In a truly democratic system any attempt at change requires a broad consensus. There has been a lot of discussion recently about the high STEEM DOLLAR price having broken the intended $1 USD peg and there are both valid arguments for and against having a high STEEM DOLLAR. Some have suggested it is up to Steemit to resolve, while others look to the Witnesses for leadership on this issue. The truth is - If we are going to come up with a workable solution the discussion needs a broader involvement from a wider range of Stakeholders. If there is one thing I learnt from my experience with Project Management and Systems Development in a highly politicised environment, it is that you need to get buy-in from Stakeholders to get consensus and acceptance of any change - IN ADVANCE. Now I'm not suggesting we try and involve every single person in discussions, but we need representation from the key elements of the STEEM ecosystem. In this post I am going to try and outline what I believe those key Stakeholder groups are.
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In summary :-
- Developers
- Witnesses
- Investors
- Authors
- Curators
- Merchants
- Traders & Speculators
In more detail :-
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The people who design, build, test, deploy and support the technical changes required to implement any kind of improvement to the STEEM platform. It includes Steemit, but also developer groups like Utopian or Busy.org and anyone who might have built additional systems or plug-ins on top of the STEEM platform as they could be affected by any change. Without the Developers on board the platform doesn't improve and we stagnate. Things break and they don't get fixed.
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The people who provide the infrastructure to run the STEEM platform. They have servers all around the world and they produce blocks containing our posts, they publish price feeds that determine conversion rates from SBD to STEEM, interest rates and a lot of other stuff. These people are already pseudo-politicans in this system as they need to get votes to be elected and paid for their work. They are also the ones who physically deploy and host any system changes so if they're not on board then nothing gets done and since they need votes they won't deploy anything that is unpopular.
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The people who have invested into STEEM POWER and they will want a return on their investment, typically a long term appreciation of the STEEM price and/or a revenue stream. Since their STEEM POWER is currently locked away for a minimum of 13 weeks they are usually less interested in short term thinking or trading for a quick buck. They are generally here for the long haul and are the ones who have the vote in who become the top rewarded Witnesses. They are also the ones who provide the rewards to Authors, both through direct upvoting and also indirectly by funding the reward pool via inflation. Without them on board the STEEM price could collapse if they were to withdraw their investment.
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The people who provide value to the platform via production of content. They could be writing quality articles and blog posts or engaging in meaningful discussion via comments on other Author contributions. There are lots of small and medium sized Author communities that have bound together and who mutually support each other due to common interest about a particular subject. Without the Authors on board we don't have any content or value generation on the platform.
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The people who identify valuable content on the platform, they are rewarded for discoving and providing exposure to new and unheralded Authors. Without Curators on board the STEEM platform becomes less about rewarding the quality of your content and your contribution and instead becomes more about rewarding you because of who your friends are and how powerful or influential they are, or how many votes can you buy. Without Curators the new and unheralded Authors to the platform go unrewarded and will leave so they play a critical role in retention of new talent and the long term growth of the platform.
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The people who are trying to build a business presence on the platform and conduct commerce using the STEEM platform. They are a potentially major growth area for using STEEM and STEEM DOLLARS as an actual mainstream currency. They give other STEEM users the ability to trade their rewards for tangible goods and services via the platform. They will want some price stability so that they can build reliable business models here and not have currency fluctuations destroy their margins or generate losses. Without Merchants on board the STEEM platform won't leverage off it's network effect and will lose a potentially massive avenue of growth. Thus without Merchants the STEEM cryptocurrencies would be unlikely to ever achieve mainstream adoption.
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The people who buy and sell STEEM and STEEM DOLLARS with a short term investment horizon. They are the ones who provide valuable liquidity to both internal and extenal exchanges so that others can easily transact in these currencies quickly and at a fair price. They are also the ones who might buy or sell based on product or market developments so their job is also to constantly appraise the platform and ensure that the currencies accurately reflect their true actual value when circumstances change or are changing.
With the current state of play and the STEEM DOLLAR having broken it's peg it is fairly safe to say that the ESTABLISHED Authors are happy because they have an increase in rewards. The high prices also seem to be attracting new people to the platform so the Investors are kind of happy too and if the Investors are happy then the Witnesses generally will go along with them. The Developers don't see any need to change anything while the Traders and Speculators are having a great time because the wild swings in the STEEM DOLLAR are an opportunity for them to profit too.
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The immediate losers here are the Curators, who totally miss out on the benefits of a high STEEM DOLLAR because they are only paid out in STEEM POWER. As the Curators get weaker it hurts the NEW Authors being attracted to the platform because they aren't being discovered or rewarded for their contributions so while we might be attracting new users, I suspect our retention rate is currently not good. Meanwhile there is demand for the Vote Buying services because new and unheralded Authors realise they can't rely on the Curators and need to buy votes to gain exposure. This has caused the explosion in vote buying services recently as the Investors realise they can get a return on investment by delegating to Vote Bots. The Merchants similarly are losers as they realise the prices of both STEEM and STEEM DOLLARS are too volatile to conduct real world commerce so they just stay away.
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The question is - Do we just cut out the Curators and the Merchants and make some money in the short term, even if it is to the detriment of the platform long term? Or do we try and find a compromise and open up the platform to encourage Curators and Merchants for the long term gains they can bring the platform, even if it comes at a cost to other Stakehoders in the short term?
https://programsuccess.wordpress.com
https://hackernoon.com
https://www.technojobs.co.uk
http://www.alleywatch.com
https://www.theodysseyonline.com
https://www.litmos.com
http://www.wisegeek.com
https://fxdailyreport.com
https://bookertalk.com
http://waleoladipo.com