Communities: Another Piece That Will Have A Major Impact

Some members of the Steemit Inc Team were on @pennsif's show yesterday talking about Communities. The most important figure is @roadscape, who is the one behind the development of these features.

This is looking like another game changer for the Steem ecosystem. Again, we have something that was long promised but not delivered. Much in keeping with SMTs, this one is getting very close to coming into being. We should see some of the development rolling out in the next week or two.

I am a big fan of taking the idea of centralized sites and using them as a model for something decentralized. To start, it provides an ideal roadmap to follow since most of the work was done. Simply look to duplicate the basics of the centralized platform while adding some additional features. Naturally, a major addition is the ability to get rewarded for activity. This is something most sites do not offer at this time (hopefully SMTs will change that).

As one can guess from the name, Steemit was modeled after Reddit. The idea was to enable people to post content that gets categorized by the division into different communities (Sub-Steems?). We saw something similar arise with some of the tribes. By focusing upon a specific area of interest, the tribes became more specialized, narrowing down the content a great deal. Communities will do the same thing.

Source

The advantage to the features that are going to roll out is it will allow the communities a greater degree of control. This will enable the naming of moderators who than can be assigned different rights. Since this is all taking place the Hivemind level, we can see the combining of the centralized with the decentalized.

Let us discuss Hivemind for a second. This is the layer that enables Communities to operate. It is best to think of it as a filter. All data that belongs on the blockchain ends up passing through Hivemind and being posted. However, the data that is not destined there gets processed in Hivemind and that is it.

An example of this is the assigning or removal of moderators. The naming of a moderator in a community is obviously vital yet that does not end up on the blockchain. Hence, it is housed at the Hivemind layer where all information pertaining to that type of activity resides.

In keeping with Steem's specialization, the base code is not affected by Communities. Thus, no hard fork is required since the base software is not being updated. This means the implementation can be much quicker and come in stages.

Having something similar to the Reddit model is grand idea. Reddit has 330M monthly users and is one of the larger social media sites, rivaling Twitter. Of course, like all social media platforms, the users of that site provide their content for free. Very little ends up in hands outside of the company.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-valuable-of-any-social-network.html

One terrific feature of this is the Tribes that are operating will be able to utilize the Communities features as they roll out. This means that the work that was put in will be enhanced by Steemit Inc's development. Tribes then can moderate the content that is appearing on their site and the individuals who are doing it.

Secondly, by mirroring Reddit, Steem could potentially tap into the 330M individuals who are already appearing on Reddit each month. By moving the functionality closer to that platform, people are already familiar with it.

This offers the same opportunity as SMTs. Instead of trying to attract people one user at a time, entire Reddit communities can be targeted to draw in users. It is entirely possible that a few Sub-Reddits jump onto Steem simply for the financial rewards.

What is Reddit counters by offering a token of their own?

This would be the best of all worlds. Suddenly, 330M users most likely would have access to Steem. What protocol do you think Reddit would use? If they were going to develop their own token, it would have happened already. The SMT protocol is going to offer a turn key solution.

Bet the ranch that Reddit, if they are truly interested in tokenization, will look at SMTs. In fact, I would say they have no choice.

Reddit is true social media. No matter how you try to slice it, fees per transaction simply will not work for that. There is no way people are going to want to spend money out of their account to simply give an upvote. One could claim that it is not much. However, when you look at the activity of some on Reddit and, keep in mind, they will not have much in the way of tokens to start, payouts are a significant hit. In my mind, it is a non-starter.

Steem has no fees on transactions. As long as the Resource Credits are there, one can operate without charge.

A move like this could change the face of Steem. Redditors do a ton of commenting. They are also a very active bunch. Grabbing just a few Subreddits would take the activity on Steem and send it soaring.

Here is a list of some interesting stats that were complied about Reddit.

https://foundationinc.co/lab/reddit-statistics/

The numbers simply get mind blowing. Even a small portion converting over to Steem would have serious impact.

Of course, Reddit is not a blogging site. This is something that will be upsetting to some people. Redditors have a different outlook than Steem. It will be interesting to see the difference in dynamic. While they leave a ton of comments, their posts tend to be very short. Even the original posts tend to be a few paragraphs at most (look at the first stat on the list provided).

After the conversation yesterday, I feel that Communities is a forgotten feature that could have major impact on Steem. The numbers simply get too big and the Internet is still a numbers game. It is exciting to think that muchl of this can be in place before the next hard fork when SMTs are introduced.

By the way, think of the attraction that this holds to a Subreddit. The communities feature can appeal to the group since it provides the functionality they are accustomed to. When SMTs are released, the Subreddit can then create its own token to reward its users.

Where else is that offered?

Tokenizing the Internet: It is going to start happening soon.

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