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Warning: The following content may be a little alarmist in nature and is intended to convey a sense of urgency rather than a call to panic.
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This has been brewing upon my mind for over two months now - and I feel it necessary to bring it to you for your consideration and feedback.
When I say that Steemit has a problem - in truth I see it as Steemit having a complex of intricately related problems - and I shall be delving into them here and now.
Content Leeching
The posting of other peoples' works as if they were one's own.Certain users seem content to just post somebody else's video along with their extensive official-looking footer that takes more space on-page than the video itself. Add a catchy title - and away it goes to make money.
Now I know that services like @steemcleaners, @cheetah and others make real efforts to detect instances of text-based plagiarism. That is cool. At least wanton text plagiarists need to put in a little effort beyond copy-paste.
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However this as a whole is dragging down the legitimacy of the Steemit platform.
Furthermore there is the whole specter of copyright infringement litigation to consider. Just because it hasn't yet reared its head doesn't mean that it won't - and something tells me that the kinds of entities that took out Napster, etc. are not going to settle for "Its on the blockchain and blockchain is forever" as an answer.
If they don't make Steemit unmake the 'forever' part then they will make Steemit organize a 'forever' compensation. Implications for dtube?
Content Acidity
By acidity I do not refer to explicit materials.Rather I talk about the posting of materials that are defamatory.
All the worse if completely untrue.
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I also refer to language that is just personally offensive.
Blockchain is blockchain. What is said cannot be unsaid - no matter how wrong.
So far.
If Steemit were ever to whole-scale attract the sorts of people who think nothing of the responsibilities that go with exercising their "right to free speech" then such would drag down public perception of the platform. Such would put some people off of getting on here.
The same sort of applies to bullying also - and instances of such have been rearing its head here and there - and accounts have been ruined as a result (all the more insidious when the basis for such bullying is something that the target 'is' (or believes) rather than 'does').
Unsurprisingly an abundance of toxic behavior leads to a toxic environment. It should also be unsurprising to hear that such shall have ramifications upon the future of Steemit if left unchecked.
Content Overlap
Think... politics - or Trump.
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The image is more representative of the 'middle-layer' of politics.
For every single thing that Trump (or Obama - 'shrugs') does, you can bet that there will be 'several' Steemit posts dedicated to reading into it. Whether its an aggressive handshake, or a confident brushing of shoulders, or the use of tough language with Kim, or even a round of golf - the thoughts of users on the reporting of the matter upon some medium is going to make it onto Steemit.
It one looks at the sum of these posts then one would optimistically hope for a 50:50 split between the stuff that they have in common (the news), and the stuff that they don't (a portion of the opinion).
It doesn't need to be politicians or celebrities or news either. How many times are we going to hear about the benefits and dangers of vaccines?
Herein I've hinted at another problem...
Information Burial
Whether its through the simple passing of time, or through the flooding of other 'me-too' posts, any good article is going to find itself receding slowly and surely into the mists of the night.Sure... its on the blockchain forever...
...but how many are going to specifically look for a particular post with arguably the best content, within a sea of 'kinda-good-enoughs'?
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In fact - I bet that this post is itself overlapping upon the content of others who have sought to bring issues with Steemit to light.
Perhaps there are lessons to be learnt here - and I'd suggest that Wikipedia's curation system would make for a pretty good start. Yes - I know that the data structure is different - and that Wikipedia's model is far from optimal itself - but one thing that Wikipedia does have going for it - is a topic-centric model.
Content Relevance
How well is steemit content inter-linked? Truly...There is a lot of content to be true... and if I use a specific keyword then I will likely come across some content.
The problem is that if something is not in the title or the tags then it will not show up.
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More-so - how well is it structured? I bet that there is enough information about various topics to bring about either a time-line or a basics-to-mastery list - but such sorting/curation is not part of the present paradigm.
So the result is akin to a large kid's toy box with a bunch of partitions for different 'kinds' of toys (dolls, blocks, action figures, etc.). Yes the blockchain can be analyzed - but is it designed for the use of us mere mortals or is it intended for the benefit of Elon Musk's next AI?
Utility-Accessibility
There exist utilities out there that can help me to access the blockchain more effectively.However I'd hardly say that they are at my fingertips. I need to look for them (or have them recommended to me) - and they sometime have their own websites and may even need my public posting key.
Its not intuitive. Its not very accessible. These are problems.
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Payment-Centric Model
"Come for the money - remain for the community"This is a mantra popularly attributed to Steemit.
However payment-centric behaviors like:
- Self-up-voting (because vouching for the self is curation...)
- Quantity-based posting strategy
- Follow for follow requests
- Begging for Up-votes ("Nice post! Pls. up-vote me.")
- Demanding Up-votes (Otherwise labeling comments as "spam" (balderdash))
- Chasing the contests
- Following/ up-voting/ sucking up to high-rep/ SP users (scavenger behavior)
And the list likely goes on... These do not really benefit the Steemit community.
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While payments make up for a fair amount of the appeal of the platform, the truth is that the 'value' of such is about as "in our heads" as is the case with fiat money.
It is the information that goes onto the blockchain where the real value lies. The better the quality of the information and its infrastructure, the higher the value of Steemit.
Which is like saying that the value of the ocean is the great biodiversity of its occupants - and the quality of the water. If the water should be polluted then the overall quality and value of the ocean would fall.
As such it is evident to me that one thing that Steemit will need to do at some point in future - is to shift away from a payment-centric model to an information-centric model.
Which is not to say that payments should not remain an incentive in any such new model - but the basis for such should be smarter.
Perhaps its time to weave Steemit data flowers... Conclusion.
If Steemit does not - then somebody else will... and Steemit may go the same way as Nokia, Nintendo, and Myspace - as others learn from Steemit's inadequacies and enter the market with a better overall paradigm - leaving Steemit to either scramble to do what it should have done a long time ago to "catch up"- or to rely upon its head-start to carry it through only to find that, like the polar bear, its comfort zone (and pre-existing user-base) is ever more rapidly chipped away at by circumstances both within and beyond their control.
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Does anybody really want to see Steemit go that far South? I don't.
As such I motion for the development of a new paradigm. One worth shifting to.
If you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your friends then a resteem couldn't hurt and would be appreciated.
If you have some feedback for me then feel free to share your views in comments.
Even better - lets start a discussion on this subject. A civil conversation can go a long way.
Sincerely,
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