Hey @jesta! Thanks for taking the time to put all this together, and thanks for sharing your personal view.
As someone who doesn't participate in those secret conversations (and it looks as if that applied for the majority of Steem stakeholders) I wonder if it's even possible to think about decentralization when the most important decisions are made in the dark by a small group of people.
I'm not sure if you followed the talks and presentations at Steemfest in Krákow, but @yabapmatt said something quite interesting in his interview on the second conference day: In order to successfully run a (crypto) business, you need to involve people from all areas of expertise and not just development.
One of the reasons why Steemmonsters is successfully operating is exactly that: they’re not just focusing on development but also business development, marketing, customer care etc.
I often have the sensation that Steem has never grown out of its infancy since there is 100% focus on technology but very few time spent on everything else. Today Steem doesn't even have a vision. There's no clear goal been defined since Dan Larimer left. The new vision presented by Steemit, Inc only considers steemit.com, so it also doesn't provide any orientation or guidance for Steem as a whole.
I wonder if anybody on this blockchain could tell us where we're going? What's the overall purpose?
I have the sensation that we do move in circles here and most of our valuable time is spent with pointing a finger at each other and trying to find the guilty one, while we could rather create something great.
To me this here is a fantastic wake-up call. It clearly shows that we need a different approach - a decentralized one.
DECENTralization.. you said! And about having a clear goal, well.... that's is the start for every smart change. No doubt about that!
Sadly when I read this at first, I thought you were talking about Steemit Inc and their making decisions unilaterally without any inputs from the community, developers, and witnesses in their offices. I realize though that the statement was probably more directed towards the witnesses/developers who were in Slack though, but you should probably know that decisions weren't being made, just options being evaluated.
If a fork were decided to happen, I can't imagine a situation where the community would have been left in the dark about it. I imagine the first person that moves past exploration of the idea that wants to stir up adoption would have brought it out into the open. That didn't happen though, since it was just a conversation.
I haven't seen the talk, but @yabapmatt is completely right.
In some aspects I agree with this, and in others I tend to disagree. The blockchain technology itself hasn't gotten much love over the last 2 years, which in my opinion as a witness is the most critical piece of all of this. If it weren't for the blockchain, steemit.com would be a lot better off simply being a traditional web app (which ironically is the direction). You are right though in the overall idea that the focus has been 100% on technology and concepts around it (SMTs, communities, whatever "destiny" was). That focus has been mostly on a weird middle layer between the blockchain and the user interface. This creates a situation where both the end user experience (steemit.com) and the blockchain have both been neglected in very similar ways.
You're absolutely correct here. Steemit Inc has a vision for steemit.com which they recently presented, but it's more a vision you think a witness or developer building a user interface would have. It's not a vision for a decentralized blockchain or a path forward to enable thousands of businesses/websites to integrate Steem, unlocking that same the incentivized community model. It's a perfect example of
product > platform.We do, it's a merry-go-round, that occasionally starts spinning so fast that people fall off. Some get sick of the ride and end up leaving by how dizzing it is.
I really hope that'll happen, but I'm incredibly doubtful at this point. There is a new group forming up out of the ashes of last week's situation, which sadly I suspect won't have any power to make changes. We already have one ineffective group, witnesses, and now we're adding another, all while Steemit Inc retains complete control of the ecosystem.
First of all, thanks a lot for your detailed response!
I didn’t want to criticize anybody with my initial statement, just wanted to vote for more transparency in general.
I feel that the past days have kind of released a new wave of change. There are a lot of interesting ideas being published on how to improve this project and make it become more decentralized.
I’m probably not as sceptical as you are, but still observing everything from a neutral position. The next months will show where we’ll be going.
It’d be definitely great to still have you on board then! ;)
@jesta, is there a way to directly reach out to you off-chain? via discord for instance? Found a jesta there but am not sure if it's you ;)
jestagramon telegram orjesta#9954on discord.I'm on telegram consistently and only seldom on discord (lots of spam).
Perfect, you got a dm on discord and telegram :-)