As I write these words, Hive has a market cap of about $83M placing it #50 on the list of cryptocurrencies. I realize that this is not an exact science, especially since I feel that $HIVE is worth a lot more especially in comparison to other blockchains that are all hype with very little development.
That aside, the market is what it is so we will go with that valuation.
Yesterday, some interesting news came out about Reddit. The "front page of the Internet" is raising money. This will be the Series D round of funding and is led by Chinese giant Tencent. All told, there is going to be between $150M to $300M pumped into this company.
That puts the valuation of Reddit around $3B.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/raiseit/
Wouldn't we all like to see Hive have a valuation like that?
Why does Reddit have such a value? In my opinion, the answer is simple. Reddit is a RESOURCE. The content on there is something that people like. I personally go there each day to read the headlines in a couple different categories I follow. I do not post nor comment on there but I am a user of that site daily.
According to that article, I am not alone since there are an estimated 330M people a month on there.
That is some traffic. Would anyone on here like to see those numbers for HiveSteem?
They why do we not learn from the success of others? Why are we trying to be a small fish instead of going after the really big one? We opt for the little blogging pond while overlooking the one that houses the Internet.
Did you realize that?
Look at the picture above from the article. Notice the upvotes on it. What do you think would happen on here if this same person posted that here? Obviously a couple thousand people found it helpful.
Here is another example. Tell me honestly if you think this is going to foster growth among new people..
I will state I have no idea who this person is and never crossed paths with him. I use him to illustrate the fact we are not learning from what is valuable.
Check this guy out. Scroll down to about a week ago. Look at what he was posting and where it was being done.
He seems like a young guy and is a photographer which is stated in his profile. He is into posting pics of himself and his friends. This is not uncommon for the young people today.
I did a bit of digging and this guy is a dedicated person on Hive. He had a couple posts that caught my attention.
https://steemit.com/deletfacebook/@moniristi/delete-facebook-and-join-steemit
Wow. What a guy. He not only is posting for people to quit Facebook but he is also urging the digibyte community to join Hive.
But not so fast. There is this tidbit.
Do you see that? He "spams" Dlike with personal photos. Our wonderful Hivian is a spammer. Or is he?
Here is the problem. @dlike is an application for people to share photos. That is what is was designed for. Dlike is an application that is meant to blend Reddit and Pinterest (a company going public at an estimated $12B).
Obviously, this did not sit well with @hivewatchers since the pic is from their Discord group. But wait it gets even better.
Wow. Isn't this wonderful?
A guy posts pictures that he took on an application on this blockchain and now he is permanently on Hivewatchers blacklist which other applications could use.
Why? Because he uses the application too much? Do we not want people using the applications on here? Or is it we do, but only in moderation?
Perhaps all those people who have been questioning retention rate ought to look at this. It might have a part to do with it.
What is also interesting is this guy is now posting his pictures on Busy, forgoing Dlike because he thought that was the reason he was flagged.
So now we have this Logic of Hivewatchers having an impact on which applications are used. Is this what this blockchain stands for? For those who delegated to Hivewatchers, do you believe this valid?
That is not to say that Hivewatchers does not do some good stuff. However, when people are being harassed for posting their own stuff on the blockchain, then something is really wrong. It shows the smallness of thinking that exists.
Many will point to the fact that Reddit has communities and that is a viable point. Hopefully @shredz7 has the integration with @steempeak done soon so we will see what it looks like on this blockchain. However, that is just putting a bandaid on a much bigger hole.
People often talk about marketing on here. If you want to be one of the biggest, you do not fish in a small pond. It is really that simple.
Reddit is a resource site with some commentary on it. There is almost no blogging, more like some questions posted for discussion. It is a very simple model and worth billions.
https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/
Look at the list. Those are the most active social media sites (and also the most valuable ones). Do you notice something common for most of them? They appeal to the masses. Why? They are simply ways for people easily to share stuff that interests them. Most are not going to write a 500 or 1000 word post. Instead, they will put up 5 pictures of their cat.
That is where the market is. Everyone is looking for the killer application that is going to moon blockchain. While that might come down the road, why not focus upon what is already out there? The lessons are clear. For now, this is what the masses are into.
This is a bit dated but it does show the point.
https://blogging.org/blog/state-of-the-blogging-world-2016/
Even if those numbers are off, triple them for argument sake, they do not make the top 10 while being far behind Pinterest and Reddit, two of the easiest concepts to copy.
Value comes, in part, from the numbers of users. Traffic is a vital component to mooning in this world. That traffic does not come by ignoring what 90% of the masses want.
Reddit figured this out and is being richly rewarded for it.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
It’s very concerning if active new users are being flagged for posting their own content. The RC system imposes a cost to post that is sufficient such that “spam” should not be automatically flagged, only plagiarism.
@steamcleaners needs to reconsider their role with RCs now in place.
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Very true. If someone wants to spend his or her RC on posting original pictures, that is their right.
Very very very true.
Pretty soon we'll have a reddit type interface and I certainly hope people will post and comment a ton!
wooohoo! I like the sound of that @jarvie!
It kind of looks like you're right @alshamilton, especially given the way that @taskmaster4450 presented it.
It kind of looks like your right, especially the way that @taskmaster4450 presented it.
I agree with you 100%. Nobody has any business telling anybody what to post on Steem as long as it is not plagiarized content or illegal stuff like child pornography or anything. Steem is a public blockchain anyone can post pictures of their cat to if they want to. What Steemcleaners is doing is highly detrimental.
I've been saying for a long time that traffic is what drives value. It's not "high quality". Why does @moniristi get harrassed by @steemcleaners because he posts a lot of selfies? There are tons of people here who do exactly the same.
I think it would be more beneficial to change the @steemit interface, so that high quality content rises to the top @markkujantunen @taskmaster4450 then we wouldn't need a @steemcleaners, or at least not nearly as much 👍
@steeveapp is trying to do this, but more development on this front should be made!
The Steemit interface (Steemit is the interface) is not going to be developed. Steemit Inc that owns the interface is not going to develop the interface any further. Steemit Inc is focusing on scaling the blockchain as it should be. There are many other front ends that serve different types of needs perfectly well, including Steeve that you mentioned. I know Steemit is still the most popular front end but I think the use of the other front ends should be encouraged.
@steemcleaners was not created to weed out low quality content but to fight abuse such as plagiarism. Quality is a highly subjective matter and it should be left to the community judge whether or not a particular piece of content is low or high quality. Anyone can upvote or downvote depending on whether they think a post is getting too much or too little in the way of rewards.
Actually, in one of the recent interviews on Discord with @elipowell, she said they changed course, and will develop Steemit.com further.
Steemit Inc. Is now focused on generating revenue from their main asset Steemit.com and will update the UI soon (2019).
That's interesting! And it makes sense. Eli Powell has background in advertising. Thanks for informing me.
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You're welcome 😊
I know a very wealthy and potentially influential person in the crypto space who would re-post his own blog content on Steem, and he started getting flagged / blacklisted by @steemcleaners for plagiarism and as a result he now hates Steem and only has bad things to say about it, which I know for a fact has deterred some potential large investors.
Now that we have the Resource Credit system I think we need to take a really hard look at whether these type of "services" are doing more harm than good for the platform.
That makes me sad. Darn.
After looking into the specific incident I'm referring to more deeply (as a result of this post), the issue was not with the steemcleaners bot/service, it was with the customer service in the discord channel for disputes.
When people are dealing with actual plagiarizers/abusers on a regular basis they tend to assume everyone falls into that category and treat them like such, and also expect that everyone knows how all of this works. What should happen is that everyone, even plagiarizers/abusers, should be treated with respect and clearly explained how these things work and the reasons behind these services and the methods for "verifying" your identity with them.
Unfortunately this level of customer service is very difficult to provide.
Also, I should note that from the snippets of discord conversations in this post, it looks like a similar issue here. Instead of taking the time to explain to a new user what the problem is and how to avoid it, they just say "you spam dlike with personal photos". Even I don't understand why that is a problem, or what level of posting is considered spam.
In my opinion, Steamcleaners isn't principled or is too disorganized to make any sense. They let obvious spamming slide, abuse continually happens all across the platform, bidbot spam nonsense is a constant.
Is it a wonder that nobody gives a flying F about this place and blockchain? Any enforcement mechanism is half way done or disorganized.
Now that resource credits are in I don't think anyone posting their own content warrants any kind of downvote(for the most part)
I also support this vision of increasing usage as we grow, no matter the Dapps we use or how we use. The community shoukd be the determinant of how we view the content and raise it or not but the the freedom to use one’s stake and bandwidth should be allowed no matter how little or much we engage. Let it be up to the users to up or down vote.
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@steemit definitely needs to upgrade the UI, so that high quality content is pushed to the top. Then everyone else can post what they like, without anyone getting irked.
The snobbery is real.
I've seen people make comments like 'it takes 3 hours to write a post' because they have some sort of mindset that posts on STEEM should have journalistic standards.
Which is exactly wrong.
STEEM is a cryptocurrency with a text-in-block feature. It is not a blogging platform. Steemit.com was created as one app to encourage the use of the chain, and with that use, increase the value of the cryptocurrency.
So yes, appealing to masses of users is the key to making the whole STEEM project successful. "Spam" away with your low effort posts! Of course, just like you might get downvotes on reddit for no particular reason, you might get flags here. Such is the freedom of the marketplace.
Self-voted just because
@steemcleaners is constantly over-stepping their mandate!
Yeah I agree, the response rate on reddit is way higher. Like you can ask a question and get a couple of answers and upvotes whereas her you need a network to do so.
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That's mostly due to two things..
3 Most people on here are in it for the money and won't give the time of day to scour the new section knowing it won't get them any richer.
4 We don't have communities. The loose tag system means people might post a selfie where they're smiling. Since they're smiling, they use the funny tag. Then they vote buy their way to the top of every tag (including funny) and all of a sudden your favorite tags are polluted by voyagers.
The reason is simple, we are yet to figure out how to do monetary reward.it is easier said than done. Human emotions and social behavior comes into play here. Steemit is more or less like reddit in layout and presentation atleast, but the difference is block chain backed reward.
You have hit the nail on the head here. !tip
@steemcleaners needs to reform and lead the way for the other law bots to reform, i have been harping on about this for a while. I would personally ban all law bots and ban flagging.
That would be the best path forward for mass adoption.
It doesn't matter how good steemit makes the interface, if asshats are scaring people away.
Sorry, @tipU needs to recover voting power - will be back in 1 hour and 10 minutes. Please try then!
Really Interesting, but I think we should make a distinction between Social Network and Social Blogging Platform.
Numbers cannot be compared..
Why aim low?
This doesn't means aim low, but we must be aware of the fact that we're talking about two different things corresponding to different volumes of users.
Actually I have heard about that reddit but I am still even yet to expore the internet. Let us just hope for the best and let us hope steemit grows than this. I believe steem is worth much more than what its is been ranked presently. Nice
This is why I dislike @steemcleaners
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Apart from obvious bidbot abuse and that is on the bots. We can already have communities in a sense that is what we do vote the people we like and not those we do not. The chain itself does not have the tools for moderation and we need things like dlike to implement such. The fact that they flagged original content is bullshit but they could lock the user out from using their app. Then we get a new app that will be like we are not dlike they will fuck up and we get something better and it itterates. Community and moderation has a lot to do for me personally with exclusion and sure I could use the harvard exclusivity but it is what it is. A blockchain without any real fuckit I forget the word. The mechanism that works now for better or worse is prejudice and we already do that hence we already have "community" now for apps to grow and take true stances instead of sitting on the fence aka how they went and bitched about that darklord nonsense which has absolutely no effect on anything in anyones lifes but the info was nice so why not. I think I digress...
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
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Your rank has improved 2 places in the last three days (old rank 226).
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On personal note about your post.
Regardless of that monoristi issue it is an interesting post but you forgot to add one crucial and probably the most important point.
You DON'T get paid on reddit (or FB or Twitter, etc) for posting, commenting etc...
Also, none of the users are in a way shareholders of reddit. They have no profit or stakes from/in it's value, even if it is worth billions of dollars.
In Steemit, it is the opposite.
Also, as you know, Steemit's reward pool is limited. So exploiting certain curation with spam take rewards from any other Steemians that have been putting effort and work to create worthy and creative content that supports Steemit's "Proof of Brain" concept.
Steemcleaners explained it here:
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@steemcleaners/understanding-flagging-downvoting
You seem to have one big bat that targets everything, which is demoralizing us.
.... Give the so called "spammers" free reign for a test month and see if retention rates improve?
One last thought... please stop mentioning muh "reward pool is limited" and "proof of no brain".
That's just nonsense in my humble opinion.
"That's just nonsense in my humble opinion"
Seems more like an arrogant and/or ignorant opinion rather than humble...
The limit of pool reward and the rape of it, as well as construct of "proof of brain" is what Steemit is designed upon as the core principle, not nonsense.
If that is nonsense for you that why have you come to this platform. It doesn't make sense.
If you see it as nonsense (something that isn't important), then maybe you should leave as such attitude can potentially bring some harm to this platform as you appear as the person who doesn't care about this platform and/or it's community of long established, hard working content creators and developers.
"Give the so called "spammers" free reign for a test month and see if retention rates improve?"
Another ignorant comment. You are obviously clueless about the amount of plagiarism, spam, phishing and id theft that is going on. About 90-95% of posts created every hour on Steemi fall into this category.
Vast majority of Steemian (evidently including you) lives in oblivion in this matter.
If we stopped our work, the whole platform would be flooded in such crap.
Steemit already has opinion of scam haven where you can come and join and try to scam as much as you like. And that's because it is anonymous platform so there are no social consequences for such behaviour.
They just open new account when get caught and start abuse of platform again.
@logic Thanks for your reply, here's mine https://steemit.com/pob/@cryptothoughts/proof-of-no-brain
Couldn't have said it any better myself.
Thank you sir @taskmaster4450 for the big analysis. I really appreciate your post. Your every word is 100% true. I hope your analysis will be very effective.
Yes i believe that steemit is not steem!
Steem is much bigger than steemit!
This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
People's freedom for content and no censorship are the main things that make a platform more valuable. You put very interesting information plus good facts about reddit and how it has made progress.