There are many things I want to consider as we look at where we are with Steem in 2019.
https://steemit.com/busy/@whatsup/is-steem-broken-is-it-fatally-flawed
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Last week I wrote a post stating that Steem the blockchain isn't broken it is functioning perfectly as designed. However, our view of Steem and the original idea of how it would function might be broken. Which is not a terrible problem to have.
Just to start a discussion I want to introduce the idea of directing at least some of the Reward Pool towards a Development fund.
Up until now I think many expected SteemIt Inc to take care of development with their stake, but it puts the entire project at the mercy of SteemIt Inc.'s ability and intentions and that seems to be a bad idea for many reasons.
-They have no accountability to us as Ned has pointed out they are a private company
-Entire Blockchains have been developed while we wait for SMTs
-They do not communicate with us on even a functional level. (Are you creating new accounts? Yes or No?)
In order to move away from our dependence on SteemIt, Inc. It is my opinion we need to have a development fund to pay for and allocate resources to developers or companies like Blocktrades in order to move development forward.
We have a lot of Orcas and whales stating they are rewarding themselves to pay for development, people like Transisto and others. Where are these projects and funds? We have no idea, because again there is no accountability.
We could spend hours talking about how this fund would be managed and I am sure that would be a challenge, but in the end, we have a Stake based voting system to gather weighted consensus on what the fund could be used for.
Let's talk about how to fund future development and reduce our dependence on SteemIt Inc.
At the very least, even if a Fund is non-existent. We're interested to see a "Steem Development Foundation" where discussion of how to move forward can be had in a more united manner. People outside the community can also interact directly for news and updates.
At present, news outlets or influencers don't know who to approach to aid with the marketing of Steem, which we all know is lacking.
We're interested in pursuing this disccusion more.
I agree a foundation might be a first step. From my experience very quickly that would lead to how do we pay for it.
Why don't you raise this suggestion in the SOS-forum discord. I would love to see a discussion on that there.
Do send us a link to the discord. we'll send someone in :D
Here you go. There is a working group on funding ideas. See you there as @traveller7761 https://discord.gg/g2xEwE
Terribly sorry! It seems the links have expired..
Here's another one https://discord.gg/8FjNVvj And here you may find a short overview on what has happened till now. https://steemit.com/steem/@impactn/sos-discord-next-steps-towards-sos-action
@whatsup,
You are absolutely correct! This might be a great idea of course! The problem is who could handle that kind of fund base! Crowd funding is a strategy to bring successful projects! I think if we all attach to this project we could see SMT befire that timeline and more other projects too!
Cheers~
So we should fund development and when the price of steem rise the Stinc will start selling their stake and laughing on the way to the bank??
Not my piece of cake.
Sorry.
Don't be sorry, thanks for answering. I wasn't looking for blind agreement. Strictly a conversation on how or if we should move away from dependence on SteemIt, Inc.
Until they have their fat account there is no way to move away from them. And new people will not invest or develop on this blockchain.
BTW do you know where is the guy with nice hair?
I think he is at the hairdresser getting Jennifer Aniston bangs.
If the development will grow the value at a greater rate than an investment, it would still be a win. The conversation should be around how a fund could generate greater value. I don’t think anyone would blindly fund without that structure though.
How does one verify development? How would something like that be any different from voting for content that describes such development? If you use a stake-based system, it seems kind of redundant with what we already have here and given that we would have to vet whether or not that development is quality or not, that would require a some mechanism to determine "quality" code (a billion dollar idea) or we would have to trust some individual or group.
While the idea might sound good initially, logistically it doesn't make a lot of sense to pursue at the blockchain level. You should organize a fund separate from the chain, not add it to the protocol.
How does one verify good content? Let me give you an example of what I mean. My post got a payout of $53:
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@inertia/more-current-steem-documentation
How do you know I didn't just splat a bunch of nonsense and pick the right tags? Maybe the utopian moderators weren't paying attention. How do you determine one way or the other?
(actually, the utopian moderators are top notch and very qualified to determine these kinds of things, but that's not my point)
My point is, sometimes you do have to rely on experts with domain specific knowledge to verify delivery. Maybe that process can work for application development too.
Yeah, but those experts are centralized points. Which could be good if they are truly experts, or perhaps could be an issue as they have some central authority over the code. The only way to avoid central authorities is to have everyone vote via stake, but the notation that stake is anyway positively correlated with the ability to judge code quality is absurd.
I don't see why we can't simply have individuals willing to stake projects as investors put stake into those projects. That's how it works in the real world. And it doesn't force us to siphon off part of the pool to either allow larger voters or "experts" elected by larger voters to determine the future development. We already have those. They're called witnesses.
And see where we are now? I can see how having such a fund addresses accountability and speeds up development rather than reckless delegation to projects with most hype.
Dash, Bitshares, Ethereum, even Bitcoin does this to a degree.
Sure, decentralize everything. And then Project A will work on heading north and Project B work on south. Nothing gets done in the end.
The central issue of OP's post is the address reliance AWAY from a few parties. Edge case scenario, say a legendary developer comes to the Steem blokchain and is willing to work on a proposal. He's not a witness though, does that mean he's not qualified to develop Steem?
There are certainly better reasons that the blockchain is suffering more than the lack of developer incentives. One of them is developer focus. Another we can tie into the game theory behind Steem. A third would be cryptocurrencies being strongly correlated with Bitcoin. All better reasons to why we are here now.
Nobody forces anybody to delegate. How would a shared pool solve this issue? Please enlighten us.
My concern is about on-chain funding. Foundations and private companies are off-chain funding. I'm perfectly fine with that sort of funding and would encourage it.
I feel like these ideas conflict with each other to a degree. The second implies moving toward the first, and critiquing the first would suggest moving towards the second.
He may be qualified to develop Steem, it depends on his experience. But let's say dude solves all our problems with perfect code. If code doesn't get witness support it isn't passing regardless.
But that's true for judging content too, which I just said previously. For some content, some people are better suited to judge quality than others. I don't see how this informs us on how to to use the reward pool.
Well, that's a great idea. Go do that. In fact, why we can't simply have individuals willing to stake content as investors put stake into content production as well?
Why do any of this at all?
Read the SMT Whitepaper? And think Development Fund?
Yes. No.
Maybe you verify the development at the Code Drop. Or you payout in thirds which is common in contracted development projects.
Although I agree we can currently fund small development with votes, what about larger projects like SMTs or other features?
I disagree that logically it doesn't make sense, it could logically make sense. Which also doesn't mean we have to implement it. :)
How do other projects raise capital? Bitcoin doesn't have a fund. It has passionate individuals that work on it for free and groups of developers that propose functionality to investors and raise capital through these proposals. Such an approach is better for developers in that funds are often in stable currencies and it makes sense to trust investors since they provide all the money that is "at stake". It would be preferable to encourage more startups and small organizations around Steem, not turn Steem into a partial funding platform because it can print tokens.
I'm not sure how Bitcoin's devs are paid.
Dash does have a foundation and a group of people who approve work proposals and such as do several other chains.
One thing that is hard when you have more than just a currency is how to attract people/devs and projects to your blockchain when there are no assets set aside to fund it.
I'd like to recommend you this read in case you haven't already.
https://medium.com/@lopp/who-controls-bitcoin-core-c55c0af91b8a
IMO, there are much to learn from how Bitcoin Core Dev does their job. And even then they still admit it's somewhat centralized.
I'll read it, thank you.
Does busy.org take a cut of your earnings?
It almost seems like Steemit might need to practically freeze development.
It's an interesting idea. Sometimes it's difficult to trust the people at the top though. Who would be in charge of such a fund?
Upvoted 100%.
The fund would have to be managed by stake based consensus voting. Because we are a DPOS chain.
The good news is it would be fairly easy to write some sort of app for presenting and voting on Work Projects to fund.
Here exactly where I see the biggest problem.
Stinc with their accounts can approve or dismiss any proposal or money allocation to any project with their stake.
Yeah, that is a very valid concern. You are right, I keep thinking the whole project is doomed to either rely on Steemit Inc or hope they are good partners if we try to manage anything with out them.
People buying lotto tickets all the time and hope...
The fund has to be decentralized with a decentralized account +people on Steemit must have a chance to vote for their favorite project/idea but don't know on how we could do it 😂
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We have a voting platform... I guess that is a good start.
Definitely, STEEM users all think we are decentralized, and then we wait for Steemit Inc to spoonfeed all the blockchain development. I fully support this idea. Put some money (steem from the reward pool) on the table and we should find ourselves progressing much faster.
Thanks for opening the conversation on this.
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I'm glad you like the idea... I would love to hear a lot of people weigh in.
If we did all agree, we would also like have to fund developing the blockchain to do it. lol.
Hi whatsup. That is one of the smartest ideas I have heard since joining Steem. If this had been started a while ago it would not be a problem today. A slush fund sounds perfect.
I now find it "Self-evident" that we needed a fund all along.
What if we add fiat to the equation so that devs etc get funds?? Somehow...
I'm not sure how to picture what you just said. If you can give me an example I'd love to consider it.
How about we create an account where committed people who are here for the long run fund it with steem from the exchanges....every now and then. Specific devs will have the keys of that account etc...And not use the reward pool for generating constantly new tokens.
Just an idea...
This is a cool idea!
Also it would be nice if there's something that can automate the conversion from fiat to steem (like if someone want to support the development fund for $10 per month) to fund the the account.
What do you think?
I think the development fund initiative is a laudable one. However, that'll only be possible if a substantial amount of us become selfless to a certain degree and that can be quite challenging because most of us if not all of us are here for the Steem.
Hmm! No money, No motivation
I see a lot of contest being carried out by witnesses with the hope that steemians will get to vote them which don't have to be so!
So what are you trying to say?
What I'm trying to say is that the development fund initiative will work if people are in one way or the other are incentivised to do so.
Let's be frank with ourselves, there'll always be that what's in for me mentality
But the fund will benefit us all
You're right, the development fund will benefit us but that'll only be seen by Steemians who are not short-sighted by quick gain.
So now what?
Until then let's keep complaining about Steemit Inc. At least it's doesn't cost anything to do so — talk is cheap they say.
All action is preceded by a thought. Actions that require consensus are preceded by a conversation.
I'm starting the conversation, not complaining.
Complaining is where you bitch without offering a potential solution for discussion
Pardon me if I sounded like a complainer, I never meant it that way.
Once again, my apologies
No, I didn't think you sounded like a complainer, just want to talk about the pros and cons of allocating some funds from the reward pool to a development fund of some sort.
Directing some of the reward pool to some sort of a development fund if agreed upon by a majority of the witnesses I guess will lead to another hard fork to incorporate it into the system.
If the above happens, then collectively we'll all be part of the development and progress of Steemit which of course will have an impact on the reward ration (for lack of a better word)
This may or may not warrant accountability depending on how the development fund is implemented.
For now I don't think I have seen any cons of the development fund initiative, because it takes the burden off Steemit Inc and witnesses.
This is already on the way afaik.
Who? What? When? and Where?
And how?
The discussion has been started I think about creating a small fund to develop marketing etc. If that starts, a larger can develop. I talked about creating one just after the stinc layoff announcement but organising it is difficult due to the nature of the platform and people.
We're interested to know more about this if one is already underway.
I don't have any issue with the idea itself, but where this loses me is that it's a solution to the problem of being too heavily reliant on Steemit, but it's also dependent on action from Steemit. Unless someone is able to pull a hostile takeover of the Steem blockchain Steemit holds the keys to change. Has Freedom ever gone against Steemit? Any of the other top accounts?
I think a more immediate solution would simply be that if a developer has an idea and wants to request funds from the community, start a @fundition campaign. Fundition is already set up to accept payments in Steem, upvotes(stake), other cryptocurrencies and payments through paypal. They also have a site where the progress of a project can be tracked and where if people liked what they saw they could give continued support through any of the ways previously mentioned.
If somewhere along the line we don't like what's happening, we withdraw our support, and cut our losses. We can do this now, today, without needing anything from Steemit or any change at the blockchain level.
I think it would also be good as a support for @fundition because it might enable them to add even more features faster, like building their own exchange, which would allow them to do even more in regard to payments.
Excellent points. I think we can handle small projects, the larger ones are more of an issue.
A Trust Developing Funds?
These will Never Happens as many Dapps were given some startup Delegation by SteemInc.
What did The Developers did with the Rewards from their Curations?
They eat them up!
Your Ideas does sound good but don't think anyone can be The Guardian of this Fund.
There are too many Greedy People in here. Can anyone be Trusted?
I am glad that We do have Our Investors Funds that we have been Safe Guard for Our Own Developing and Progression without Dependent on Anyone.
If One Day SteemInc decide to Remove All their Delegation , Do you think Any of these Apps will Functions?
I see many have pocket in their own self interest.
Thanks for bringing this up for discussion @whatup
Thank you for replying. I especially appreciate critical responses, because in my opinion that is how you test an idea!
What if the fund was managed by the community based on stake based voting.
So, PersonA would submit a "Request for Funds". I would like xx. funds to do xxx.
And then a set amount of stake would have to say yes for the funds to be delivered?
Just brainstorming.
It's safe to say that Dapps wont be qualified for this fund as there are other monetization mechanism available to them. Dapps are businesses.
for the past 2 and a half years, most if not all Steem Blockchain development was done by Steemit.inc, Steemit.inc is a private company, why do they need to develop Steem Blockchain? They dont own it.
IMO this is where real Reputation comes to play. Do i know you personally? no, but i do know that @bullionstacker is the guy behind #Whalepower initiative and you're good at that. Bitcoin Core is much much more decentralized than Steem and even they have a few single point of attack. (5 person are trusted to approve/reject what development goes through for Bitcoin, we know who they are).
Can you elaborate more on this? I dont understand..
Do you mean a development fund for Steem core blockchain development?
If so, a fund is only the beginning; technical capability and political will are also a requirement to drive community-based change at the core blockchain level as this is a stake-based DPoS system but I consider the likelyhood of any change community-based change at the core blockchain level extremely unlikely given the challenges.
At my technical level I guess I'm not entirely sure what is "Core" blockchain level and what isn't.
I could see a use for both cases.
I think over time we will get better at gathering a vision and consensus. Especially if we know it is our job and it isn't confused with what you guys are or aren't going to handle.
That would be a very logical next step , given the recent developments...
agreed. this is something we have talked about on the state of steem forum. I have been offline with the holiday period since the last forum but I know actions will be taken in a positive way by the community. I think we all need to sick together to get stuff like this up and running.
The only problem I see is that the rewards pool is not equipped to handle payments like this. More steem going out without the investment in = reduction in value, as we have seen.
Thank you for offering solutions
I think many are going to have to realize while we regroup the value may continue to erode a bit. No one can say for sure it will happen, but being willing to accept that if price is at all driven by our actions we have some rebuilding to do after allowing ourselves to become too reliant on one company... We will have to allocate real resources if we want anything different to happen.
Do you ever have days when you think "Whatsup should be in charge of all this stuff"?
I do!
Pretty much all the days... :)
I know it is arrogant, but yeah, sometimes I do think... Sheesh, just let me do this guys. ;) I probably shouldn't admit it though.
I think a key issue with Steemit is that there are so many people who have key skills that are desperately needed, but they are all ignored because of some sort of illusion that there are competent people running everything.
But there are really just people with big wallets protecting an empire they set up from March to June 2016...
And now they are buggering up things for all of us!
Yeah, I think so too, miners and developers have an entirely different skill set than business people.
They think because they are highly intelligent that makes them good at business and building teams, which is decidedly not true. So, they also are arrogant and they do not understand the concept of applying appropriate skill sets to specific tasks.
They need to be kept in a dark cave out the back labeled GEEKS :)
Haha, I love geeks, but they often confuse intelligence with being good at stuff.
It's not always true. :)
I do agree that developing steem needs some more attention. However I must say that I'm not sure if this type of funding is needed. I could see that at the current blocktrades for example (and most prefetably them) could make an account dedicated for developement fund for their own smt protocol. They are a trusted and from my understanding very skilled people.
Here I want to add that this whole problem may not be funding but instead lack of communication and organized effort from dapp-devs side. It is so strange how many steem apps are at the top 20 dapps, yet it is hard to find any action in form of discussions about these matters. Other crappy cryptos have their reddit full of posts about projects. Maybe it is just that steemit is not optimal for sharing these projects, wich could explain why there seems to be nothing going on.
Interesting point you make about the Reddit discussions, maybe that is because we talk about Steem on Steem. Which might have both good and bad side effects, because we aren't talking about it on Reddit. :)
Yes.
I don't understand why they are doing this? Every company should hire a "social media specialist" for stuff like this, no?
They used to have a "social media specialist" - she obviously didn't last that long.
You should apply for the next "social media specialist of streem" position! :D
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I might just have to do that!! ;-)
I guess they are changing what they view their company as...
If there is profit to be had then no fund will be necessary to draw developers. If there is no profit to be had then no fund can be large enough to keep them.
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Excellent comment that rang true for me regarding apps, but what about blockchain projects where the only profits might be increased price of steem.
A fund may have some value there. Like a startup that gives a percent of the company as compensation when it has no cash.
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Yes, if we're willing to subject Steem's price to further devaluation.
Also, like birdinc had mentioned, big projects will come with the huge demand of a highly technical team. I'm sure we have quite a few of those. Team Blocktrades and team Greymass might be interested in those.
Also, how would projects be approved? based on stakes or based on number of active accounts that will vote those projects?
Who am i to denote which account is active and which isnt, BTW?
What do the witness say about this?
In all, i am interested in seeing how it works out.
Yes.
We should combine it with @shredz1 's Smt similar project.
He is planning "engine" which is like a development fund Token and infrastructure
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Yes we do need development fund:)
The Dash blockchain also has something similar where a percentage of each block mined and its rewards are segregated into a Treasury were groups can submit proposals for use. While most have been used for promotion and marketing (and not very successful), it has added to governance and distribution of the asset. I think it is a good idea as long as it can come with accountability.
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Yeah, I was thinking of Dash when I was considering this.
This is one bright idea, if well executed could see the success of steem facilitated.
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I believe is a terrific idea to remove independence from Steemit Inc and to move this blockchain to be more decentralized.
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Well steemit should consider this after learning from the mistakes done in 2018 ;)
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There is utopian.io and fundition.io what are helping the Development of open source apps on Steem. But they fail to pay the devs efficiently. A dev fund is a great idea but hard to implement.
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