Steem: A Story Bigger Than Itself (OS Insights #1)

Repository

https://github.com/steemit/steem

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A personal journey expounding the positive effects that the Steem blockchain has had on me and the greater vision of its community.

First impressions and expectations

When I joined Steemit and entered the Steem ecosystem for the first time, I was familiar with cryptocurrencies, knowing Bitcoin, Ethereum and a few others. They were, to me, a new kind of money and digital assets. A technology grounded in principles that spoke to who I was and what I believed in: freedom of economic activity, self-ownership, transparency where it's needed, privacy when it's needed and a voluntary system.

Steem also had a cryptocurrency, but what set it apart was the vibrant community it had. It was the meeting of cryptocurrency and community in one place that struck me the most.

a snapshot of how the homepage of Steemit.com looked on the 14th of October, 2016. Three days after I joined. from web.archive.org

Your voice is worth something

The tagline hit home a lot of valid points. Welcoming a curious mind, that was trying to grasp the complex paradigm shift it was now exposed to, it felt somewhat divine.

Steem introduced the concept of monetizing attention through cryptocurrency and when that light bulb lit up, it blew my mind. All of a sudden, the business models of the incumbent social networks were clear to me: my attention was creating value for these entities and their shareholders. Value that the blockchain could somehow bring back to me.

The technical parts

Seeking to understand more of how this system worked and how it was designed, I went to the whitepaper.

Reading the thing made me feel dumb, as if I had not been using my brain at all my entire life; but it also sparked a deep curiosity within me. Pages and pages, of intricate details about how (and why) Steem was made captivated me for hours and days. The economic model, the consensus algorithm (DPoS), distributed storage of content, accounts, voting and more. It was a literal brain storm. Even though I was familiar with writing code, the level of difficulty I saw was well beyond my scope. (I used to code back in the days and still do albeit on a low level)

I will not go into the details of the Steem blockchain’s code, you can read the whitepaper for yourself here or check out the code on GitHub. I'll just share my takeaway from it all.

Steem is a complex system, bringing together many clever tools and constructs to create a platform for a community that is bonded together by content and shared interests. A community that has its own economy and knows no geographical boundaries. It is more than just code running on witness nodes around the world, it is an expression of a community’s ideology, with various sub-communities having many different interests, but all sharing the main principles expressed by the blockchain.

Steem is a story bigger than itself

image from Pixabay

With new technology comes unknown and unprecedented challenges, and Steem has its own problems and it experiences growth pains. Some things don't work as we would want them to and some things that did work well no longer suffice, because of changing market conditions or because of our own progress, or lack thereof.

It's the ability to change that makes this community resilient and progressive. Thousands of users come together and work toward compatible goals that benefit the entire ecosystem. Each brings their own experience, skills, knowledge and wisdom to nourish the cause.

Yes, differences in opinion exist, but the platform has the potential to enable healthy debate. The best part is that it's voluntary. A person is free to join or not, to adopt or decline, or even fork if that's what they want to do.

It might not be “perfect” right now, but it offers a shining example. Steem is the proof of the possibility of a decentralized movement of like-minded individuals. A movement that attracts value and incentivizes the exchange of ideas.

In light of all these things, it quickly became clear to me that the vision was bigger than the platform and ourselves.

My journey

My time spent in the Steem community has been a journey of humbling lessons, gratifying affirmations and hope.

image from Pixabay

Power of consensus

Through studying the system's design, I came to appreciate the value of consensus. Blockchain's reliance on continuous consensus exposed the power of aligned incentives, as well as how the balance of risk, reward and consequence affect behavior.

It's about more than money

Money has its place in our lives. As a unit of account, medium of exchange and store of value. We need something to serve these roles and Steem has currencies for that.

I realized that the value of Steem superseded monetary aspects. The social connections and reputation that Steem brings to its community is extremely valuable.

Freedom of thought and expression

Freedom of expression is aided by the blockchain’s account ownership model. My account is mine and once I post something, no one person can delete it or modify it. I hold the keys and unless I share the permission with someone else, I'm the only one who can add data to my account.

Such an environment breeds freethinkers and I feel fortunate to have learned from the brilliant minds on this platform. Meeting so many people who shared the same principles as I reaffirmed my view of reality and gave me hope for the future. Hope that if we work together, we will secure freedom and give chance to untethered prosperity.

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OS Insights is a series of blog posts that offer thought-provoking insights into various Open Source projects on the Steem blockchain and beyond.