I'm new here so forgive me If my question is silly but how does steem prevent spam when it is totally free to transact?
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I'm new here so forgive me If my question is silly but how does steem prevent spam when it is totally free to transact?
Welcome, then!
Bandwidth usage is limited by how much Steem Power is in the account that is attempting to transact. If the bandwidth limit is hit, then the transaction will not be processed.
More specifically, we can treat bandwidth like BTC transaction fees. There is nothing in the Bitcoin protocol that necessitates transaction fees, but all miners require them. Similarly, we can have the witnesses track bandwidth for individual accounts and rate limit them without needing the bandwidth information to be a part of the consensus state or the Steem protocol.
I'm not a huge fan of this. It further concentrates power among witnesses (and by extension the largest SP holders) by giving them discretion to decide who and what transactions to allow and when to allow them.
If bandwidth allocation is defined by the protocol as a function of SP then witnesses who refuse to allow transactions within an account's defined bandwidth allowance are clearly engaged in censorship and abusing their position, but leaving it discretionary, all bets are off. Witness could create all sorts of arbitrary rules, including demanding fees as abit mentioned and without a well-defined protocol rule there is no standard to evaluate this against.
This is effectively taking a property right (fair share of system bandwidth) away from SP holders, especially the smaller ones.
Witnesses already have the power to censor like this. Consensus limits are only for overages - there is nothing stopping witnesses right now from censoring e.g. every post from @ned if they were to all collude - this is nothing to do with bandwidth rules.
However, as long as some honest witnesses remain, voting out the misbehaving ones is a straightforward matter.
Yes I understand the technical side of it. However, the political side of is far more complex.
You are introducing a rule that says that certain forms of censorship are okay. That is a very gray area and can easily be subject to great political conflicts and sliding interpretation.
The issue I'm raising specifically with regard to the property rights of all SP holders and their access to a fair share of bandwidth (which arguably provides the foundation for the entire value of STEEM) is that: a) large holders can have different interests from small holders, and b) what is "misbehaving" becomes vague and subject to a morass of political reinterpretation and influence games under this proposed system.
If large holders, and the witnesses they elect, decide for example that only people with more than 100 MV are allowed to make more than two transfers per week then small holders have no recourse. Or that only people with more than 100 MV can transact without fees. Etc. This can obviously be done in less blatant ways by witnesses and their large stakeholder supporters making smaller and more subtle changes over time with little scrutiny.
The simple and clear rule that blocking transactions that conform to the protocol rules is censorship and always considered unacceptable (except possibly pragmatically for a short time as a temporary bug fix pending a hard fork) is a clear line that possibly can be maintained as a core value by the community and stakeholders. I'm far less comfortable with a rule that says that blocking valid transactions according to witness discretion is okay under some circumstances but not others, especially when it implicates the core value proposition and property rights of SP holders.
Exactly. Perhaps we can also introduce a fee, then we witnesses will be rich!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
Haha! I do enjoy a good sense of humor, you get my witness vote :)