Concerns for the future...though sometimes the future arrives with great velocity
The following are concerns I have for the future well-fare of the Steem economy. I am in no way implying any wrongdoing in the present. It is entirely possible that I am not in possession of the latest facts and therefore that my concerns are misplaced. That being said, I believe my concerns are important enough to raise.
Here goes....
Steemit.inc is a profit making company with shareholders. There is no inherent problem there at all, but I genuinely believe we could be moving into dangerous waters as a result of the amount of Steem I believe Steemit.inc is in control of. It's not only the steemit steem account, but also the potentially hundreds of dormant steem accounts containing massive amounts of Steem. To my mind, this situation presents an ever increasing potential for conflicts of interest to arise between Steemit.inc and other participants in the Steem economy.
It was my impression when I joined Steemit and bought my initial stake in Steem, that the steemit Steem account was effectively a benevolent whale, there to protect, nurture and grow the network using the funds for development, supporting markets, counterbalancing adverse network activity and marketing. I understood these reasons and felt comfortable with them. I also understood that Steemit, our flagship Steem application was owned by Steemit.inc, just one means of engaging with the Steem Blockchain out of potentially thousands in the future.
As far as I can tell, Steemit.inc has always acted with complete integrity and in the interests of Steem, the Steem economy and obviously Steemit. They have been hard working and faced the challenges of launching, adapting and growing this revolutionary social media economy with fantastic skill.
What is the future concern then? It may be very well to say that Steemit is just one application for accessing the Steem blockchain (they will compete for market share the same as anyone else) but when the company who owns that one application (and it is the currently the primary application) also holds such a massive stake advantage in a stake-based consensus network, to my mind, it presents a significant risk. Shareholders of companies can change and with those changes come potential changes in culture within Steemit.inc, so whilst I presently believe in the integrity of those with gigantic influence, the longer this situation remains, the greater the risk.
So what could happen that would help to allay some of my fears? ( @ned I can appreciate how busy you probably are but I would really appreciate your input on the following.)
- Clarification of the relationship between Steemit.inc and the steemit Steem account. Does Steemit.inc own the steemit Steem account?
- Clarification on what other Steem accounts Steemit.inc owns and the total Steem involved.
- After Steemit.inc is fairly compensated for their effort, investment, with a strong position within the Seem economy assured and ample future development funding, what would be the total stake in Steem that remains under Steemit.inc's control? What is the ideal amount of Steem in the steemit account?
- If there is a plan to address the concerns I've raised, how soon before it is shared with the Steem community? How soon before it is implemented in earnest? Is there a roadmap we can all see?
- If there is no plan to address these concerns, please would you state why they are not a concern?
- What will Steemit.inc's actual expenditure in marketing be over the next year?
- What are all the Steemit.inc funded marketing initiatives to date and those scheduled in the near future?
I hope that Steemit.inc and anyone else who reads this, understands why I think these are important questions to ask and answer. I feel mostly gratitude and a huge amount of respect for the architects, developers, investors, witnesses, market makers and steemit.inc employees. I feel enormous gratitude for the fact that Steem and Steemit exist at all. In order to preserve the developing steem economy, these issues need to be out in the open, discussed and dealt with as quickly and sensibly as possible. If there are channels where all this kind of discussion is happening already, well that's fantastic! Take this as an indicator that the message, the information, needs to be more effectively disseminated and that some are very anxious to see more evidence of things happening! :)
Happy Steeming
Me too, so I think they should do that they want with their holdings. But I bet, that they want to make good, respectable and profitable company and will use their funds to develop of steem tech further.
There is a danger in simply making that assumption. Did anyone ever know their total holdings? What specifically did they feel they committed to with this benevolent whale argument that justified the huge stake in the beginning? These are important questions because the shareholders of Steemit.inc have an incentive, I believe, to preserve their holdings of steem. The more work the community does and the less use of the steem holdings...the potential improvement in profits for steemit.inc. Different people have a very different idea of what produces value in the end.
You can see that big accounts of fonder not active in terms of votes, authors rewards usually are declined. So their stake are slowly diluted in favor of active members. I would not worry too much about inequality.
This is about the stability of the economy which is growing around steem, not about the rate of steem distribution from the 2nd tier whale accounts. There is only one whale, steemit. :)
Then the answer is that it is not stable 😉
Perhaps.....so anyone who values steem, naturally must attempt to address any potential for imbalance. This is not a new idea. It was my understanding that those in control of the steemit and other whale accounts were always going to use that power for benevolent, helpful reasons. But Steemit.inc is a company and we must not forget and at the very least ensure that something is being done in a timely fashion.
Good points, also ist there a link to more information how upvoting is working?
This does not say anything about how payments are calculated.
Also, why is content value displayed in Dollars and not in steem?
It is the total current dollar value of the reward pool for your post and comments.
Hi bitsignal, i'm not sure the best place to get the latest on how the rewards are calculated. Perhaps you could try contacting one of the witnesses?
Well done post You deserve for getting Upvote from me. I appreciate on it and like it so much . Waiting for your latest post. Keep your good work and steeming on. Let's walk to my blog. I have a latest post. Your upvote is high motivation for me. Almost all Steemians do their best on this site. Keep steeming and earning.
This comment has received a 0.05 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
Good Question - And transparency is a good thing. Hope to have clarity on these and many other potential issues.
Me too, I'm sure it will all be being discussed somewhere but it needs much more visibility and more rapid action!
Such a informative post
And yeah Steemit is now trending day by day
Thank You @benjojo
My pleasure, thanks.
thx
Nice emblem!
From last 2 month or so the traffic on steemit has increased alot as i read and research on web the community is rising fast . But content value is also going down as i see .
Things are certainly positive and moving very quickly. That is one of the reasons I think some of this foundational stuff needs addressing as a matter of urgency.
You asked some super strong questions @benjojo..
Time will provide the answers i'm certain.
Yes.
Often important matters seem to move so slowly.....probably because they are important matters. That is fine, but there needs to be a lot more communication then.
Absolutely.
Some great questions here in your post - thank you
I also posted a range of questions having researched into the fundamentals of Steem, Steem Dollars and Steem Power a little while ago. It would be great to get more insight into the mechanics of the machine https://steemit.com/steemit/@knowtheblock/steemit-questions-somebody-help-me
Thank you.
as much as i like to think that steemit will be around in many years to come i'm also from an arena where startups are launched and closed within years, either bought out or shuttered. the steemit blockchain will go on somewhere, in some format i'm sure -- maybe at steemfest this year some of those questions might get answered. i'd love to to know what a day to day life @ned has in everything, guess he's a busy guy! :)
@@ -390,8 +390,48 @@
a bit :)
errrr, not sure what happened with that last comment bud?! I basically said that in a few years it might be very hard to buy out steemit.inc. Also, the future success of the steem blockchain is in it's resilience and utility.
ah got you. i think you put great questions, let's hope they get answered. i can see myself using a lot of different blockchains over the coming years! :)
You have raised some very good questions, I think we all have similar concerns.
I am glad i'm not the only one! Thank you for the support.
@benjojo, I am new here. I dont know much about steemit.inc other than that they run this website and perhaps could have enormous quantity of steems ( as I understand from your abv blog).
But guess the questions are pertinent and I will keep an eye open here.
There is not necessarily anything wrong with the present situation. The success of the steem blockchain relies greatly on steemit.inc at the moment and they naturally are entitled to a massive stake. The issue comes if the original purpose of that stake becomes forgotten and nothing is done to address the potential issues it causes in the future. The more successful steem becomes, the greater the issue and the more likely a conflict of interest will arise. That's my take anyway.
Great article, all valid concerns, another I have been keeping an eye on is the rapid drain of the rewards pool. My question is what happens when it reaches zero.... altho it can never be zero the current rate of payout cannot be be sustained. Please correct me if I understand this process wrongly.
That is a very good question. I'm afraid I cannot give you an answer. The latest hard fork HF19 has made some fairly fundamental changes to the relationship between voting and rewards. I'm not sure anyone could tell you what the outcome will be, but there are far more intelligent and technically savvy people on steemit than me. Try contacting one of the witnesses like, clayop, timcliff, ausbitbank or aggroed.
Great article. Well written. Keep it up
Thank you for the support, it is appreciated.
Im not sure about the future of steemit.. I know that steem and sbd are interconnected with BTC as it mediates the price of steem and sbd to some extent.
Currently I think that there would be a higher risk if the btc crashes after the soft and hard fork that arw coming our way..
Otherwise there arebtoo many accounts hogging the steem you are right..
The end result could be the deletion of the reward pool as after the hf19 people are self upvoting themselves and boosting even harder.
Hope everything gets balanced in the near future.
Cheers
P. s have a look at the idea i just posted about balancing the platform a bit, you might like it.. My word is small but at least yoy can promote it later on if you see it fi.
Cheers again ^^🍻
I enjoyed this post very much. You address pertinent questions that do need answers. I have been doing lots of reading on the mechanics of steem and I have yet to find the answers I seek. There is a ton of info but nothing ever gets down to the foundation of the platform and what the sustainability is and will be. I hope to see a post in response to your questions. I know that with rapid growth the developers are probably not that concerned with what is concerning us, but they should be. The true foundation of any project stems from the roots up and we are the roots. I am still new to steemit but I have spent 12+ hours a day on here trying gather as much info as possible. I have been considering moving most of my currencies into steem but I do not feel I have enough information to warrant that.
Please keep up the great posts. Yours are always worth reading and quite informative.
Peace,
The Last Sage
Thank you very much, I appreciate the support.
So is there a thread where somebody like @dan actually answered these questions ? Im properly research steemit now and reating a video about it but i want to have both sides of the coin!