Dear Steemians,
Since the announcement of our reorganization last week we have been hard at work implementing the quickest and most effective cost reduction methods including, but not limited to: optimizing S3 storage, new caching and CDN strategies for images, automating on-demand spinup/spindown of staging/dev environments, analysis of EC2 instance types, investigating further usage of spot instances, de-coupling of any unnecessary services, and improving the efficiency of the image hosting service. At the same time we are refining our longer-term cost reduction strategies.
Below you will find a spreadsheet outlining the different cost saving measures as well as their status, project owner, timeframe, and more.
Once RocksDB is fully scoped and specced, which will be completed tomorrow, we will have fully scoped and specced development of either a simple Token system for Transfers and Issuances and SMT development with a reduced scope. In our initial, raw estimations, it looks as though either course would take equal amounts of time. Our estimates should become more accurate over the next two days.
I will be doing a livestream and discussing these topics and your questions this Thursday. See my next post for submitting your questions.
Best regards,
Ned
We need tokens, please. It's the best way to expand Steem and probably the best way to restore a lot of peoples' confidence in the project.
you are right from land to sky boss. #NedCallOfDuty!
I also agree complately to @donkeypong statement.
Restoring people's confidence in the project is key for the future.
what we really need @resiliencia and @donkeypong is attract businesses to Steemit
and the only way to do it is to allow ads to be displayed. Cutting costs, realising new tokens etc - it's all not going to help much if we only will have content creators and curators (selling pressure) and hardly anyone buying STEEM.
agree.. there has to be a way that fiat is injected into the system!
One possibility: Advertisement
Too little too late... The time to fix the problems with the platform was when the price and confidence was high.
The way to restore confidence would require a complete overhaul of most every facet of steemit platform...
Don't believe it; compare the drop in the general crypto market to the Steem price. That is a statement on how the platform is being managed.
Agreed SteemIt while not the Steem Blockchain is the best avenue to promote the blockchain usage and get more money coming in.
You sink your Flagship and you will lose the war at Sea.
While there is no little truth in what you say, conquistadors have burned their ships upon reaching the shores of the land they would claim, because victory cannot abide turning back. Even contemplation of defeat can distract from envisioning and effecting victory.
Steem is either more than Steemit, or it's not. There are extant multiple UX, dapps, and more in the wings, awaiting focus and the platform where they will be free to fly above the turkeys that keep eagles from soaring today.
I am, frankly, amazed at the vision I am dimly perceiving from @ned regarding the evolution and transformation of Stinc from tokenized blogging platform to global commerce platform, suitable for every industrial, commercial, and social purpose.
I don't see that spending effort on the former flagship of the team that will conquer that new territory as investment in conquest. I see it as a distraction from the mission.
Better to sell the ship than burn it, but better to burn it than let it distract the team from their purpose. Folks clearly believe they need to buckle down and get 'er done. Let those as would find fulfillment running a censorship resistant tokenized blogging platform do so, and let Stinc seek to rule the financial world.
It's an undertaking worth the attempt, IMHO.
Yes. A complete overhaul
I completely agree and I'm sure that @ned sees this need as well. Based on the last SMT dev update, so far roughly 20+% of SMTs have been finished. So I honestly believe that SMTs 0.1 aka very basic SMTs shouldn't take too long to get ready.
Sure hope they get some form of SMT's happening as lots of us are really wanting to use these tokens. Plus dapps are keen to have their tokens usable.
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They said the update was coming last year.. And the price is down from $4. Not saying Steem isn't going to go way up in the future, but it should have a much higher market cap than it does and I'm convinced SMT's would be the killer feature to drive adoption.
The thing is cost-cutting measures are something that all businesses at some or other point implement so that they can find cheaper or more effective ways of doing things. It only makes perfect sense to maximise profits in any business. It's purely a form of optimisation.
What we really need is to make Steem work as it should be, first steps are to divide passive and active investors.
The only reason I want SMT's is to have one that could replace Steem... So why not just fix Steem itself?
I don't want to see the trending anymore, and either I want to see how Steem price is doing. I'm sure both are plummeting and one must be delusional to think these two things aren't correlated.
When we get a kitten, we are enthralled with it. If we love the lazy cat that grows from it, we are glad of the kitten.
If it shits in our shoes, we regret the kitten.
There are a lot of kittens that need homes. You may be one. @ned is stating that Steem can be a mechanism for the finding of homes for kittens, and then there need be no more @sadkitten. Steemit isn't Steem, and though the original incarnation of Steemit was the only venue for Steem disbursement, today we have multiple UX, many dapps, and all these kittens need homes.
I hope to see Steem grow into the fat, lazy cat that devours the fat rat banksters that plague my financial endeavors, and it cannot do this if it is channeled only by a blogging platform called Steemit. Not every one will stick with the kitten as it becomes a cat, but folks that got the kitten desiring and expecting the cat will find the transformation both good, and still will miss the kitten.
Your particular vision and need for Steem is yours alone. SOC (SMTs, Oracles, and Communities) will make possible fulfilling every vision and need, not yours alone.
I do hope so, or I'm getting a dog.
That's an awful metaphor and I hope you never get a cat.
Also your point is not valid because steem is not a cat. Steem can easily be shaped.
Enjoy your dog!
I have a cat. And a dog.
What?? Cats and dogs.. living together?
Maybe that would be the better analogy, that Steem can be a way for both to find homes, and meet their needs.
Thanks for the tip!
😂😂😂
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Woof 😂😂😂
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This is a good idea
SMT are really important and because they are so important they need to be implemented carefully.
There will be no way back. It must work for sure 100% when released.
I understand that everybody is waiting to have them released and pushes this.
But I also completely understand that it needs time. This must work 100% correctly from the first day.
I wish the steem inc. team all the best for this very important next step!!!
Steem on!!!
Agreed. And sooner than later. We severely need a shift in momentum.
Tokens? Isn't that what SBD is supposed to ne used for? Like Steemit isn't complicated enough, lets add another form of payment and then another and soon it will make even less than what it is now.
Ok, enough sarcasm, SMT's might help, allowing advertisements may also, but I think it's just adding to the complexity of an already convoluted overburdened platform.
How about eliminating bots, self voting, and doing away with percentage voting. Maybe then votes will count for something again. Maybe then huge whales might spread the love around rather than playing the system for their own personal gain.
It just seems to me Steemit isn't about blogging, or social media but rather about how to manipulate the system in to a personal money machine that takes value from the smaller crustaceans and hords it for the elite. Oh, wait a minute, isn't that what the government does? Now it makes sense.
These posts make me laugh and cry.
Made me choke on my coffee.
Thanks. I needed to do laundry anyway.
That's hilarious!
Tyvm.
Bernie do you own a cat? 😂😂😂😂. No wonder Ned is keeping quiet
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You are such a disgrace to this platform. It's become comical how much of a little bitch you are. Hit in the head a few too many times with the stupid stick as a child. Keep on making more enemies clown, you're going to need all your SP just to counteract all the flagging you're going to receive. Keep breeding hate you clown, looks like it's working out well for you
Your girlfriend is an ugly ass mutt.
About as bright as a 2 watt bulb. It's entertaining watching your childish antics.
Hate for hate, is not great.
It rhymes so it must be true.
Can anyone explain how those changes will affect Steemit in layman terms?
thanks
He said that SteemIt could go away or be licensed and that they were ceasing all work on it!
Supposedly because of other apps can take up the space.
Simply put in TV terms a show with great ratings after the episodes have been filmed for the present season. Is planned to not be brought back on the Network for the Next season and cancelled for future seasons, before week #1 of the new season even airs.
The only chance for the show to go on is if the production company can go to another station and continue the production. But that all depends on licenses and greed of the Network.
And the way they have not been open about SteemIt internals, I don't believe they are going to release it to the world like Mozilla. So the question comes down to how many episodes do we get to watch, or can a write-in campaign (people with money) come and bail them out.
That's the long and short of it.
We could start a kickstarter/GofundMe campaign to purchase SteemIt and turn SteemIt into a Open-Source Company with pay to support a small administration: with staff to administer the website, and a couple designers, and liasons to oversee an open advisory committees of different Stakeholders who would also publish,
The future development could be crowd sourced or coop with different entities where small stipends would be paid out. Same group would then chart the course of the revisions and versions.
There would have to be some higherarchy, but not omnipotent like @Ned is today.....
ahm, sorry, but there are plenty of other interfaces, we don't need steemit. but we need steem,
Then again, you might to reflect a bit on this: https://steemit.com/steemit/@sorin.cristescu/game-theory-101-schelling-point-or-why-steemit-com-is-important
Thanks for the link; I think it would be important to get the mis-understanding that steem equals steemit out of the way; sometimes I promote steempeak, and I'm always surprised that many think it is a different platform, not just another interface.
Explaining this (over and over again) could be part of this new transparency...
thanks for the response. that is an interesting gofundme idea
I was hoping someone would say this.... 👍🏾
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Less lambos, more Camrys
More like bus passes
lol
I would also like to know
Give the shills more things to shill
Well done. It's hard time right now but it will pass. Keep the good work. It will pay off. I believe in you.
Hi @ned!
I really like the way you are approaching this new updates.
The community needs transparency in this hard times and you have moved to it.
We really appreciate the effort.
Best regards.
Great companies are made on simple excel sheets!
So glad that you all are beginning a new era of transparency and keeping it real. Tough calls, but that's what a CEO is for. I feel like you've graduated to a new level of CEO, congrats! Keep up the hard work.
I don't really know if people realize what it take to run or scale a business. Everybody want everything now. This is a 2 years projects and people are complaining. Steemit Inc is facing a scaling challenge. The company has to take difficult decision to make Steem Blockchain great, and it's doing it in a open forum. We are in a high risk social experiment guys. No body have done this before, even Bitcoin which is 10 years old is still risky as an investment.
@ned do predict going bankrupt and this site closed down and if so will you educate the users how to protect their steem without steemit?
Interesting question, although I'm not sure which understanding of it is more interesting. Do you mean how to protect the value of your Steem, or how to keep Steem itself? My assumption is the former, as I carry a BTC around in my pocket, but it has little value, since it's not a real token.
If you suspect Steemit might die, and Steem will (further) crash then, the only way I know of to protect your assets is to sell Steem for another asset which you expect to perform better.
Not investment advice, and neither is it a prediction of Steem or Steemit's future. Just my meager application of reason to the question I think you're asking.
That being said, I also think @ned is working towards making Steem a token for myriad platforms. If that works, moon, IMHO.
Great rewards are granted by great risk. Nothing profound or novel about that. You pays your money, you takes your chances.
Cost-cutting is always painful, and never more so than when it's done in public. When costs have grown beyond acceptable margins, it's time to do something about them. I am happy that I don't have to manage my budget in public!
=)
@ned,
I don't think i could understand all, but what I understand feels sorry :/
Hope everything might be alright!
Cheers~
Love this new wave of transparency, @ned!
Of course, a few things still to be done, but it's going into the right direction.
We are Steem!
Yes!
Agree!! We need this kind of transparency
Yeah, it's like we r finally getting the info we've been dying for a year....oh well
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100%!
I agree. Appreciate the communication and focus on moving forward sustainability.
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To you folks out there who upload images, something to keep in mind:
There's no need to upload an image more than once. You're given a link each time you upload an image the first time, so use that link if you decide to display that image again, instead of uploading the same image a second, third, or hundredth time.
There. I said something that saves money instead of cheerleading.
Have a nice day.
How about the server calculates a hash, stores it with the picture and if someone uploads a picture with the same hash you just give him the link to the old picture? It should be the same if you don't alter the specs of the picture (aka size or apply any filters). This would be way more convenient for the user and could reduce costs relatively easy.
Sure. But since we're pinching pennies, I thought I'd offer my two cents savings.
ive been doing that for a while now and didnt even realize i was doing it by copying and pasting a post along with the image url then changing for the current weeks information.
I haven't always done what I recommended. Recently I changed my ways. When I'm given the link, I now add that original link to the 'details' section of the file properties for safekeeping and easy access.
Exactly, you only have to upload the image once, and then copy the image address every time it is going to be used.
good guy saves cost...I do upvote !!
Also : you can copy image link from other people as well , instead of loading the same image...with credit ofcourse
And permission.
sure why not....
Give me a N! Give me an O! Give me a ... well you know the rest.
More comments like this please, everyone.
Doesn't everyone realize this?
I don't know. Ask everyone.
I have been doing that for the past couple of months Since most of my reviews are repetitive images from ICO projects, I just borrow images links from others users rather than uploading them myself and quote the source as the ICO project.
Unfortunately, I don't think this can be applied to the mass, this is a personal management thingy, which is hard to control or apply on a community social network.
The best solution would most likely be a private folder onsite members could upload images to and pull from when needed, or discard when no longer needed, with storage limits that would increase with the amount of SP a member has.
Answering questions from who? people that have been here since the start yet again? Yawn.
Dear @ned, well you are doing your best to save the platform, but please lissen some users who ask you to put ads in order to recharge RC, in this way we will have again interest and price of coin will rise again.
I mean ads should be selectable service, who do not need can remove and who need can watch and get RC recharged, what do you think?
@ned Thanks much for the updates.
Question:
What is Steemit Inc. planning to do to attract revenue?
As I'm sure you are already aware, you can't run a company on defense only, so Steemit will need to either A) Learn How to Sell or B) Raise Capital from outside investors C = Both. :-)
Thanks,
Mel
Mel Booker Music
Thanks for the update @ned!
Sad to see efficiency is just now being thought, could Steemit Inc and Steem still be saved with hiring some competent leader, ned? I hope you would even consider doing so, Steemit Inc has always been somewhat lacking in its actions...
Thanks Ned! You got a great community here ready to help out with whatever you need. Please be straight with us, no extra frills required. Really hoping this next livestream is a productive one with clearly outlined strategies going forward for us all to work together on.
All the best and thanks again for the update.
Hey! I like this new style! Well done!
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Mee too! :)
Solid update.
You are quite active in these days its quite effective to have healthy communication ways , Do you have a new pr advisor ?
Thanx @ned for letting us know you are getting your stuff together in a structural solid manner. Without jumping on the advertisement wagon people are screaming you to use. I applaud you for that. They are non disruptive thinkers imho, only hoping to safe their own investments instead of believing in what your mission was in the first place. The whole world hates advertisements and if that is the only way to generate revenue while bringing down user experience, you better stop, we already have enough advertisement (company) driven bogus online experiences. People jumped upon your innitiative idea to disrupt the world an rethink the online experience in combination with blockchain technology.
Part of a quote (which I found to be quite suitable for you) from mr. S. Jobs:
Stay innovative and disruptive. Thank you for being transparent
I know a lot of projects are waiting for SMTs and I hope you can collaborate with them to make it happen. The media pounced on the job cuts announcement, so we need news that will boost user confidence. We don't always appreciate the cost of running a decentralised system. Just hosting all the images can't be cheap. Wishing you all the best
Thank you Ned.
It is good to see you making progress towards the goal. Reducing costs by an estimated $850K should help ease the pressure a bit.
It is good you are running estimates on both SMT and a scaled down version of that. That is something that is very important to the community and necessary for us to grow.
Thanks for the update.
@ned can we have some transparency about what is going on with respect to the image hosting? Are we really shifting to 640px? The whole photography community will leave if this is the case.
https://steempeak.com/steemit/@jpphotography/did-steemit-inc-just-destroy-all-our-images
You are the captain of this ship and we trust you man.
Sail on :-D
We be all tiny captains
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We need transparency !
Relax man.
Well, you have it . . .
Hey Ned, this is great news. It's nice to see the cost/savings and see what changes are to be made to improve cost reduction in both the short and long term. And thanks to all those working hard on implementing those changes and saving this platform.
Too technical, my nose bleeds already😁. Whatever it is, I know you're doing a great job sir!
Am sure Mark Zuckerberg will be laughing out loud.
Transparency is very important. I like your attitude @ned.
Continuation of a good work.
Reading this article, my feelings raged between sad and happy
Thanks for keeping us informed.
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We should be ok once SMTs come in action!
Makes me slightly more positive, day by day.
Keep on the good work!🤸♂️👍😉🔝🔝🚀 Steem on! Cheers!🎉😁
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I'm glad to get some more information and see we're headed on track even if it isn't the track we originally intended. I look forward to the live stream.
Thanks for all the updates, livestreams and hard work. I have a really good feeling with Steem for the future. Living in a bear market gives a lot of experience that you wouldn‘t get otherwise like how to efficentally save costs.
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good luck and good job, sounds like there are lots of difficult things to do but the team can do it!
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I still believe that this is a reality. Thanks for the info!
Solid update, thanks for being transparent with all this! Keeping steemit up is highest priority until we can move away from the centralized infrastructure. If there's anything to do with steemd not covered yet, throw a post up and I'll try to help!
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thx cut costs increase revenue stream - simple:)
Thanks for the update. We are in the right direction
I appreciate all the work y'all are doing, but could we get an explanation of what this means for those of us who aren't crypto techies? I understand optimizing storage and hosting services ...but most of this is technobabble to me. A lot of the community needs a translation. :)
i'm printing this again please pass to others:
He said that SteemIt could go away or be licensed and that they were ceasing all work on it!
Supposedly because of other apps can take up the space.
Simply putthing SteemIt as TV terms a show with great ratings after the episodes have been filmed for the present season. Is planned to not be brought back on the Network for the Next season and cancelled for future seasons, before week #1 of the new season even airs.
The only chance for the show to go on is if the production company can go to another station and continue the production (THAT MEANS MOVING SteemIt to another entity). But that all depends on licenses and greed of the Network.
And the way they have not been open about SteemIt internals, I don't believe they are going to release it to the world like Mozilla. So the question comes down to how many episodes do we get to watch, or can a write-in campaign (people with money) come and bail them out.
That's the long and short of it.
Can you say Kickstarter campaign to acquire it?
Excellent!
I'm not sure how things will go but certainly this kind of transparent communication with the people is gonna improve the relationship. Keep it up.
Not happy with the lack of this kind of transparency for the past year, but have to commend you for stepping up when the shit hits the fan. These live-streams are extremely important and are a hint that you may pull shit together in the end. Livestream 3 was really nice, though I didn't agree with some of your points, still very nice update (stream 2 was tooo awkward haha).
I am not running off just yet, but please do roll out SMT and communities ASAP because people are running out of patience and this will be the only chance Steem has to rise from the ashes.
Thank you for sharing @ned , I love hearing news that evolved from you.
ay por dios alguien me puede explicar :S