I think I'm in line with your perspective on the situation here - and the showmanship between the these two projects has been a bit ridiculous.
What makes it worse is that people really believe these two platforms are directly competing with one another, which is true in some respects, but not an absolute truth. They both are competitors and aren't.
From the eyes of a developer, the analogy I can best describe is that STEEM and EOS are akin to iOS and Android. They're very different platforms, with different approaches, but ultimately accomplish the same thing (running the software on your phone).
Apple goes the route of making things incredibly simple and easy to use - which in turn ends up limiting what developers can do with iOS. The developers on iOS are incredibly restricted to ensure the end user has a great experience and is safe from any threat. This is what STEEM's SMTs will be - safe, accessible and with a low barrier to entry.
Android on the other had is focused on customization and adaptability. You can do almost anything on an Android device provided you write the software for it. However, this freedom also makes Android devices more prone to problems and the user experience isn't "as good" because of it. EOS dAPPs will be like android - flexible, powerful and with a high barrier to entry.
Furthermore, in the "mobile app" ecosystem you see plenty of app development teams that develop for both iOS and Android, and are probably sponsored by one or both in some way.
There are some flaws in this analogy, especially from the eyes of an investor who's using his/her stake to vote for block producers, but there are also some truths.
The release of the EOS platform isn't going to hurt STEEM anymore than a release of Android hurts iOS. Each platform will succeed based on the actions not only of those who are exclusive to their platform, but those who are also part of multiple platforms.
PS - If you want to consider another example, where each community of developers remains "isolated" to a single blockchain, consider using Playstation, XBox and Nintendo as reference. Those 3 platforms suffer greatly because of the lack of interoperability between their respective platforms. The consumer definitely ends up suffering as consumers are isolated into proprietary environments.
nobody is saying that EOS and STEEM cant have interoperability. But being STEEM witness is like being a politician for the STEEM blockchain, being a block producer for EOS is definitely a conflict of interest.
It would be like being a US Senator, while being on the Russian Federation Council.
I don't see being a witness that way. There may be some politics in the campaigning of a witness - but there's no governance for the most part in Steem. We don't have super secret meetings where we decide what happens next. We talk a lot about what we'd like to see next - but we aren't making those decisions.
Instead what we are is essentially gatekeepers of the blockchain. We are paid to produce blocks and occasionally decide what changes are allowed to happen on the blockchain. We can campaign and promote ourselves as more than that, and you can vote for us for those reasons, but it's not required or part of actually being a witness.
The key point to all of this is the blockchain and understanding that the blockchain is not steemit.com. When it comes to steemit.com (the website), communities, the development of SMTs, the priorities of tasks in development, or almost anything else - witnesses have very little say in the matter. Pretty much every change you've seen since June 2017 has been outside of the purview of witnesses.
To Steemit Inc, witnesses are block producers and they are paid to produce blocks and consider changes in blockchain consensus. Those witnesses may also be "other things" on top of that, but the official witness responsibilities of each of those people/groups ends there.
I would hope that my track record so far as a block producer would at least give me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to being a "conflict of interest". If it becomes a problem and people see me making decisions that favor one chain over another - then I'd expect to be voted out.
I think an even easier way to put it is, no one in their right mind would want someone working at two central banks at once.
Charity you're are completely right, but I would take things a step further and say that having people play politics on multiple side would be no different than having the Rothschild's controlling the banking system of multiple countries, something that id assum most of us are highly against
That's correct. It's basic Business Ethics.
It's not that simple, you have been around long enough to know that the witnesses aren't politicians controlling this place.
You have the ability to decide the how SBD works which literally gives you the ability to make or break this entire economy, and from what I read you may be getting even more powers with this next hf. Whether you like it or not this is politics. Secret meeting or not, You are the face of the STEEM blockchain and voice of those who delegate resources to you. Id also like to point out that all single politicians(in the American Republic system which is really no different than DPOS at its core) do nothing more than talk about what they would like to see next, which is gets them voted in to the pool that allows them to vote on what actually happens next.
You overestimate our responsibility in this. Our current responsibility in relation to SBD currently is only that we report the price of STEEM (as oracles). We also have the power to approve/block hardforks which would change SBD, but that hasn't happened in a long while.
If you're referring to the peg discussions that have happened over the past 6 months - we have discussed at length various mechanisms to restore the $1 SBD peg, but there hasn't been much traction. The public outlash at "wanting to make the system work as intended" has scared many witnesses away from approving anything that would work towards actually affecting the price.
As far as I know, the only change for SBD proposed in the next HF is to increase the percentage at which SBD printing slows, which timcliff worked on.
In some ways yes, in others no.
Politicians once elected have the powers to propose, ratify, and amend bills - which become law, and allow politicians to legally earmark funds (from tax payers) in order to establish agencies, build infrastructure, and ultimately enforce those laws.
Witnesses can also follow those same steps to propose, ratify, and amend changes to the blockchain, which essentially become "law" - but we can't earmark funding to actually make these things happen. For smaller projects we can fund them with our witness earnings, but that only goes so far. For anything beyond that, we are at the mercy of those with the purse strings (Steemit Inc with their massive "premine") and the decisions they decide to make, regardless of how we vote.
The system lacks checks and balances, funding appropriation, and has a sole power who is ultimately in control of the direction of Steem. As witnesses, we are gatekeepers that pretty much just prevent them from doing bad things to the community (which we do).
Thats only currently. If things go as planned EOS and STEEM are going to be the most valuable projects in crypto, potentially surpassing Ethereum in price. At that point things will be completely different in regards to funding as well as who is in control of marketshare. Steemit inc may currently have that large premine, but the purpose of that is so that they can get things done to further the project, which will inevitably cause their wealth to change hands. Were at a point where being too selfish isn't in their best interest on multiple levels; both competitively nor legally so I'd expect the core centralization of wealth issue to be short lived.
If the various automakers got together and combined forces, they could build the perfect car. An engineer without a full-time gig from one could work for two or even three companies and make a full-time income!
I'd love to see a kumbaya-hug and more cooperation, but we live in a free market with other humans. Different projects have various interestholders and agendas. And competition can improve the quality for the consumer, which is not as well served when there's just one game in town. You know the technology far better than I do, but I would guess it's still early to be talking about interoperability - I'll join you in supporting that if it becomes realistic in the near future.
I understand that you want to be able to hire a team and do a lot more. (Frankly, with your skills, if you partnered with someone who understands business and marketing, there would be a lot of potential; chainBB could have been marketed to various communities here. Probably still could.) To your point, this is crypto. It simply isn't very stable yet. If I could count the number of people I know who have tried to go full-time either founding a crypto business or a Steem blog, often to "fail" due to volatile prices that can't support them yet, the fingers on two hands would not be enough to count them. Maybe we're not quite there yet.
I sure hope it's realistic. I just don't think there's any way to know without trying. I figure if I try to bridge that technological gap (and maybe a little of the politics), others might join in too.
Honestly once Muse and Decent get running - I think those would also be interesting candidates for integrating with Steem-based websites. How cool would it be to blog about a song and integrate some sort of purchasing of that music through Muse or Decent?
There are very peaceful and fantastic ways these technologies could play together. To me, none of this is about Steemit.com or any social network that might get built on EOS - it's about how all of these technologies could enable non-crypto communities to build platforms like this.
This entire thing is about revolutionizing the internet, not a single platform.
We probably aren't there yet - which is why I'm thankful that I've had the support (in witness rewards) from multiple blockchains thus far.
Allegedly smart contracts are built to allow cross-chaining, so EOS in theory could connect some data through to other chains, but I have yet to see much beyond the white paper theories on that to believe its 100% viable.
There's so many of those theories floating around about "what it could do", I'm hoping everyone just stops and thinks about "how what we have could be better" every once and a while!
Um not sure where you are headed man, that's pretty much our whole argument. We want people here, focused on making here better, not a house divided where a resource (person/team) is trying to make two things better at once that at times may be at odds.
Isn't the whole reason you and Anyx are going to go to EOS is because of "what it could do" thus taking time away from being here "making it better?" It is impossible for it NOT to take your focus and split it.
This comment was more and comparing "SMTs" to the "cross-chain" whitepaper you spoke of. Those are both "what it could do" technologies and definitely not "making what we have better". In this regard, none of those have anything to do with witnesses or their responsibilities.
That's not the point. Of course my attention gets split, but what matters is what my responsibilities are.
Currently I'd probably estimate that my typical week looks something like this:
What happens if I don't have to spent 30-40 hours a week on code? That's an additional 30-40 hours that could be allocated elsewhere. My new typical week could look more like:
While you are right, my attention is split between more individual things, what matters is the amount of attention each one is getting and the balance it achieves.
Also - I'm not saying this is what will happening - but I'm saying situations exist where it is possible. You can't just judge situations like this without really looking into the specifics.
No snark, I think you have a typo here
10-20 hours engaging in conversations about steem projects
10-20 hours engaging in conversations about eos projects
10-20 hours engaging in conversations about non-steem projects
Because did you mean non-steem AND non-eos?
Anyway...
70 hours on both platforms? And you get paid what? While the people I see building massive communities (user retention) or building new apps like dsound or whatever (user adoption AND retention) and then ALSO staying relevant through constant engagement, could never do it in such a small amount of time and are typically in the mid range ranks.
I did mean non-steem AND non-eos, sorry I didn't expand on that.
I do a lot with other blockchains as well. I just wanted to illustrate that I could increase the amount of time I spent on Steem, dedicate just as much time to EOS, and then keep contributing to the other projects as well. The overall hours to me are what's important, and I'm spending a lot of them coding.
No snark here either - but I'm not sure what we're talking about with the last paragraph.
I'm saying that perhaps those who are actually dedicated full time or greater to one platform deserve the top slots and part-timers with competing interests for their time don't deserve top slots.
We both know the voters will decide that, and based on the "9 miles of scroll" on this page in opposition to dual roles on competing platforms, and my own observation on countless witness and user discussion opportunities ranging from my weekly show which usually has a half dozen witnesses drop in over the past 23 weeks or the monthly ones we run with as many as 20 witnesses of all levels at a time, this issue has come up here and elsewhere and overwhelmingly what Im now citing to you IS public opinion and it's all over this page to be certain.