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RE: Market Share of the Steem Blockchain by Application: March 2018 Analysis
“The fall in activity appears to follow the withdrawal of the delegation from the central steemit team on March 11.”
I think this just highlights the fact that users typically aren’t using these apps because they think the apps are good. They use them because they’re expecting upvotes by the delegatees that run them. When those votes don’t come, we see what happens.
This is not only true about specific apps, however. It’s a platform-wide problem with both users and app developers. Without the money, there just isn’t much that’s appealing to devs, content creators, and consumers. This is actually a very anti-social network. Most participants are only here because they want other people to do something for them:
To give them money.
I think the platform operates more as a content-forum than a social network. It has more in common with youtube / reddit / medium / twitter than with facebook. As such I don't think it's a huge problem that many people post mainly for the money.
People mainly post to youtube for the money, I think, for the generation of advertising revenues. Or perhaps to promote their particular causes and beliefs. Both of those reasons align pretty well with the incentives and ideas of the Steem platforms. The difference is that the incentives on youtube require the content to be entertaining (or controversial / useful / informative / original) to attract viewers, otherwise you earn nothing and attract nobody. It's survival of the fittest.
The lack of link between quality and reward is one area where the Steem economics currently falls down. There's limited incentive for the content to be exceptional, which would in turn generate further news and growth for the blockchain, which in turn would bring in more revenue and steem price growth. I actually think that this is where the app-owners with their delegated SP can have a big influence, seeking out and rewarding the best content heavily, trying to unearth our own future stars and influencers, someone to make a name as having come from the blockchain.
It's difficult for the whales to fully organise this kind of promotion amongst themselves, with their own money, simply because it requires many of them to be aligned behind the potential for capital growth at the expense of certain dividend yield and additionally not to freeload on the backs of the others.
It's possible that the witnesses may drive more of a trend towards quality. We don't have any big advertisers yet but the one area where there is real money being made and where people are constantly advertising is the witness "contest". Witnesses unearthing and sponsoring the best content in return for advertising space for their witness vote could drive quality. It would require a greater spread of SP though as currently the witness votes of the vast majority have little influence and are not worth advertising for.
Tl;dr of these random musings: it's not the financial incentive that's the problem, for me. It's the lack of alignment to quality.
As an aside, Zappl / twitter is the one platform which really should work. I don't really know why people post to twitter but it should be replicable on this blockchain. Mobile, short form content, probably initially with a fairly heavy crypto influence, allowing people to follow trends, tips and news in the crypto world, with micro-rewards for useful content. Perhaps combined with coin price movement tickers, upcoming event calendars etc. That could actually be useful and rewarding, possibly even entertaining. There should be value to be obtained from just reading tweets as well as / instead of reward for writing them. It just needs the platform to be right and some push to get other altcoin owners on board to promote themselves and maybe even offer incentives. It really should be possible.