content that they put on you tube. In my view of Steem, this is positive.

Not that I have ever used torrents, but some might remember The Pirate Bay running into issues and being blocked at the server level for most users but, other than some inconvenience, mirror sites popped up all over the place that gave access to their database of links using an identical interface. Of course, there was a fair bit of scamming and phishing to be had on many of these sites but, it shows how important having backups can be. These days, those mirrors could be much more trusted since there is a trustless content management system it can leverage.

Besides this though, there are other reasons that mirroring content is going to be important for Steem in the future and of course, the content developers themselves as it allows them to hold their catalogue and if anything does happen to them on their centralized platforms (like their type of content banned as in the case of Tumblr), they have a store of it.

One of the arguments on Steem for Youtubers is that there just aren't enough consuming eyes to make it worth their time but what many don't realize is how fast that can change. It is hard to compare Steem to Youtube (which has been around since 2005 and is google owned and driven to viewers by their own search engine) which has almost 2 billion users per month but, that doesn't mean Steem can't compete.

What people forget is that while Youtube picks and chooses who it supports, Steem is driven by the users themselves and while the trickle of users come in now, growing price, changing culture, contributors and consumers tired of curtailing and losing content and of course, the growing interest in all things crypto can change the numbers drastically.

What is interesting is that there is essentially no risk to mirror content here but, there is the potential for a lot of future capabilities yet, not so many are interested unless they get immediate return. It can be a slow process to convince a public to make a platform change from something that integrates so smoothly into their lives unasked like google across android. But that change is slowly happening and when it does, a gravity will form and attract an increasing number of users, in the same way that the internet message boards that were only used by the nerdiest of nerds in the 80s became the internet as we know it today with 3.5 billion (predominantly not nerd) users.

The difference from that shift from the 80s is that this time there is additional value in being an early adopter from a content contributor standpoint due to the stake-based capabilities and the possibility to buy into the technology and network itself. Essentially through distributed platforms like Steem, we the users at all of the various levels become the owners of the internet, not just the content creators and consumers that get leveraged as products that drive value to the real infrastructure owners and platform operators.

This is actually part of the problem we see on Steem as we as users are not accustomed to being in the position of infrastructure owners of any kind so making the paradigm shift where we have to put in is difficult. We want the benefits of a distributed system that rewards without incurring any of the costs of operation. But, that is another story.

There are obviously lots of issues with this system and every view comes with caveats, but one of the things that I think is going to drive Steem uptake and value in the future is being a system that can replicate other systems, offer similar functionality, security, immutability, censor resistance, economic possibility, feeless financial transfers, investment opportunity and support a diverse range of communities and genres in a host of environments with all users having the chance to be a part of the system and many levels and layers of depth.

It doesn't even need anywhere near 2 billion users to have an extremely high value to users in the future although, it is possible that it might have a collective of that considering that instead of being a platform, it is a co-op of many platforms, applications and interfaces that offer a tailored experience for their niche and user base with localized rules and functions through things like SMTs. I also think that in time there will be much more cross-over and collaboration with other blockchains that will provide services that want to leverage the diverse set of communities Steem holds.

As I see the future of Steem, it isn't so much a revolution as a practical replacement and reorganization of the way we own and manage our content as users. Instead of relying on a centralized authority to treat us well, we are able to build our own systems that ensure it. Not everyone need have the same view though and not everyone need agree or want to be or stay here but again, this is an opt-in system and no one is forced to stay.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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