Topic: Someone please make a steem clone - page 7. (Read 14356 times)

Steemit


Tell that to the WW2 generation when Elvis gyrated his hips on national TV.

Tell that to the boomers (and even my generation) when we see Millennials' eyes glued to their smartphones when walking.


You still don't understand that the specific amount of money being paid is not what is driving those to Steem who will end up being sticky.

It is the ideology of being able to cooperate on the resources and better this world and not paying rent to capitalists who own OUR PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL (which was the entire point of my famous blogs cited in the OP of the CoinCube's Economic Devastation thread).

The ideology is cardinal. Payouts and rewards are one of the effects, but secondary.

Can you give me a tangible example of people-to-people cooperation (blockchain-based)? I need to understand this better.


The whole generation thing is bogus. I've made the case here: https://steemit.com/millenials/@alexgr/gens-x-y-z-why-they-don-t-really-exist-and-why-genealogy-needs-to-adapt

(...indirectly answering that woman with the question of why isn't her generation getting married)

In my view, the best equipped western generation right now is the one being born around 77-83, with the best probably being those around 79-81. (obviously I'm talking about sub-generations, not 25y generations). I think they hit the threshold of growing up the old way but taking advantage of the technology without it corrupting them to the same degree as the post85 and post90s.

There's a lot of DOA children post-90s and even more post-2000s.


You sign, you write, you get paid. You don't care how the money comes. You overrate this aspect too much.

AlexGR you entirely missed the point.

The marketing aspect is the killer app. And the movement towards cooperation (people-to-people) and away from central banks, big government and big corporations is going to change everything[1].

Blockchains enable such cooperation because no one owns it (except in the case of Steem where Dan and Ned own it).

[1] c.f. Strauss's Generation Change model and what we should expect at this juncture. I'd been expecting this since 2012 and now I see confirmation in my marketing focus groups on Steemit!


The Hero (Gen Y) generation is coming. I am from the Nomad (Gen X) generation, but I was lucky to be ready for the coming of the Hero generation and so I am ready to be adjust myself to be in sync with their ideals. Yet I was also talking to my mom and she can also identify with cooperation as a goal. So this is very unifying across all the generations, and the Heros will lead it (although some of us Gen X will also play key roles).

China will be big on this also. Also the Heros in Japan are ready to overthrow the old system. It is happening every where.



P.S. Steemit is a dead-end because the blockchain is rewarding a "pre"-mine which won't fit the ideals of the Hero generation. Once they know the truth, they will abandon Steem in droves if there is something better for them to express their disapproval in a positive way.

Blockchains are simply the technological outgrowth of increased storage, bandwidth and processing power that allows what used to be centralized, to become decentralized. By extension it "democratizes" power and eliminates middlemen.

As I see it cooperation is not needed nor is an essential characteristic - as blockchains must be built to endure in adversarial conditions.

The killer app of blockchains will differ depending the time-space coordinates. Initially it will be about text storage (like financial records - like ...bitcoin), then image storage, then video storage - as technological capabilities scale into the next 2-3 decades. If you told someone back in the 1980's that the entire encyclopedia would fit their 360kb floppy-equipped PC they would laugh. Fast forward ten years later, microsoft releases the encarta on a CD rom (with multimedia too). Fast forward twenty years later, the size of wikipedia (which is orders of magnitude richer and can be equated with the world's knowledge database) is around 150gb with the images. It can fit on a microSD that one can carry in their iphones. Fast forward twenty years forward, we may be hosting every single imgur photo on a microSD equivalent and thirty years later every video ever made in quality sub4k-res.

So, as I see it, the killer app would always be related to the elimination of middlemen who are currently using the centralized system to do what the decentralized system can't (due to storage/bandwidth/processor handicaps). Currently it is banking (bitcoin) and we are moving into more text (steemit) and we'll be moving to text+images, etc etc. But the "reddits" aren't the same type of "middlemen" that the banks are. The online payment and currency sector is by far the larger killer app here but it isn't that popular due to ease-of-use and associated technoweaknesses in the demographics. Steemit is an easier concept that is closer to foruming, but it competes in a market with far less revenue than online payments and banking.

I don't think you understand what the killer app of blockchains is.




Edit: I followed up:

Nobody cares...

The world isn't "fair" and even when "fairness" is introduced, it's just a matter of time where the substrate of fiat/assets wealth inequality will lead to a re-concentration of wealth.

Dogecoin and LTC have like 51% in their top100 wallets (BTC 19%). How the hell did a coin like Doge get so concentrated, when everybody was mining it with their GPUs, people were tipping off one another, etc etc? It's because fair distribution is a mirage.

Poor people will sell it at first opportunity (as it will be something they have to sell to keep up with life's necessities), rich people will buy more of it with their excess wealth - because they can throw millions around to anything they want.

If you had started with 10.000 people having equal steem (not SP), right now it would be -again- concentrated to some whales. A market spike would be enough for most people to cash out.

I urge you to go back to evening of Aug 6 or morning Aug 7 and count the number posts and points I made and the ratio of them which were mentions of my project.

And also I want you to take a look at the title of this thread.

Sorry you've just written FUD (except note the admission of "duly noted" below).

Of course I am promoting that I want to work seriously on a competitor and I am demonstrating my investment in effort to do so. But I don't think I have gone overboard on promoting or mentioning vaporware. Two others have come into this thread trying to sell ICO for what appeared to me to maybe be vaporware using fancy visual mockups. I haven't done that!

And of course I understand that I want to stop writing here. But if you have something important to say, I want to analyse it because in some cases it is much easier to fix a design at the inception than later. When I make a mention of something I am designing, it is because I use this thread as my notes. I don't keep copious private notes at this stage. I work very fluidly. You are alienated by my work style, but that is the way I work. It has its tradeoffs.

I understand it is boring and unfair as fuck to not be able to respond to specifics that are obfuscated. So in that respect your criticism is duly noted.

I think we are both a bit overworked at the moment. Let's squelch our misunderstandings.

Note it is also possible that some discussion might convince me to not continue with a Steem-like project. That is another reason for me to be so engrossed in this discussion. I didn't really pay attention to when I was mentioning obfuscated design ideas I have. It was just coming out in the flow of my thought process as I am replying.

Here's a timely email from an amazon vendor:


"Castle Art Supplies"

" Hello [redacted, for my privacy],

 I see that you recently purchased one of our products! I just wanted to send a note to say thank you
 Here are the details for Amazon order: 105-31...........
 Castle Art Supplies Drawing and Sketching Pencil Art Set (26 Items)


 We at Castle Art Suppliesâ"¢ try our best to provide the ultimate art supplies that you love as much as we do!

 If there is ANY reason you would not rate this a 5 star experience, we would like the opportunity to talk to you first! If you run into any issues at all or have any suggestions on how we could improve, please don't hesitate to let me know. I'm ready and willing to help, all you need to do is reply to this email

 We appreciate your business and hope to serve you again!

 Sincerely,

 Aaron at Castle Art Suppliesâ"¢"


Now, I don't about you, but I read the funny name spelling as a plea, "Amazon's got us by the balls--please, please, find our site and buy directly!"

--they could even put-up a nice "how-to" window/blog on steemit. <--this is a niche

Not at all. Dan and Ned spent months developing the details of their design on paper and in code, and only then did they try to sell it to the world (other than pitching it to some private investors I guess). That is what I am insulating, not that you should give it away for nothing, unless you want to. Certainly the latter is an option if you think that wide peer-review will benefit your efforts, but I'm not telling you how to distribute your work.


Sybils, if they exist, basically have to come from Steemit signups because the situation in the mining market with some high powered miners getting most of the blocks means that only a very small number of accounts can be created that way per day. My guess (without data) is that it is cheaper to cheat Steemit out of $7-10 plus an account name than to mine $7-10 of coins plus an account name.

I agree that if a lot are Sybils than the account signup rate is pretty low. Even without Sybils the absolute rate is pretty low at only 1K-2K per day. That is where I agree with your response to the hype-isn "viral" post.


Of course, everyone is applying some equation, you just haven't necessarily identified the correct equation. That is the disagreement here.

You do make an interesting point about not voting, because a very significant portion of the whales do not vote, or vote very little. I don't know how that translates down to other parts of the distribution, or what the effects of that are, but it seems to me the affects of voter apathy overall have to be pretty significant. For example, if other whales don't vote and I do, then my influence is further increased, at least assuming all else is equal with the rest of the distribution. That may be part of why my votes so-often end up on the top of the Trending list despite my "only" having 1-2% of the theoretical voting power.

Too many signals are getting crossed:


The data I have seen seems to show a huge attrition rate. I have no idea if they are mostly Sybil accounts, even though I know most are now coming from Steemit and not mining. But even if they are 85% Sybils, then it points to abysmal signup rate and reach of actual unique users. And that is a factual (no FUD!) statement.

Btw, in my design we will verify every user is a real human, but of course not on signup. I make this very small so I am not accused or promoting vaporware.

---

I wrote "implied intent" not "implied motivation". And I even said it need not be conscious. Meaning it is nothing you are thinking of doing. I mean the effect is the implied intent. By implied I didn't intend to mean you had any cognitive involvement in the intent.

Your cognitive intent is probably just trying to apply some personal equation of maximizing value and user satisfaction. And I am positing the design causes the implied intent that I outlined in the prior posts, meaning it is not in your control, no matter what you do (other than not voting but then all the whales+orcas would have to recuse themselves). My point was the design is thinking for you and causing you to have a very big footprint.

I think the point is too abstract to discuss in this tedious medium.

---

I don't know for sure either. So let's discuss this rationally.

1. Will users find something worth sticking around for, so that they forget any initial reason they had for joining?

2. Will they ever cognitively associate the promise of large rewards with failure to receive them and be negative? Negativity and anger can open the door for a competitor which offers them an outlet to vent their dissatisfaction in a positive way (and that could be Medium or Facebook, not necessary referring to my project). Btw, viral adoption has a large emotional component. Emotions are what motivates people to share virally.

3. Are there are other rewards we could give which would lessen the odds of user disappointment/disillusionment?

---

I argued upthread that near to linear would perhaps present an opportunity for users to join voting pools to defeat voting as a differentiation metric and maximize their rewards. I argued that is always the case for whales, but so far afaik the whales are not doing this. So I argued that moving towards linear would be more risky on the game theory. None of us are exactly sure what would happen.

Any way, let's assume Steem could successfully flatten the reward weightings. This still wouldn't solve the concentration problem until they take voting power away from the whales. And they can prevent whales from splitting their voting power to avoid some future threshold on voting power, because it is all locked up in SP. Whales could split 1% a week though so Steem would need strong anti-Sybil verification to make it sustainable.

---

I certainly believe it is possible to eliminate the highly vested footprint on anything other than being a passive investors as you should be. But as you say, talking about vapor is boring as fuck for everyone who doesn't have access to my bong. So I guess we can't discuss that further at this time.

Btw, you know someone who knows the entire design spec thus far. Maybe you can bribe him for some smokes. I heard he lost a lot BTC lately due to heists. (I don't think you bribe people...)

There are a number of different ways to interpret that. Maybe I vote for them once they get there (it is after all one of the few discovery methods that exist), maybe I'm effective in picking posts that will make it, maybe my voting a post increases its chances of making it, maybe it is a mathematical (near) requirement to make it to the very top (but not moderate top) that the biggest stakeholders support it. Probably some combination of these.


I'm not taking the general concept negatively, I'm just pointing out that your 'implied' motivation was incorrect. If anything that might be useful information in understanding what is actually going on?


There's no anger, I'm just pointing out inaccuracy. As for the deception, I do pretty much feel that it isn't a big deal. It is deception in the sense of marketing that suggests to people buying a particular brand of clothing or even a beverage will make them happy and successful. It doesn't literally promise that, and when thinking rationally about it, they know it isn't true, but the marketing still works to some extent. It isn't deceptive in the sense that anyone is being promised something that isn't true.

People are being invited to sign up for free and if they enjoy a chance for a larger payoff more than they would enjoy it if rewards were flatter, then it will have more of a draw. I'm not convinced that is incorrect, but I'm not convinced it is correct either.

I have no real dog in the fight over how concentrated the rewards should be, as I pointed out in that comment where I said that n^1.5 or some other superlinear but flatter curve might better, or might be worse. I don't know. Even n^1.1 has been seriously proposed (but probably in connection with other newly-introduced incentives).



I'm not attacking you, except in the narrow context of repeatedly promoting your vaporware. I think that is actually quite a negative way to approach things. Sorry if it was perceived as some sort of attack beyond that.


I appreciate the analysis, but to be frank sometimes the repetition on points already well-covered such as your dislike of the quadratic rewards, when presented without anything new of substance is just tedious.


Well it may be valid criticism of the design, the rate of redistribution, etc. We will have to see how that works out. I think the whitepaper discusses that highly-vested interests are important to some elements of the design (such as downvoting, and other myopically altruistic behavior, which is only incentivized at all by having a large stake in the overall platform and its success). Maybe there are better ways to do this, or maybe the downsides of having highly-vested interests outweigh the benefits. It is possible, but i don't think it is clear.


We agree on that, and I said so. I don't think anyone disagrees? The Steemit developers want to try to motivate people with the chance of something big rather than a guarantee of very little. That might work, or it might not. It is unclear to me.


I think I explained clearly what I was referring to there (in terms of repeated claims to knowing how deliver a better product and claiming to be working on doing so, with no details or peer review to back it up), and it is clearly correct. It doesn't mean you have no useful analysis as well because obviously you do.


I'm still not sure you are correct about actual attrition rates (meaning real users who actually start using the site, not account scammers, or even, as a few people have stated, failed attempts to sign up which leave a dead/"abandoned" account when the user signs up for another one, with only the second being used). We need to analyze the blockchain data better.

Steem+blog+sonnet= https://steemit.com/life/@generalizethis/what-black-swan-can-teach-us-about-ruthless-ambition

I wasn't writing about any specific post. I was writing about perhaps > 50% (I haven't counted but noticed so many) of the posts on the trending page has your upvote. I've noticed you are spreading your votes around quite liberally and I even said to you kudos because it seems you are trying to make sure both more people are rewarded and that the site has more diverse content that is rewarded.

Why would you in any way take that negatively? Is it because I also stated that is a mathematical deception as admitted by the white paper. And I even said it isn't your fault. So I don't know why you are getting angry for what I have stated which seems to be factual. Perhaps you don't like being associated with mathematical deceptions. Or perhaps you feel it isn't a big deal and at least some people are earning something.

I raised the point in the context of whether inorganic selection of content for rewarding, would build community (coteries) so that users have a sticky reason to stay on the site, regardless of earning money.

Now you've turned my desire to have a factual discussion into attack on me, just because I associated the facts of the situation with some imperfection or malintent in the design.

Hey I am taking this very seriously. If you think I am dicking around here, then why the fuck you think I've been awake for 18 - 24 hours at a time for the past 2 weeks busting my ass to make sure I understand every aspect.

I appreciated the discussion, but I tend to think you just want to beat me in debate and when you can't you get stern with me. I actually don't really entirely understand the way you are reacting. Maybe you are just tired of so much discussion. But for me it is damn fucking serious. I thought with your $4 million or whatever in Steem, it might be damn serious for you too, but I don't know your networth, maybe that isn't so significant for you.



I think I already explained above why I don't think it is broken.

I think inorganic is not engagement. It is not sticky. It is not real. It is fake. Smooth is 1/50 of the site activity (or something like that, not exactly that). It is not accusation against you. It is an accusation against the design parameters.



I also stated that mathematically we can't pay the masses well with Steem's current design. That seems to be a relevant fact to not ignore.


I have said that myself, yet you accuse me of being redundant.


Spewing FUD? WTF???

Did I not predict there would be a huge attrition rate before I had the data? And was I correct.

I won't bother to enumerate all the major work I have done on analysis.

I will just remind you that this discussion only began one page back when I started my work day and now I am at the end of my work day. And it was you who enjoined the discussion and I responded about how I thought the combination of quadratic weighting and whale voting power was working against engagement.

I hope you understand that a 90% premine pisses a lot of people off. I remember you (and others) wrote upthread that Bitcoin investors don't matter and investment should come from outside, and the users don't care about the 90% premine. I also think you want us to reach open source harmony (well so do I). Well sometimes shit doesn't mesh.

Funny you insinuate that I should give away all my designs and work for nothing, when you are in on a 90% premine. But I guess what you mean is I can't do it as well as Dan and Ned did, then maybe I better just admit I have to give away my shit for nearly free.


The ability to innovate on top of the block chain is incredibly valuable. I have also stated that. We are in entire agreement on that.

This is factually wrong if you believe, as I do, that earning $50-100 for a post, or in some cases even less, is still pretty good (not including heavily researched or longer posts that involve a lot of effort, but most don't). I regularly come across posts with no whale votes at that reward level. This will only increase as the ranks of the middle fish continue to grow.


This is also factually wrong. I reject a majority of what I find that has reasonable content, in many cases because I think the $50-100 it is already earning without any whale votes is good enough.


For the third time, you have no idea why I voted for that post. Implied intent is something you create in your own model that may or may not represent reality. In this case I'm quite certain your statement of intent, implied or otherwise, is not accurate, but this particular case isn't important, except to indicate that your model is broken. Even that doesn't so much matter though.

The rest of your post was basically repetition of you claiming to have ideas how to create something better. In that case, go do it. Or publish them and let others offer their peer review and potentially implement your ideas, which would also be valuable. In failing to do either, you have no actual contribution.

That's not defensive, it is an honest assessment that at this point you are just spewing FUD and repeative promotion of non-existent, non-reviewed vaporware (also a form of FUD). You can stop doing that any time you want.


I certainly agree with this part, because most people, even those who try, just don't have the talent or following for others to want to pay them a lot for their content, and no technology is going to change that. Either being paid a little or getting a chance to be paid more is the only way that pay is going to enter into any social media site for the vast majority of participants. The primary motivations beyond that will be enjoyment, passing the time, and for no particularly good reason but everybody else does it.

Also, one thing that has been stated before by the Steemit developers, and was reinforced in the Berwick interview, is that the social media component is just the beginning of what they have planned for the platform, especially in its current form (in the interview they called it a minimum viable product). I have no idea if any of the other stuff will work at all, whether or not the social media part does, except to say that it could possibly give other reasons to join and use the platform. Maybe that will broaden the ability of people to find value even if they aren't great content creators.