This started as a long comment reply, but I figured I'd just go ahead and do a root post instead as others might find value in it also.
This post is a reply to a comment by @davemccoy which you can read here. He also made it a root post here. My intention is not to call him out, shame him, or embarrass him in any way. I do want to start a conversation so I figured we'd do it here instead of an already long comment thread.
> I know that you will not care what I say.
Why start a discussion like that? I care quite a bit and have demonstrated that for almost two years. If you (or anyone else) has already made up your mind about me, what value is there in replying? I'll reply anyway and assume this was just a poor choice of words.
For some context of where I'm coming from, I recommend reading STEEM Is NOT Steemit. STEEM Is More Valuable Than Steemit.
Many people come to Steemit expecting free money or a new Facebook killer. That's not reality. They have improper expectations for where Steemit is as a product. It's a reference implementation of what's possible on the STEEM blockchain. It's not the primary forcus of Steemit, inc. We can disagree or get frustrated about that, but that's reality. I met with their team in Lisbon at Steemfest2 and talked with them directly about this.
They are focused on ensuring the STEEM blockchain can support many millions of active users, not the 80k or so we get a month now. Are they wrong? Should theuy focus instead on user retention, even if the APIs and the infrastructure right now is falling down often? Shouldn't they focus on preparing for growth before they try to create more growth?
For more context:
- Eating Your Own Dog Food: Is the Steemit, Inc Team Regularly Using Steemit?
- SteemFest²: Bridging the Gap Between Perception and Reality
If you re-read what I wrote in the comment thread, I specifically did not try to tell @donkeypong why he "should keep his vote" for me. I'm giving my perspective why I don't think it's wrong for a witness like me to be fully engaged in multiple projects in the cryptocurrency space.
@davemccoy, I do understand and hear your frustration with Steemit, user retention, and more. When I first got to Lisbon for Steemfest2, I sat across from Sneak and grilled him about similar problems. His answer shocked me, and I didn't like it at all, but the more I thought about it, the more I understood it. He essentially said he doesn't care about the first million or two million users. He cares about the next 100 million users. From his perspective, once the blockchain itself is ready, along with the systems needed for mass adoption (HF20, Hivemind, Appbase, etc), then all those emails and contacts they collected will be contacted again and this time user retention will be the focus because they will be ready for growth.
That's why Steemit, inc doesn't do much (if any) marketing right now. They have a long-term strategy, and they are executing it. That strategy involves tokenizing the web (which includes Smart Media Tokens). It doesn't include just making Steemit.com a new Facebook or Reddit competitor. They want to see hundreds and thousands of competitors, all built by independent companies on the STEEM blockchain.
I'm well aware of the retention rate problem. I'm also aware of the expectation problem many new users have.
> What are you doing about this? Where is the focus on this issue?
I'm trying to work with Steemit, inc and help educate people on what they are actually doing with posts like this: What is Steemit, Inc Doing???
I'm also regularly participating in the monthly witness forum (I think I've attended every time I've been asked to do so, except once because of a schedule conflict). You can hear the latest recording here: Steem Witness forum- The Recording! - Value and Organization @andrarchy mentioned numerous times how accurate my perception of what's going on is related to what Steemit, inc is actually doing.
You can find my perspective on bot farming and wealth extraction here. I'm participating in many conversations with other witnesses and Steemit, inc on changes that can be made to not only educate people to think differently about the rewards pool as a collaborative commons and to take responsibility to protect it, but also changes to the underlying economics such as potentially introducing a downvote rewards pool, changing curation reward rates, and potentially adjusting the rewards curve to no longer be linear (but not going all the way back to an exponential rewards curve). Unfortunately, many of these conversations are not public, and I'm also working on changing that for more transparency among the top witnesses, investors, and Steemit, inc.
I'm aware of what's going on, and much of it is what I've seen for two years already. Some of it (not all of it), relates to people's misaligned expectations. It's like they are tweeting to no followers and then getting confused why no one sees their content. They come for the "free" money. Like me, they probably have to figure out the real reason they are here. Many don't understand cryptocurrency (which I try to help with via http://understandingblockchainfreedom.com) or they don't understand social media, professional blogging, or branding. They show up, find it all too difficult to understand, and leave.
I get that.
It's one of the main reasons I have the support that I do from so many voters for my witness account. I focus on helping explain the technical things in simple terms so more people can understand what this place is all about and set their expectations appropriately.
The number one thing any of us can do (IMO) is help support Steemit, inc to get Appbase and Hivemind released as soon as possible. With communities and a focus on the future interface for Steemit, we won't be wasting effort trying to put bandaids on the current front-end.
You can look through the ~12k comments I've made to help educate people about cryptocurrency, STEEM, Steemit, and more if you really want an accurate picture of what I've been doing here to help people.
New users to the Steemit front-end are definitely important. I don't agree with Sneak that we shouldn't care about the early adopters. It's also important to explain STEEM to the larger cryptocurrency community, especially investors who create demand for STEEM and fund all the rewards we enjoy here. It's important to explain the value of DPOS. I do that at conferences, events, interviews, and more. You can see some examples of what I've been up to here. As a witness, I focus on where my strengths are. I could do onboarding or tech support with new users, but I think sending them this post helps instead (many have told me how much it changed their whole perspective on Steemit): #SteemitIsToMe: Relationships, Reputation, and Rewards. The value I bring relates directly to my experience in the cryptocurrency space for over five years. Some appreciate that, others do not.
All that said, I'm here, as always, listening and responding.
Let's have a conversation.
Luke Stokes is a father, husband, programmer, STEEM witness, DAC launcher, and voluntaryist who wants to help create a world we all want to live in. Learn about cryptocurrency at UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com
I'm a Witness! Please vote for @lukestokes.mhth
I wanted to tell you that I am impressed that you took the time to read my reply to you (in both places) and to respond not only directly but also in a post. Thank you for that.
You are right that it was a poor use of words on my part to say that you won't care. To say that you don't care would apply towards us small users in general from those at the top (as you mentioned was the case by Sneak), but you are right that I should not have assumed that it applied to you. I apologize for making that incorrect assumption about you specifically when I had no basis for it.
Regarding your point about Steemit being just a test platform for STEEM to use in a bigger way later, I think this is something that is news to many. I have heard from people that they "think" this is the case, but I have never had someone be so direct in saying it was so. I respect you for doing so. While you make me wonder what is the purpose of me being here everyday for 6 months and helping to make this a community place, I do definitely respect that you are telling me "the way it is".
As far as expectations of the platform, yes I would agree that many (including me) have wrong expectations. While I am not part of the "get rich" crowd, I did expect that the people at the top try to help make Steemit a place to be for the future. I did expect that the connections, the friendships, the reputation, etc would one day be something that made a difference. But from what I can glean from your answer is it is all meaningless. All these groups and people will be gone from Steemit one day and there will be totally new platforms for everyone to branch out to join and hopefully one day make new sets of friends, connections, and build their own reputations.
No wonder people think that @fulltimegeek is wasting his time fighting haejin, he's fighting for something that isn't relevant to the future. Who cares what your Steemit Reputation rating is if Steemit is only a short term step and meant to be cannibalized by future competitors as the Steem blockchain develops? @fulltimegeek should just make lots of money and be like everyone else as this is all just a test.
I recognize that you are not the one that has devised this plan, but it makes a lot of sense now that I see the actions of Steemit and the top witnesses. I frankly don't know what to say about the plan. Yes it makes sense to not care about your first one or two million users; if the only thing you view those people as lab-rats performing a test. It would've been nice of them to ask us to be those lab-rats. I don't know if I would've spent every day of the last 6 months trying to be a part of a community, if I would've known this place didn't matter for anything more than a reference implementation.
>It's a reference implementation of what's possible on the STEEM blockchain. It's not the primary forcus of Steemit, inc.
My issues are no longer with you or with any of the people that run Steemit (witnesses, whales, or employees). You have told me that I don't matter in their eyes, and that this is simply an experiment that is meant to make STEEM great in the future so they can have a more valuable underlying currency and blockchain so they can really grow their wealth even further. I get the way that this helps them, and if I was a top 20 witness or a large holder of STEEM maybe my thinking would be different.
But I'm not. My friends are not.
We are just people trying to build a community for a place that doesn't even really care if it exists. We didn't sign up to be lab-rats in an experiment and frankly I didn't even know that's what we were.
Now I do.
Thank you very much for the honesty @lukestokes. I appreciate very much that you took the time and energy to tell me the truth. Like you with Sneak, I am not happy at all about it. But I will tell you that I respect that you are the first one to tell me directly this is the case.
I have recently referenced witnesses that I strongly support and would like their opinion on this. I know that this is political and they might not want to agree or disagree in public. But since I believe they are fighting to make this community stronger, I would like to ask them why?
If you can respond, could you? (@steemcommunity -@abh12345 @paulag) @danielsaori @yabapmatt @steemgigs (@surpassinggoogle) @jackmiller @curie @qurator (@scrooger)
@paulag | May 31, 2018, 9:18 a.m. | Votes: 8 | [
VOTE ]
Glad to step in here and be part of this conversation, thanks for the shout out @davemccoy.
I previous spoke about business models and compared Steemit to Udemy and i think it applies here in this conversation too. I understand @lukestokes plea here.
Udemy in a online learning platform. It launched in 2010 with a marketing campaign that promoted anyone could make a course and make money online. "anyone" sound familiar!
It took Udemy almost 1.5 years to reach 1 million users and another 6 months to reach 2 million users. By 2015 they had 10m users.
During this time (lets call it the launch phase) Udemy capitalized on the fact the 'ANYONE' could make money selling courses. All of the top selling course were 'HOW TO GET RICH ON UDEMY' course. A lot of them were from @jerrybanfield
While in the launch phase many instructors including me we very disheartened. the hot and trending did not reflect the reality (sound familiar) and the choice of course marketed by Udemy was also not a reflection of the content available on the platform. For a long time us instructors campaigned to Udemy Inc for change. We even lost many good instructors during the process.
With Udemys model, if you brought the students then you got 90% of the payment. But if Udemy brought the student then you got as little as 25%. Many people were relying on Udemy to bring the Students and disheartened that they were not delivering. At the time Udemy did not have the numbers to deliver students to all courses of all niches (sound familiar).
So top quality instructors, although disheartened with Udemys promise, began to grow a their only presence by growing their own followings. We had to learn online and social media marketing, blogging and all this other stuff needed to make a business happen online. heheheh guess what courses became popular next...'How to market your online courses' ....more get rich quick crap.
When Udemy hit the 10m user mark things changed. they no longer needed to leverage the power of get rich quick schemes for growth. The networking effect was well in play and the snowball was rolling.
Udemy banned all get rich quick courses, kicked jerry off the site with a thanks very much for all the users, although shit quality, it ranked us well and aided in the growth.
I was one of those instructors that moaned about Udemy Inc allowing all this get rich quick crap, I also lobbied to have jerry removed. But I was also one of those instructors that grew my own following. Slow as it was, i am now a best selling Udemy instructors, and Udemy send loads of traffic and learners to my courses.
So you see, I understand why Steemit Inc will not care about the first few million users. They will not care about the content type or who and what is being promoted. Lol this is their marketing. Let jerry tell people they will get rich here, sure they will come then. Let trending be full of shit posts but high payout post to keep the premises alive and as jerry and all the shit stuff works away, steemit inc are focusing on other things.
But like Udemy, there will be many people here now, that will stay for the long haul, even with the shit, and it is these people that will be the whales and influencers of the future. Udemy lost many many great instructors. I don't want Steemit to lose as many good people. I want Steemit to be different in this regard. So instead, I want to engage and support as many of these as possible. Having been here before, I know how it works :-)
Steemit needs people working on Apps, on the platform, on stability and scaleability. But it also needs people ensuring the user base do what they are meant to do on steemit. Engage and promote content and grow a following. Believe it or not, many do not know how to do this. So while some are creating awesome apps, others (like @davemccoy and @abh12345) are creating awesome steemains, the influencers and leaders that will bring consistent quality traffic and content to steemit and when all the shit leaves, we will rise to the top.
It took me 5 years to become a Udemy Best Selling Instructor. I was an early adapter. @davemccoy you may be disheartened with steemit incs approach, as I was with Udemy. But being blockchain there are fundamental differences in steemit and udemy and I believe with the efforts being made on the ground by you and many others are not going unwanted. it may be unrecognized by those at the top and working the same ground that you do, I know how this feels. But you are creating an awesome future for your self and it will be more sustainable than what the bot owners and other devs are working on right now. they have capitalized to early and when steemit matures, they will realize this and move on else where. Just like what happened on Udemy,
I follow Dave and respect what he is doing on this platform and I have seen some pretty amazing things that he has done in rallying people to worthy causes and when I read his post, oh man was I ready to rip you to shreds and then I read your post and still wanted to curse you for having such a view on Steem Users and content creators. I was ready to start tying an angry comment but like an angry email I learned that one needs a calm mind to write a response.
So I walked, had a cup of coffee and marveled at the blue sky then I went back to this post.
read it 4 times, read all the links you listed to get a better understanding of you and your message. I might have commented once in a blog post but normally I don't get to read your posts.
I am a prolific reader and commenter in this platform like Dave and we are both nearing 9k comments in the 6 months that we have been here in the platform.
Our Why is community building and engagement of the little folks and this mostly why I don't have a lot of comments with whales and top witnesses not because I don't care or need you but because those that I follow and comment on are people that I resonate with regardless of their wallet size and voting power.
But I was glad that I did stop because I was able to read your thoughts on those issues, I was able to read your reply to Dave's comment here in your post. So in a little way I understood Luke Stokes and I might not 100% agree with everything but I respect you and what you are trying to do. If I had an empty witness vote I would vote you but then you don't need my 1.5 MV vote and it would serve better the rest of the 30 witnessess I have currently.
I know that Steemit as a condenser or a front end is but one access point and it is pretty bare bones so we know that Steemit Inc plan is to have other people create the condensers this would explain why they have delegations to Busy.org, to Utopian, to Dlive, Dtube and even Dmania at one point (not sure that the delegation was returned when Dmania went back now)
Steemit INc is concentrating on the blockchain technology making it possible not just to scale to 1 million active user, not even 2 million but to scale really big in the hundreds of million and it makes sense. I had this comment and reply with paulag about how Steem at this moment cannot function with millions when its timing out and bandwidth issues we are experiencing.
It all makes sense now.
Yeah with some of the technical terms you may have used that caused some misunderstanding but we have to separate the idea that Steemit.com is Steem. Steem is what we are after to flourish and grow and we are not just talking about the crypto but the blockchain itself.
I have seen Sneak's comments a year ago to some comments and others and decided that I really don't like him and what his thoughts are but then I and my stake of 1.5 MV hardly matters to him.
as for your being a witness in EOSDAC I don't have a much of an issue with that unlike other people and I might draw some hate here but as I see it majority of cryptopeople like to diversify and being in Steem and EOS does not seem an entire conflict of interest for me and may even pave the way for inter blockchain connection although that is like waiting for hell to freeze over hahhaa.
It will be a problem if you intentionally sabotage one or both platforms btu you are an okay guy from what I read on your thoughts and posts.
Both platforms may even get better as you will be in a way to compare how both are being run and suggest the best course of action.
A lot would argue that an apprentice cannot have two masters as one will give eventually and you will have to choose and if you choose EOS know that all you did here will not be forgotten and if you choose Steem then you will continue to be a person that will tell it as it is without sugar coating.
Yet being in the top 19 witnesses you have the responsibility and move other witnesses and Steemit Inc to care about communities and to what people like Dave and the rest community builders are trying to do.
You are in the position to positively influence and give some importance to people. Steemit the condenser is a test, the people are not.
You have grasp on both technological and sociological aspect of the Steem Blockchain and everything it covers from apps and condensers to the community of people all over the world.
> with communities and a focus on the future interface for Steemit, we won't be wasting effort trying to put bandaids on the current front-end.
Education, the right message and communities are key aspects of getting the right people who will comtinue to build their Steem power and becoming influencers in the platform.