The tools of SMTs and communities

With the announcement of entering into the testnet for SMTs and with communities on the near horizon as they don't require a hardfork to implement, it is time (if it hasn't been the last two plus years) to think about ways to increase the SMT uptake. A lot of the attraction of SMTs internally is that they are able to monetize a website relatively easily by integrating a tokenized layer to existing interfaces, but to really be able to capitalize on the opportunity, SMTs have to be delivered with a toolkit and instructions of use so that the barriers of entry are continually lowering for the developers.

Remember that most developers in this world have zero experience in developing for blockchains and most people on earth have never thought about the trials and tribulations of integrating a working economy into their website. Many of course have experience with webshop type environments, but the financial ecosystem is a step or two removed and handled by agents. Even if we look at the monetized platforms like YouTube, all of the financials are handled by a centralized authority in ways most will never see.

This means that while still centralized in nature through ownership of community and website, the owners are going to have to start considering how economies actually work at a more granular level. However, for ease of usage and integration, as many tools to help them along that journey need to be developed so that rather than being overwhelmed by the entire ground-up development for blockchain, they are able to plug-and-play and drag-and-drop a great deal of the foundational components and then tweak configs to create an SMT and tokenized economy that satisfies the needs of their usecase and empowers their user base.

If we look at how the development of websites has progressed over the last 25 years we can see that it went from a skilled job in high demand, to increasingly complex use cases being facilitated to the point that pretty much anyone can build a website that includes financial transactions. This has happened because the tools available to create the websites and then the connectors necessary to sync with financial transactions and verifications become almost one-click operations.

One of the reasons that WordPress has had such an impact on internet content management and serving is that it has lowered the bar by including a large assortment of web plugins and templates that allow users of all kinds to "build" their digital space in a way that thy want, with limitations. Add a decent WordPress developer into the mix and a great deal more can be done ad hoc.

I think that one of the massive competitive advantages Steem could have is being able to become the "everyman's" blockchain from a development standpoint so that anyone can build a blockchained economy with tokens that bring values of various kinds to their user base without needing to be an actual coder of any sort. This takes time of course, but the roadmap should be established and started now because while it took over two decades to get the web builders to where they are today, the blockchained versions are going to proliferate at a much more rapid pace.

The reason I think this is that while they had to develop the entire internet along the way including protocols to serve globally, blockchains and SMTs are going to piggyback on their work and integrate into the system without having to do much at all. The barriers of entry to a tokenized internet are incredibly low in comparison to what was faced in the 90s by the internet developers.

SMTs and the tools that build the ecosystem could play a massive role in this process of easing usage and therefore taking a great deal of the mass of onboarding activities by creating ease of usage for developers that will increasingly train their end users to use the system.

If you think about it from the position of current internet users, they don't need to learn much more than they know now in the same way that it was a no-brainer for an iPod user to buy an iPhone as they were already familiar and comfortable with the experience. Once that they made the switch of course, a whole new market opened up through app stores. Try to imagine just how many developers wouldn't be needed without smartphones and the applications and games that empower them.

A smart phone without apps is just a phone, and perhaps in the future the same could be said about the internet in regards to tokens where Smart Media Tokens are the equivalent application layer of the internet and a website that doesn't incorporate tokenization is just the internet, not the smart internet.

We can already see the core levels where tokenization is going to be used as the large conglomerates are already looking for ways to put their content behind paywalls and still keep their users and protect their content. This is going to be one of the major use cases for blockchains as gateways for authentication and data protection. At some point, websites are going to tokenize their content wit Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and use the token as a tracker as well as a ticket to view. If the content appears without the fingerprint, it will be a clear cut case of infraction.

Layer value and micropay into the equation and there is a massive amount of new revenue streams possible that we are able to tap into as a global economy and we can see that the new economies of the future can be much less resource intensive of the current day. This means that while there can be automation and AI controlling much of the jobs we do now, we can potentially become more human and creative again. The paradigm shift comes through what and how we demand.

Perhaps that last bit is looking too far out into the future for most people to comprehend or plan for, but that is the direction we are heading where the internet becomes the new resource pool that we leverage for income rather than the natural resources of the earth. Think about how addictive Minecraft is for many and how much time they spend in the digital space and all they consume is electricity and the materials required for their PC.

As I see it, Steem has a very large opportunity to play a role in the progression of the global economy by lowering the barriers of entry for everyone from the developers and investors to the users and consumers to start integrating much less resource intensive revenue streams into their everyday lives. In so doing, people will become familiar with economics in ways they weren't earlier and understand why taking ownership and responsibility is so important.

To build a strong community of the future, the tools to build with are the first things on the agenda to create. The Stem blockchain, SMTs, S-E tokens, voting, staking, ownership and all the other factors involved are tools.....not the end game.

The future can be bright if we stop a lot of what we are doing - and do something else.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]