I stole your picture, hope you don't mind
See the original post here.
For all the lazy people, I'll do my best to create a quick synopsis of what @therealwolf is proposing here, but it's fairly detailed so it's best to read his original post as this will almost certainly not do it justice.
- Major bullet point is that it's about re-designing the rewards system to introduce staking rewards on HIVE.
- Author/Curation Rewards aren't working on scale
- While we mostly fixed vote buying, auto-voting still screws up the algorithm leading to a handful of users getting the most rewards.
- Manual/Honest curation is a good idea, but doesn't work.
- We should be a top 20 crypto.
- Need to ask: Why should developers integrate/build on Hive? and Why should individuals buy HIVE and potentially even hodl it?
- Between 2016 and 2020 Steem shifted from a Socal app blockchain to a Community blockchain.
- HMT's won't save us.
- Developers should want to build on hive to leverage it as an easy form of storing and retrieving data.
- If Hive is going to adapt to its use-cases, then we need to have better tooling, API & marketing for custom_json.
- A better way to inventivise HODLing HIVE is higher staking rewards.
- Current reward system could be offered via SMT
- For HIVE instead of distributing HIVE from a reward pool, you can direct part of your inflation to someone you want to support.
- At this point it goes into detail about the proposal so if you made it this far, just read the original post. Mine will make no sense if you don't anyway, well maybe it will. Do whatever you want I guess.
So my major bulletpoint is that while I agree with some of the problems stated. I disagree about the solution proposed. I also disagree with the idea that a social blockchain fundamentally doesn't work. I'll explain why.
To simplify what @therealwolf is getting at, I think it goes something like..."We've tried this social media/application stuff for years and it hasn't worked, let's try something different. Here's my idea for something different"
What's the REAL problem?
If you've read a lot of my posts in the past you can probably guess where I'm going to go with this. The problem is not and has never been that creating social applications on Steem/Hive doesn't work. We already know that social applications can be and are profitable. They're extremely profitable, and not just the ones that sell their users data. Patreon and Kickstarter could also be built here and these platforms don't work via ads or data mining. There's also donation platforms which would be ridiculously simple to integrate here that I've heard many say wouldn't work, in direct opposition to the reality that there are several that are successful and DO work.
We've had apps that were modelled after those applications built here, but they haven't really gone anywhere. So why would the fact that one is built on a blockchain make a difference?
It's because of the UX.
All the centralized social applications are easy and pleasant/addictive to use. That's what we have to compete with. I think the big takeaway from the last four years is that financial rewards are not valuable enough to make up for a poor user experience.
In the peak of the bull market Steem was basically giving away free money...lots of it. When tons of posts were in the mid 3 figures, with a few hitting 4 figures and every now and then some even hitting 5 FIGURES!!! Yea, people will put up with a shitty UX for that much money, but not with what we have now.
As you can see from the centralized platforms, if you have a good user experience, you don't have to pay people anything to use an application. They use it because it's fun/addictive.
Now that still doesn't really address how we make profitable businesses here, but I think in the short and medium term that's fairly simple. GROWTH. If we build even one killer app on Hive, the size of our active community(Being generous...10kish?) can easily grow by a factor of 10 in no time. 100k active users is nothing in the social application world, but it would make a huge difference here. What would 1 million active users do for the price? I said this is short and medium term because let's say we get a million active users. The price would obviously be MUCH higher than it is now, but how do we grow in value from there? We don't actually sell anything here and that would be a ton more value leaving the system if we had that many more users, but I think if we had consistent growth it would be years and years before this became an issue, because you have to throw speculation into the mix and all the other market variables that would affect things, but if we had a killer app that was popular, I think those other forces would have a positive impact on price.
So how do we get there?
We need to dramatically improve the user experience here on HIVE. I'm sort of convinced that the best way to do that is with a hybrid onchain/offchain database solution. After learning more and more about OpenSeed, I think this is the way to take what we have and make it something that can compete with modern day social applications. Let me paint a quick picture for those that have no idea what I'm talking about.
Lite Accounts(one of many things that become possible)
With an opensource distributed offchain database, we could create offchain accounts instantly, we could also allow posting from these accounts, but to receive rewards you'd have to "upgrade" your account.
While still having access to offchain and onchain posting, we could easily have features like chat and DM's, or short form, low value type posts(tweets) that wouldn't be eligible for rewards, but would increase engagement massively. Imagine a system where at the end of your post you could click a checkbox whether you wanted that post to be onchain or offchain. With the onchain checkbox being greyed out when you only have a lite account, but you still being able to get up and running in minutes. I could even imagine a system where all lite account posts earn rewards via a single account that tracks the rewards they've earned, then transfers those rewards to them once they create a blockchain level account.
The reason I disagree so strongly about the idea that "social apps on the blockchain don't work"
is because what I've just mentioned here is only scratching the surface. We haven't done anything yet. You can't call what we've done here a serious attempt yet. That sounds harsh and I definitely appreciate all our developers and get that you're all doing this work without a ton of financial rewards, but it is what it is.
There are no training wheels in business. We have to compete with the competition, period. I think we can do this, but we have to correctly identify the problems and dedicate our collective energy and resources to the right areas.
As someone who has worked as a UX artist, I could write a book full of features that I would be willing to bet my entire stake would dramatically increase the value here, and I can just about promise you that if you asked anyone that knows anything about UX design they'd say the same thing. They'd have to learn a fair amount about how this system works, but after they did, the path forward wouldn't be rocket science.
I hope there can be more brainstorming like this for Hive to increase engagement and get the ideas flowing on how to make all this better, oh wait!
There's a Community for that! :D
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Sometimes, especially when the witnesses start finding ways to screw over content producers so they can build a basic dime a dozen crypto currency concept, I begin to feel like I shouldn't be creating content. They have a fancy way of making the future seem incredibly uncertain and investing more time and money in this concept seems like a bad idea the more they want to change things.
I think what you're doing and what I'm trying to do is the best that can be done and I do think it ultimately works. If you think something is a bad idea, call it out and say why. Propose better solutions or introduce alternate paths etc.
I think that idea really harms the main thing that draws people here. I think there are a TON of ways we can improve on this system that will make this whole thing work better. For those 4 years that were referred to, there's been almost no progress or innovation on the layer that matters the most for prosperity for a social blockchain, the application layer, you know, the one ALL the users actually interact with. So saying it doesn't work when it JUST made the first significant change in years doesn't make sense to me. Also that change was only the beginning and now we've had a wrench thrown in the progress because the brains behind the whole thing all left their posts at STINC(with good reason of course).
So now we've got this cool but incomplete feature with nobody at the helm taking it to the final destination. To me, that's a good area to focus on some problem solving instead of changing the whole system.
You're right! It's rare we've ever been given an opportunity to take what we have, fine tune it, and make it work. And there's no reason why some of what he's proposing can't simply be added in as an OPTION for those who would be interested. Not completely change things and force everyone to be interested, or leave.
That savings account feature sits idle. There's no reason why that can't be used for an investor to collect interest at a higher rate than one would holding HP. But that interest should still be a lower rate than what one receives for using HP to actually contribute and earn rewards. I understand that investors want options, so give them options on top of what we already have. Then take what we have, make it better, and market the living shit out of it.
There you go, that's one of literally hundreds of things we could try. To say, we've been trying for 4 years and it hasn't worked is to suggest that there's actually been iteration, but there's only been stagnation. We need to ACTUALLY have some time to try things and now with STINC out of the picture, that's a real possibility.
There's definitely massive potential here with this concept and I've known that for years, but for years I've watched that potential being squandered by people who simply refuse to look past their own self interests. I don't want that to happen again.
I’m 100% with you.
As a basic steem user (in that I’m not technical in any way and my blockchain understanding is basic at best) - upon moving to HIVE my literal first though was ‘I hope the site isn’t like Steem and it’s more beautiful with nice branding and easy to use instructions etc etc..’ (of course, it isn’t)
Steemit was so clunky and boring it was unbearable, and although PeakD is quite brilliant in layout (for an experienced user to navigate), it’s still not easy enough for newbies to understand or care about.
HIVE needs a killer mobile app.
Basically like a game. It’s simplified beyond belief and is beautiful.
You can post a blog and has candy crush like games that you get rewarded to play.
I realise all this requires development and financial backing. But oh my god would I support you on taking the UX stuff forward? 100% YES.
Totally agree. One of the biggest mistakes developers can make is underestimating the importance of the user experience. You can tweak the under the hood stuff until the cows come home, but unless you make something people are excited to use, it's all pointless.
Social apps do work on the block chain. Most of the people that made the switch from steem to hive did so because they value their freedom. The reward pool issue has been a part and parcel of the last several HF's at steem to "Try and Fix it", it has not worked.
I still think the first issue for the first Hard Fork of Hive should be focused on fixing the Witness Selection/Retention issue. This should be our number one priority as a new community, this is after all what caused the schism with steem, and is still causing issues on steem.
I think changes to the blockchain should be focused around security not prosperity. I think prosperity is achieved at the application layer. I think we are in a position to create real use cases for HIVE so we don't need to resort to HODLing being the main value proposition.
Let’s make governance more resilient before mucking with the rewards system.
You're not on hive's UX team yet? :)
There’s a UX team? Haha
Precisely ;D
Perhaps there should be if there isn't
I like your proposal, more than @therealwolf's one, I see in his post some interesting points though, in general when he speaks about changing the reward system. That's also a weakness imo that wasn't solved in steemit.
But if we look into the most important failures in steemit, I think that the learning curve was too high. That obviously hasn't changed here because HIVE has the same infraestructure. In that way your proposal seems very reasonable to avoid that problem.
Anyways I consider that is very positive to see these new proposals and the winds of change that are coming with the enthusiasm of this new project.
I don't mind lowering rewards if it means inflation is reduced across the board. There are ways to compensate, but we need HMTs to be implemented and left to grow for a minimum of 6 months before considering economic proposals. I'd rather see interesting dao proposals to fix things first.
If a fork with no rewards was to happen tomorrow, we all know how well that would do.
I think it’s a misdiagnosis. We don’t need to touch any of that, we just need to dramatically improve our apps and market them. That’s it.
It's not obvious that a million monthly active users would increase the token price dramatically except by generating a lot of buzz and speculative hype. A token price supported by revenue streams and not speculation will require much larger numbers of users as in tens or hundreds of millions monthly active users.
Otherwise I fully agree on everything you wrote.
1 Million MAU’s in and of itself would increase token price because each one of those users needs Hive to transact. Even if they only had the minimum(around 15) that’s 15 Million Hive that wouldn’t come out of thin air. Now if they’re active of course they wouldn’t all have the minimum, there will be a spread of plankton all the way up. That’s a dramatic increase in demand, which will increase the price. The total supply is only 300 something million.
Yeah, you're right about it increasing demand for HIVE but not at any price. The new users would be required to buy HIVE and power it up to be able to use the system but how much do you think they would be willing to pay for it in fiat? That's the key. By adjusting how many Resource Credits one HP confers a price for using Hive could be set. If the price of Hive were, say, $10, that 15 HIVE would cost $150. How many people would be willing to shell out that much money to use a social media platform?
The total is about 360 million now.
If Hive were $10 then the upward end of posts, the ones making the most money would be in the 5 figures range. Some hit that in the past when it was lower than $10. So I think a fair amount of people would pay to use a platform where a single post could gain them so much.
Although I don’t think the price would raise that much because if you have a lot of Hive now at .20, you’d probably be happy to sell for .40 or .60, definitely $1 or $2. I don’t think many would hodl all the way up to $10, so some balance would be met.
The distribution of rewards are so top heavy that the vast majority of would never make anywhere near that kind of rewards even if the price were $10. Asking every new user to pay $150 for a minimal ability to transact would be totally crazy.
$10 HIVE is entirely within the realm of possibility at some point in the future purely owing to altcoin speculation. STEEM topped out at $8.57 on Jan 3 2018. If BTC goes to > $100,000, then $20 HIVE is realistic. Because of the pandemic and the resultant economic depression that may not come to pass on schedule but it's entirely possible that it happens later.
The price won't go up slowly and steadily if the past is any guide. It will explode as a result of Bitcoin investors reinvesting their profits in altcoins that look cheap to them. What Steem always did was go up explosively and take its sweet time to correct.