SMT’s and steem-engine tokens - Why I think its a waste of time
We have been waiting sometime now for SMTs to be delivered by Steemit Inc, with the ideology that they will drive up the demand for Steem and attract more developers, more businesses and more users to the blockchain.
In the meantime, @aggroed and team have launched steem-engine and the ability to create ones own token. My understanding, and please do correct me if I am wrong, is that these allow developers and businesses create their own tokens just like the promised SMTS, that will also drive up the demand for steem and the engine token its self.
I won’t pretend to know much about blockchain. I don’t fully understand how all this works and so what I am about to say might very well be down to lack of education or even ignorance.
I don’t think SMTs or steem-engine tokens will drive up the demand for steem. I think it makes everything more confusing to the mainstream person and will mean less adoption, not more!
How many mainstream businesses that you know of have begun to utilize the benefits of smart contract? How many home/online-based entrepreneurs have embraced this technology to add value to their business? Not very many, right?
It seems to me, the only people using these are developers that see it as a way of raising funds. Hence the success of ICO’s. however, the market is full of speculators, most of which look for short term gains and so the entire market is volatile, they are not long term institutional investors.
Mainstream organizations have the option to use blockchain services and solutions provided by other mainstream organizations, such as Microsoft. You know that already right?
Have you ever tried to explain and recruit users to steem?
Friend - “What is steem?”
Me - “Steem is a blockchain where you can find content and creations. It ran off a blockchain, where instead of the new coins created going to miners like bitcoin, some of the new coins are used to reward those active on the platform. So, you can reward your favorite blogger or artist with a simple upvote that has a value. And your favorite blogger can reward you back if you engage with them on their posts”
Friend - “Awesome – how do I get started?”
Me - “Well first you need a steem wallet. And then you need to ensure you have like a deposit of steem in the wallet, which you can get back when every you want, but you need this to be active. The larger the deposit the more you can do and the more your vote is worth.
Friend - “So I need to sign up for a steem wallet.”
Me - “Yes”
Friend - “Then I need to put a deposit in it. How do I do that and how do I get the deposit back.
Me - “you need to sign up with an exchange. There are some places you can buy steem for cash, but most you will have to buy bitcoin or other coins first and then swap them for steem and then transfer them to your steem wallet and power it up.”
Friend - “What the fuck Paula…. you must have nothing to do with your life…. that’s way too much hassle.”
Fact are, the mainstream audience is lazy. Online attention span has dropped from 12 seconds a few years back to only 7 seconds now.
Think about this for a second. You land on a website, you like the content, you want to sign up for the newsletter, ah man…this sign up form requires to much work, you couldn’t be bothered. You leave the site. This is the way it is.
Now let’s bring SMTS and steem-engine tokens into this. Let’s pretend I issued an Excel Token for https://theexcelclub.com/ . Here’s how I see the conversation going
Friend - “What’s this Excel token?”
Me - “It's basically value for learning, the more you learn the more you tokens you will be rewarded. You can use them to pay for premium content on my site.”
Friend - “Cool, how do I get started”
Me - “First you need a steem account.”
Friend - “What is steem?”
Me - “Steem is a blockchain where you can find content and creations. It ran off a blockchain, where instead of the new coins created going to miners like bitcoin, some of the new coins are used to reward those active on the platform. So, you can reward your favorite blogger or artist with a simple upvote that has a value. And your favorite blogger can reward you back if you engage with them on their posts”
Friend - “Awesome – how do I get started?”
Me - “Well first you need a steem wallet. And then you need to ensure you have like a deposit of steem in the wallet, which you can get back when ever you want, but you need this to be active. The largest the deposit the more you can do and the more your vote is worth.
Friend - “So I need to sign up for a steem wallet.”
Me - “Yes”
Friend - “Then I need to put a deposit in it. How do I do that and how do I get the deposit back.
Me - “you need to sign up with an exchange. There are some places you can buy steem for cash, but most you will have to buy bitcoin or other coins first and then swap them for steem and then transfer them to your steem wallet”
Friend - “What the fuck Paula…. you must have nothing to do with your life…. that’s way too much hassle.”
Me - “Hold on, I’m not finished. Then you need to go to steem engine and trade the steem for the excel token, or if you have the excel token and want cash, you need to go to steem engine, change it to steem, transfer it to an exchange, trade it for cash or another coin, then transfer it to your bank so you can spend it.”
Really Dudes. You think this is going to work? Please explain to me where I am going wrong and how you see it working.
Don’t get me wrong, I love steem. Heck, I am trying to use it to push my own business forward. I just think, you need to walk before you can run. Things need to be a lot easier for mainstream adoption and until then, its speculation, volatile markets. I would love to see steemit inc focus on making steem a great content discovery and publishing platform, without having to jump between hoops to get up and running. I would love to see steemit inc focus their energy on making steemit.com an awesome platform and go back to the original white paper for utilization of the block. I would love to see the price of steem rise for those reasons alone.
How it feels to me with SMTs is that steemit inc are living in hope that a few ICO type things happen brining in influxes of large steem buyers, short term demand will do. They can exit at a better price and the market will do what it does…the token will become less valuable as just like on steemit they will struggle for human users. But steemit inc will have push out the losses to initial SMT investors. It’s not really a long-term solution to raise the price of steem.
If you can convince me I am wrong, if your opinion differs, I would love to hear from you. Please do drop your comment below.
in my case also, I don't know what's with those tokens. Unlike pal by @aggroed because I use it like in steemit. Unlike also by @dramatoken because if you called drama, it will give an upvote. But the other token I don't their purpose, maybe I just have no idea about it. I mentioned I didn't know because if we sell some token, there's no guarantee that someone will be interested and buy it.
just saying, I'm ignorant about tokens..
that reminds me, I need to earn some dramatokens.....time to stir shit lol
You forgot to mention delegating your token SP to a me.excel account to be able to manage Steem VP and EXCEL VP effectively.
I agree the difficulty level is tough, and even before stepping into steem-engine.
The choice though is either to stand still or continue pushing the boundaries and for that reason i'm for SMT and steem-engine.
I don't think the only choice is to stand still or push on with tokens from whatever source. Content creators and curators, if they had the delegations dev's have had, would help attract and retain more content creators and consumers. there is massive value in alternative revenue for content creators and consumers, removing the middle man that take the bigger cut....along with censorship resistance, ownership of content and all the other benefits steem has. Im all for progression, but progression in a sustainable way.
I think you've hit a massive nail on the head here... the content creators and consumers will ultimately make this place go viral... they're the users of all of these dApps and as with any app, the content creators and consumers drive it. if they're not happy....
I have not much deep knowledge about how it all works but the way you describe it is the way I see it. And the growing number of new tokens don't increase the value of Steem in my eyes. Of course, I can be wrong. I wonder to see what people say
im totally with you... all i can see atm was a lot of people started to power down their STEEM to buy this new Frontendtoken , and they forgot they will loose RC too when they do it this way... so the complete system get wonky by going this way... I see also a small problem.. For my Post a i need to use Frontend A ( or its # ) for the next a completely other one .. So this sets Borders in middle of STEEMIT, i dont know if i like this but in my first thoughts i need to say .. NOPE i dont like it... I love the Community of STEEMIT , but all this selfmade Borders will show up one thing... People will start to refund their operation Delegations to get the SP back to power up their own Vote again because they will get less by their own posts... And try to invest it in all NEW WAYS... so what will happen ?? Yeah i think a lot of Actual Communities will die in this progress. Yeah there will come a Community Reward POOL, but hey you need to pay a lot to get on this List to have a CHANCE to pay out of it, so next stuff which is made to DISS the small Communities because they cant efford the Payment to get on this lists...
Yeah so The Community showed hey STEEMIT wqe dont need YOU and the SMT we re going to make ourselfs Token and going forward so , ahm why we did this ???
And yeah im using this frontends because with only steem its nearly not worthy anymore to create a post because all are swopping
STEEMIT i LOVE you but imm not okay with the momentum
the problems you highlight are real problems. it's not a very positive feeling watching all of this godown. And there is still way to much demand the rewards pool to fund all these things that are only hurting us further.
prob is , i tried to show em up, all i got was something like a more bad FEELING about it, because at least i was a LEECHER, ( i used the Word earlier in conversation ) because i dont Invest Hundreds of $ into steem,
And i said hey im a STEEMIT user, i got invited by the Inforrmations doing some BLOG Stuff and get paid for... Okay i see its really less i get paid but hey i had fun by doin it...
but the upcoming 50/50 change it into another mess as well...
Why im saying this... See...
if a Creator got today 75% of his Post and 25 % to the Voters it means you get 75 Cent of a Dollar for you, seems like a fair deal but is it a real fair deal...
Its liek a Hey i buy a newspapoer at you for a Dollar but hey when i read it i want 50 cent back of you... this is the NEW 50/50 way...
Hey i know a lot of People Ionvest into STEEM, and hey its a Crypto , yeah you can win you can loose ....,
but now to say hey i dont get enough out of it, i will change the System...
When i joined here everyone told me i need to see there is on one side STEEM as a Crypto and BASE of all Steemit stuff ... okay
And there is on the other side STEEMIT the blogging stuff which uses the STEEM Blockchain and generate STEEM and SBD by CREATE Things....
OOOAKY ... i think its still same... But something changed ..The People mixed it up they see their Investioon into STEEM in same as the PAYOUT SYSTEM of STEEMIT but it isnt same and we shouldnt start to mix it up, but it happened already . It started by HF 20 when it got made totally easy for these Bots... now they say , hey the Bots are a problem... okay lets change it again , but STOP why it should get changed only in a bad way for Smaller Users, creators... Because for big ones it s nice to get more from the Cake , but it wont change up for the Small ones... because the big ones will still vote EMSELF to Maximize the Efford...
I know anyone will come and tell me hey im completley wrong , and i will say again i see people want more, but whats the prize...
If we KILL the Small Communities the Stuff which made STEEMIT this special will be lost, because the Big ones all Vote their own Automated created stuff...
and please nah im not moaning for dont have a whale voting me, im okay with the system as it was....
so in effect, there is so much to work on....and we are moving ahead with these smts when we dont even have the basics right
there only 2 ways.. Do it or leave it
You're OK with getting 75% even though, that 75% is coming from an ever smaller 20 some %, instead of trying to get 50% coming from a larger slice because to you the whales will not take advantage of the free downvotes to curb those who abuse (whales are lazy, or short term gains focused, correct?) and you don't think that with increased curation rewards it'll make it so that curation is more profitable than delegations to bidbots, which are far more profitable than either self voting and organic curation? You think that it's bad that smaller users will have a larger portion of rewards being distributed to them, both because self voting and overpriced content can be curbed with free downvotes, and also because now that curation rewards can compete with the other means it will translate directly into more rewards for all, big and small content creators, exactly like smoke.io and palnet.io have demonstrated with their 50/50 split?
Are you really thinking the SUPER Whales are going and take the time to SEARCH for good content !! NO...
Hey we re talking about STEEM not PALNET or whatever, there could be come hundreds of new Frontends because take a look everyone build now a new one, everyone is creating tokens , but where is it worth it... I see a lot of borders with this tokens, why, see everyone want People Using their tokens their Frontend, and at the end you will see it will break the community stuff as we know it
To use this FREE DOWNVOTES the people need to start to invest LOADS of hours to read the stuff which get voted,m do you really think it will happens...
Take a look how much trash is around and nobody is doin a thing yeah we have some communities but thats almost all small users ...
What are you talking about? Curation rewards being able to compete with delegations to bidbots which encourages vote selling and buying, and therefore not curation, will most certainly make some of the whales who are delegating so as a desperate bid to keep up with the competition, the bidbots, who continue to consolidate power, as both a way to combat the bidbots (removing their delegations) and they will be most certainly incentivized to punish things that are overpriced AND especially the ones that cheat, as will everyone else.
They don't have to find content, as if it's a chore. Heck it's so simple to scroll through any one tag for the last 24-48 hours of posts that yes I do not find it hard to imagine them doing so, after all you think that they don't want to consume new things? Regardless, they will have no trouble finding what is overpriced or what is bidboted/cheating, and what do you think, that they are too lazy to click a button and consider how much to downvote for?
What are you talking about again? Did I say anything about a frontend? No, I was talking about their distribution, and said that it's a demonstration that 50/50 is working. Where did you think that it was about the front end. If I vote for a post tagged palnet from ANY frontend, I distribute rewards to the post both in steem and in pal coin, but it's not about that at all, just had to clear your confusion.
Why do you think that opening trending and downvoting paid for content takes loads of hours or even reading. One can simply skim and decide what the article deserves, and things like crap engagement or no engagement under the post will be a dead giveaway so they can theoretically skip even the skimming.
Then get the fuck out of here. You're no different than the trash, you have a low brow opinion of the people here, you seem very miserable, as everything is seemingly crap, trash, and lazy profiteers with big pockets, and "small users". Why stick it out, go fuck off elsewhere. People are actually trying to do something about it, but you don't expect shit from them, which is because you think they are idiots and lazy, they don't know how to take care of their investments and what, you don't expect them to use free downvotes, something that they want, because they're lazy? Ugh, retards everywhere: "they aren't going to use the tools they want, to do the work that is needed, because look at them not working right now, because why not expect them to work with tools that are as poor for the job as almost not having the tool, why expect them to take advantage of better tools, they are lazy because they're not using the shitty tools".
STEEMPEAK (steempeak.com) does a good job of integrating all the communities/tokens together on one website and wallet. You can check and interact with Palnet, dtube, travelfeed, dsound, 3Speak., SportsTalk... all in one place.
you can Interact from STEEMIT.COM as well to this Frontends , because without the STEEMIT page and the RC you have over there all this others dont WORK...
But hey thx for letting us know what we already knew :)
Not really. Steemit.com does not integrate. Yes you can see the post and hit the like button. But that's not integration. Integration means they work flawlessly in place and display all relevant information.
p.s. Steemit.com can go down and everything else will keep working. RC can be bought from the blockchain by the dapps on behalf of their users while they use a token.
" Steemit.com can go down and everything else will keep working. RC can be bought from the blockchain by the dapps on behalf of their users while they use a token."
very true, just like any blockchain as its ran by witnesses and miners
well actually, you don't have to use the different front ends. You can simply use the relevant tag on your Steem post and more than one if you wish which will stack the earned tokens. You really only need to go to the relevant front ends if you want to see your posts displayed with their token.
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I think you are both right and wrong here.
Yes, using cryptocurrency (steem, tokens, bitcoin, whatever) is far too technical and complicated. This is a problem that needs to be solved.
And yes, at their current stage, steem-engine tokens are mostly just rearranging things rather than changing things.
But both of these are problems of a technology still in its infancy. The steem-engine tokens that will be successful will do two things: they will transact seamlessly and the will provide value to the user.
By transact seamlessly I mean that the whole conversation with your hypothetical friend will not happen. XYZ app wants to build a token? Great, do this one log in and all the rest is done in the background automatically. Every action will be a simple task the user takes and all the complicated technical stuff is handled for them. Just as I don't really need to know how the federal reserve moves checkbook money around and interbank overnight loans provide liquidity to front run check clearing to operate a bank account. Incidentally, this is also why I think steem will become a utility token powering the 2nd layer solutions. We don't use dimes to transact USD. We use a 2nd layer (maybe 3rd) solution of digital bank deposits to transact USD.
And then there is the value creation issue. All value is subjective, and for a currency to have and keep value, it must provide a mechanism to transfer that value from party A to party B. The organizations that figure out how to provide value through their tokens are the ones that will succeed. #PALnet provides value to the steem community largely by weeding out the accounts that get in the way of value. #steemleo provides value to its members by focusing on investment topics. The ones that will become really successful will be the ones that offer subjective value to an external audience.
So yes, your conversation with your friend is the state of things today. But that's just temporary technological hurdles.
Three years Steem has been around. This is still a problem:
Last year I bought some Steem Monster Card with a credit card, about $100 in value, I was interested in the game as it was new and seemed like a fun thing, but the primary reason I bought the cards, and the only reason I bought them was because I could get some steem with them. A simple purchase method.
So the technological hurdle is not really an issue. Right now I believe it is more of a Political Issue, especially in the United States. there are countries you can put your credit card in and buy crypto coins, America is behind the power curve and until that changes we will not see much growth from the American sector. Look at the new user tab, look at what countries they are signing up from, look at how many Americans are on the newuser tag. Think about how their countries view crypto coins.
I suppose the technological hurdle, could be because Americans are just stupid compared to place that many consider to be third world countries. Make it simple to buy, and people buy, that is the lesson that Steem (the company) needs to learn. Until that happens:
Is a Fact, at least for me.
Maybe I'm old. 3 years of STEEM doesn't seem like a long time to me. 10 years of BTC doesn't seem like a long time either.
The fact that you could buy SteemMonsters cards with a credit card and operate on the steem blockchain is exactly what I'm talking about. New users are coming into SplinterLands now that have no idea about anything on steem. Which is great!
Steem is overcomplicated, but there ways to get people on board quickly, eg create an account with RCs and delegate to them. The token based does like palnet are interesting as they hide a lot of the spammy, over promoted posts. Having them for specialist interests like sport or finance may bring in more people. It is not too hard to earn those tokens and gain some influence there. Probably easier than with just with Steem.
Steemit have failed us on SMTs. Maybe they have potential, but it's just been too long.
what's the point in earning tokens that have no value cos they are to hard to buy and are not easily exchangeable
The fact that they are hard to buy makes for better curation and people will still earn Steem unless votes do as some do and set up an account that just has those tokens. I only have time to run one account.
They will (hopefully) easily exchangeable. It's on SMT whitepaper that they will use bancor-like protocol to easily trade between SMT to SMT and SMT to STEEM so there will never be liquidity issues.
I think what Steem Ninja is doing will help a lot. They are making it easy for people to buy an account and with their new Invite initiative, existing Steem users can mine invites which can then be sent to friends/family or customers. The new user really doesn't need to know the underlying mechanics in order to get and account and start interacting.
Steem and crypto, in general, are far from becoming mainstream. Shouldn't even be the focus right now. I'm more concerned about distribution. Keeping the people here help enough to continue doing what they do and being their friends and probably telling other people about this blockchain. Steem-engine is meeting that goal. On steem engine, new tribes are building their ecosystem. Most of it is myopic but it would be great to see a tribe do better, which cannot be ruled out, and seek to attract over users outside the steem ecosystem.
The crypto sphere is basically speculative. There are highly any genuine projects within this sphere, steem is not an exception.
Steem is hard to get for a newbie and rightly so. This is not just a social platform, you have your wallet(money) in it and all these measures and protocol are not going to be simplified anytime soon, well except we start using some form of biometric security measure to access our accounts and funds.
I don't want millions of people and investment here with the mess we have. We need to decentralize further, have a healthier distribution, look at generating revenue (my preferred option would be ads) then maybe we will attract more eyes. But making things easier to understand is quite unlikely, not in the nearest future.
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there are only 2400 dolphins, after 3 years that's a pathetic #, something is obviously highly wrong
agreed
Tokens will make things easier in the long run. Each community will able to on boards users using their own token without the user knowing anything about STEEM. Tokens are easier to understand than multi-purpose STEEM.
STEEM can stay as the backbone architecture that only developers know about. Each front-end can do necessary the exchanges behind the scenes without the user knowing about STEEM Engine.
NO token will run without the STEEM behind it...
you can earn hundreds of tokens when you dont have Staked STEEM you run out of Power and cant post , reply or what ever anywhere!
The app can stake the necessary STEEM for the user account operations, either by delegating it or depositing it to the users account without the user knowledge. What I meant you can run everything with STEEM being perfectly hidden from the user while they use a token.
if its run... for me every action i want to run with this wonky page is ending in a new errormessage... so please dont praise the unfinished thingy :D
This. This is the vision I've understood that Steem is going to be. It is complicated now, because we are on the developing phase of it. Onboarding will become easier. I think 3speak already uses a model where they "rent" a Steem account, so they have the custody of it, but once an account starts accumulating wealth (STEEM) the user has an option to take full control over the account. And starting to use 3speak is as simple as using email, Facebook or Twitter account.
Steem is the electricity that powers it all. Those people that own some Steem, will have an ownership of a small piece of that network. Like you said, eventually new people won't even know what Steem is. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't, but I'm willing to take the chance. But the existence of Steem Engine is already a step to that direction.
The greatest gains come when there's a great risk and uncertainty. It'll be a great ride – has already been – no matter which way it ends :)
With HF21 coming up and likely making the bidbot problem on STEEM even bigger than it is today, I think we have a golden opportunity for Scot tribes to make bid bot users as invisible on their sites as they do non-tribe posts. As such I feel Scot tribes may end up saving STEEM from going under in a spiral of bid bot use increase.
At this moment I'm a bit torn as there is no fiction tribe yet, and palnet is nice as a demonstrator, but to general to gain solid adoption by those I follow. I really hope @blocktrades will find it to do what is needed to create a more solid foundation for content oriented Scot Tribes. If something like that happens, I'll be powering down STEEM and powering up whatever fiction tribe token will be there to move towards.
One of the big mistakes that the STEEM people keep making is putting investors first and forgetting the platform is useless and ultimately valueless without users. I think the comunication surrouding HF21 has shown us just how narrow the scope is with those concerned with the main STEEM currency. I feel that if DTEEM is to survive it will be because Scot Tribes (SMT are simply too litle too late right now if you ask me) help create a fibrant collection of user communities that can exist without a spoiled experience because of bid bots. But then, that does imply we all agree that bidbot usage on scot tribe tags is socially unacceptable.
I think that when HF21 hits I'll try to use my free downvotes for bid bot use on Scot tribe tagged posts.
Creatives tribe works or it's too general?
I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle - i.e. how things are now vs what we're trying to build.
Ideally, the conversation will not start out with "What is Steem?". The end users shouldn't need to know about Steem just like users of Netflix don't need to know that it runs on Amazon Web Services.
Even if it does start out with the question "What is Steem?" then ultimately I think the goal is to have the conversation go something like this:
Friend: "What is Steem"?
Me: "Steem is a blockchain that powers decentralized applications which allow the users to earn rewards for activities they do online. What sort of things do you do online?"
Friend: "I'm a photographer and I post pictures on Instagram."
Me: "Awesome, why don't you give Appics a try? It's very similar to Instagram except that you can earn cryptocurrency tokens which have real monetary value based on the amount of upvotes (or likes) that you get on your photos."
Friend: "Sounds great, how do I join?"
Me: "Just go to the app store and download the Appics app, sign up with your email address, and start posting! You can also earn a bonus for referring your Instagram followers to try it too."
Friend: "What do I do with these APX tokens I'm earning?"
Me: "In the help section in the app it explains all the things you can do with them, or how to sell them for other cryptocurrencies or even dollars."
Obviously we're not there yet, but that's the goal that I am working towards.
Also, having different tokens for different apps shouldn't be confusing to people, or even much different than how things work right now. I have credit card points, airline miles, reward points for various businesses, in-game currencies, etc. The only real difference between all that and app-specific crypto tokens is that the crypto can be exchanged, bought and sold which gives the users a lot more options and control.
That's exactly the way I dream of Steem over the next couple of years. Like an iPhone were you'll just run whatever application you need to use and the app itself will handle the rest of it.
Hi @yabapmatt, im really delighted you stopped by. I had thought to my self if anyone can convince me otherwise it will be one of the devs.
"Ideally, the conversation will not start out with "What is Steem?". The end users shouldn't need to know about Steem just like users of Netflix don't need to know that it runs on Amazon Web Services."
Ideally, you are correct. but we are not in that ideal situation yet. to me, that means we are plowing ahead making tools that the technology is not ready to run. Why not make those tools first?
And for steem as a coin, why would there be a need or even a value? steem can be exchanged bought and sold and has much control as one could have over their own coins or tokens. So I dont see how it can give more control. More options often mean more confusion, more choice = more hassle.
I'm sorry but I am still not convinced but wish I was.
"Obviously we're not there yet, but that's the goal that I am working towards."
I am following with keen interest. I want you to succeed. I want to be wrong. And I want to you come back and say "told you so sucker" :-)
We're never going to get to ideally if we don't take the trip through the rapids. What is being done now is not a waste of time. We're navigating the rapids.
as someone who has no idea is this true :D STM is needed so apps can do that. as i got it, apps will be able to handle RC's for it's users. so users of the app would not have to have SP to be able to interact. and steem will have value because apps would need SP so they have enough RC for its users.
i could be off with this, it is just what i picked up from all this talk (have no coding nor blockchain xp)
I definitely agree with your vision. Steem just needs to remain "under the hood".
it is up to communities, go to steemmonsters website, pay 10$ with paypal and you have it all, that should be the message to your friend
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oh sign up for this game you know nothing about if you want access......that's not going to work either.....
The only thing you don't have and probably you won't have for a while is a method as simple to withdraw as it is to deposit. But SteemMonsters is simply fantastic in so many ways!
Agree. I hope future will be only crypto though, withdrawing to fiat no need
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While I really do want to see SMTs soon, I agree that the existence alone will not increase demand.
Steemians are mostly waiting for external hype while neglecting the usability of the platform.
Steem is too noisy to act as a backend and too complicated as a frontend.
To illustrate, I like to point to the fact that most social interactions are happening off Steem - on Discord.
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your illustration of discord is on the ball.....
yes, I love how no one on the platform ever agrees on anything, isn't it wonderful (-:
I hear what you say, that SMTs won't magically make things great if things are fairly lame here as it is.
Like you say, STEEM missed a huge opportunity, and continues to do so, by being difficult to access/start-up. But not even that, even if it was only attractive to geeks, there would be more here... only 2400 dolphins after 3 years of existence?? If Steem was the place to be there would be millions of geeks worldwide here. It just goes to show why STEEM flounders and is getting squeezed down to a pipe dream things will ever succeed.
I want someone to convince me I am wrong. I so want to be wrong, but I can't see the trees from the wood here. And yes, I love how no one agrees all the time either, that's what makes this place so awesome. different opinions, different voices. its just a pity our voices are worth fuck all
Good informative post about smt’s and steem engine token my friend.
thanks for share with us.
That is why facebook is entering this space. The concept and the tech is great but the implementation of them sucks in all platforms. It's not the public that is lazy, but the entire user experience that's bad.
Even if Facebook is encounter problems to implement libra. They have a clear idea that for mass adoption the wallet must be as easy as possible and payments and transactions as well.
They will capitalize their token and network with every single person on their system for being simple with great user experience. They are looking at this like another feature and not a complicated concept. The complicated math should be on the backofice and the front-end should be clear and minimal to anyone understand it right away.
If facebook is available to put their structure in place I hope by then steem and steemit take a time to review what they truly do wrong and don't be mad and try to figure out what was the problem in the first place.
if libra goes ahead, I think it will save the entire crypto space
I agree at least it would make the blockchain and crypto become mainstream.
Everyone would start to enter this world and not only a few ones that understand crypto or already invest in it. Making it better and stronger.
Blockchain will not go mainstream until the complexity abstraction. EOS has a new tool where user can sign up just like Instagram account.
It's called dapp service providers or just DSPs
https://liquidapps.io/ is one example.
You are 100% correct. Even explaining all the economics of Steem itself is complicated
Steem is way too complicated.
Everyone here is either already invested in cryptocurrencies and knows what they are doing.....or they really want to earn magic Internet money.
It's way beyond the casual social blogger who just wants to post cute selfies or whatever.
SMTs are for the most part really making it more confusing.
Take twitter just a short paragraph and a sentence when it came out. Its easier than email.
Or reddit, just type and hit enter.
Can't earn money, but who cares? Most people are earning waaay less than minimum wage.
We need a Steem Lite or a Steem Simple.
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With SMTs there is no need for making steem account in the first place. Issuing excell token would be as simple as have somewhere to store it on your site and that's it - later they can start asking
how do we trade that?head over to that exchange -
create steem wallet... blah blah blah.
That's how I see it.
And I would really love to see some online journals using SMT while fighting propaganda and censorship in their countries. :)
"With SMTs there is no need for making steem account in the first place. " - are you sure about that? so why the need for steem as a coin at all?
Buy STEEM with a credit card ..... is this so hard to be achived?
Steem-Engine is really cool, I love it and I see some potential, but I definitely agree with you. However, it's like I've been saying for a long time:
How are we promoting Steem and what type of people do we really want here? Are we going for mass adoption, (which would be literally everyone on FB, Twitter, Instagram) in other words, the "average" users or are people still trying to bring people on board with all the mumbo jumbo about Steem being a "decentralized platform" etc?
I mean, nobody cares about that except for the "underground anarchist-anti-government" type of people, but most people on Steem, seems to believe it's the best way to go...
Decentralised or not, the "average" people doesn't care. They want simplicity, and to promote Steem like a personal cash-cow that so many has done during these years have only hurt Steem.
That being said, I read the comment from @yabapmatt. A great comment, and it feels like we could potentially be heading towards that direction, but I guess it will take another 3 years or so before we're even close to something like that.
At the time I'm writing this, Steem is worth $0,23. 100% of all the Steemians hate the price because they have either lost some of their investments or they aren't being rewarded as much as when the price is high...
The funny part is, that these "average people" I've been talking about... They have never earned $0,23 for a post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, so anyone interested in earning a little extra on the side, for doing the same thing as they've been doing for years on other social medias... Well, they wouldn't care much about the price being $0,23, because they would ultimately see it as a huge chance to earn something extra.
My two cents:
People fucked up a long time ago and Steem had to pay the price for peoples ignorance, their selfishness and greed. So, that behaviour was and has been slowly killing Steem ever since people started to behave like nothing except themselves mattered.
But hey, instead of doing something real to turn this ship around, we can just continue to flag our newcomers and people we don't like on a personal level for "raping the reward pool" and whatever, meanwhile we continue to shove those 100% upvotes up our own asses. Eventually, we might actually be able to buy ourselves lunch at McDonald's for about 100K steem.
Nothing else to say
Like many commenters here, I too believe that the frontends need to hide the crypto complexity from users until the user wants to see it. Signing up should be as easy as any other popular non-crypto website.
In fact, it might even be easier since maybe the user already has a sign-in from another website they can use similarly to how "sign in with Facebook" works.
As for earning crypto bring a major drawcard, I don't see it happening without some big changes to Steem economics. Within communities, with better focused community UIs, the social might be enough of a drawcard.
Right now, earning from posts is done by inflation. There aren't many other internal member to member value transfers denominated in STEEM that encourage STEEM to stick around or be burned. There isn't the obvious "support my fave content creators" mechanism there are on twitch, YouTube or Patreon for example. I think they might arise in more social oriented frontends.
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you might want to listen to this recording which covers how media officials is approaching introducing users to their token.
https://steemit.com/dtube/@shadowspub/i4ccb74gauy
It is an interview I did with them a couple of weeks ago
It would be nice if Steem went back to it's foundations and was honoring content based on it's value. Simple blogging is what brought me here but now I agree it is getting too complex. Content doesn't really matter and the use of bots has ruined the experience. It is like a library where the most successful books are the ones about the library. But I do see light at the end of the tunnel with the different niche communities starting. Value put on specific content in each and hopefully policing to stop abuse.
These different communities can be a gateway drug to Steem.
You know me, I think you're dead on with this analysis. But there is a deep and essential reason that it's right that a lot of your respondents aren't looking at or aware of, and I often can't determine which it is.
It's this:
Nobody wants your filthy money if they can't buy anything they want with it.
It's that simple. It's the point that we've been hammering on for years and yet which seems to be lost on developers and crypto cultists. Just because a "coin" exists doesn't mean that people will want it. Nor does it mean that they should want it. And what does it mean to have a "currency" that you can't do anything useful with, anyway?
Let's try a different script:
User: I really love this guy's art.
Us: What if you could tip them to show how much you like it?
User: Cool! But how?
Us: Find stuff you like on this site, hit the tip button, and voosh. Creator gets a little dosh.
User: How do I get it to give away?
Us: Well, you could just buy it. Or you can earn it yourself from folks by making good stuff they like or finding good stuff other folks want to see.
User: Neat! I can see the value! How do I get in?
And – that's the whole thing falls apart, because the developers of the Steem blockchain never wanted the above to actually happen.
After all, people can get clear utility out of that flow. Everybody involved knows what they're there for. There's no judgment if you're a creator and you want to pull the money out you've earned for being a creator because everyone involved want you to use that money. There is an implicit reason to invest real money if you want to, in order to be able to reward people who are making content you like (see Flattr). There's an implicit reason to create, to curate, to be involved.
And there has to be a near trivial, frictionless way to get on board with something as simple as a straightforward sign-up in a reasonable amount of time. The user has to get value out of the system from day one, hour one, minute two – real value, not necessarily monetary value. The user has to have a beneficial experience.
But that's not what people on the Steem blockchain seem to want in terms of user experience or intent.
SMTs don't actually bring useful things to the table. There's no real script that requires an SMTs you exists for user value to be created. The only thing that they seem to do is provide another venue for speculation, which does nothing for users.
And that's a shame. It could have been so different.
Wow, someone speaking her mind on steem.
Most people will disagree with you, because they think 'download this app it will do everything and you earn money' is enough of an explanation for people. They will do fishy analogies like 'the driver doesnt need to know how the engine works'.
It's obvious that adding another layer on top of it won't make it simpler, but hey, look at the way it's integrated in steempeak already, if most UIs adapt to this and make it a standard, you can't deny that it serves a purpose.
Great points. Way Complex to get started. Way too high a learning curve..
Although this is where people might say taking actual charge of your life takes effort.
Some of the people who hate the effort also contain that Faceblog is not paying them to rent their eyeballs.
That said, I still think we need an easier way to onboard. I can't convince even one millenial to join up and those kidlets are tech savvy!!!
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A couple ideas.
When ready, give your friend a @blocktrades btc to sp address to power them up and send them to the nearest btm.
This is how I've made my buys.
Steem-engine, when it is ready, can fork off of steem, run their own witnesses, and viola!, the ninjamine and hard forks 17 through some of 21 are as if they never happened.
Stinc's abominable business reputation is no longer a dead albatross around our necks.
Smteee's come with the security of steem's 21 witness consensus.
Steem-engine currently lacks that.
SE tokens are partially contingent on the good faith of those building it, atm.
They go to zero without more development, but so does steem.
Crashing steem for a SE style take over may have been the plan all along.
That would help explain stinc's penchant for warmly embracing questionably known influencers that turned out to be bad actors, ie jerry, charlie, tdv(cleaned up his act, here anyways), among other lesser knowns, in order to increase the pump and fomo of the suckers.
I dont know how to ease onboarding beyond acquiring account tokens and setting up accounts yourself.
What smteee's and se tokens come with is the chance of getting in on a viral game.
Imagine if dungeons and dragons had in game gold, and every item, bags, staves, swords, spells, potions, etc, were uniquely identifiable and traded on an open market.
Totally already happening on next colony and splinterlands.
I just don't see actual investors, as opposed to fomo'd suckers, buying in until stinc's reputation is mitigated against.
The kneecappening was very effective.
I do think any price below .25usd is a buy, for me, but hope dies last.
I think we can get past the malignancy that currently has us down.
Indeed. Everything gets more confusing each day for this 60 year old who is not tech savvy and who is also not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I am patiently waiting for everything to be simplified. I hope the day comes soon because I might not have much time left. 😊
Congratulations @paulag!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
Thank you so much for participating in the Partiko Delegation Plan Round 1! We really appreciate your support! As part of the delegation benefits, we just gave you a 3.00% upvote! Together, let’s change the world!
hear hear!
so many chuckles. THIS is not simple and only committed people take it on... the average social media user is not committed and will not invest... great call-out paula! we need some simple on boarding and yes, an allotment for new users so they can participate here. we shouldn't expect them to invest at the start.
I chuckled myself as I wrote that....I'm so glad someone else found the humor - great minds 🤣😂
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Wow! 😮
Look at the engagement in this post!
You have obviously said something here very important and those with eyes to see 👀 And ears 👂 to hear 👂 have replied to you in the comments.
Oh my...you said the “H” word. “Hard”
Then you said the “C” word “complex”.
And lightening didn’t strike you down.
A few were probably peaking out their windows at the sky as they read your post, just to check...😂🤣
You made my laugh and you made me cry, mostly laugh, okay actually just laugh.
You have said in this post, what many were thinking 🤔 This “system” is to hard to learn and complex, making it difficult to comprehend.
As for the graphic interface. It’s great and Steem-Engine is even better. But they are both “hard” and “complex”.
For the existing users, who are dedicated to learning and using, okay we will tackle the mountain.
But your everyday Facebook user? Putting in an email address and picking a password are about as much complexity as they can handle.
All the stuff you listed in your conversation with your friend are not only hard and complex, but wait until you get to the part where you explain Steemauto, exchange hacks, online wallets and desktop wallets.
You may have to call 911 to get your friend CPR because the complexity and redundancy may cause his heart to stop.
The truth is that this Steemit world is a kiddie version of a software developers
world and those of us in the platform are voluntarily putting in the time and effort to learn this hard and complex platform.
But as aggroed said, this is the transitional form between “Beta” Steemit and “Mass Adoption” Steemit and if all goes as planned the early adopters like you with 14,000 plus SteemPower 👏👏👏 May indeed be the next cryptocurrency millionaires.
But right now we are all learning, and Paula...it’s hard. 😮😉