Dear Steemit community
This is a post that I have been meaning to write for weeks now, but anytime I want to start it. I am lost of words of how to approach this. So today I want start by telling a Story that we all can relate with
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It is the story of Nokia
Nokia was once a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the mobile phone Market. Nokia will always be remembered for their vision of connecting people which was represented with the two joining hands that became synonymous with the brand
So what happened to this iconic company who for years worked hard to connect people worldwide with their products?
What did they get wrong ?
While it is true that no tech comapany can hold on to dominance because it is one of the most Innovative spaces, a Company like Nokia is meant some sort of prestige even if they are not at the top.
It is not a news that what happened to Nokia was their refusal to adapt to the Innovation that affected their products. In a Market where companies like HTC, LG and Samsung were boarding the Andriod Ship. Nokia felt it was better to board the Submarine of the Windows model
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Anyone reading this post who have used a windows phone knows how frustrating it is. It has poor navigation and you will have to embark on a quest to locate most Applications and functionalitites. It is not simple to use and requires a lot of learning to adapt to
So Nokia a company which overtook a huge Whale in the Industry like Motorola found itself walking the Gangplanks of death.
One of the most favourites quotes when it comes to design was that which was uttered by Steve Jobs
Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication
Nokia had dominion in the Mobile phone Industry with a huge customer base and wide reach. The Symbian OS whcih was one of their best products was a delight to customers as they found it easy to use, but that joy did not last long
The thing was that Nokia had the best Engineers and Experts on the Job who built the best Hardware, but they was the lack of adequte Software programming that would have made their user interface attractive. Nokia underestimated the Importance of Software and Smart phone Applications
This coupled with Ignoring the transition to Andriod made them lose Market share quickly as I-Phone sales overtook Nokia sales in 2011
A Nokia Senior executive said and I quote
Going WIth Andriod would be like peeing In your Pants to stay warm
So in summary, what killed Nokia was the fact that they ignored the desires of the very people they were working to connect. They did not look ahead to know that Beauty does not come for its own sake
Beauty is a by product of design. No creator creates something for the sole purpose of making it beauty. It is the purpose of something that makes it beautiful
So when people were making a switch to Phones that gave them computing power on the palms of their hands. Nokia felt that it was better to keep giving them phones that had tedious browsers
So in the end Nokia failed because they put Technology before Humans
Personal design
Now taking the Story to Steemit.
When I first came to Steemit, I was met with a tagline which read
Come for the rewards , Stay for the Community
Since 2016 when Steemit was lauched it became the 'America' of Social Media and the Internet. A land of Opportunity where anyone can come and have a voice. The reward pool enabled you to get rewards to fund your dreams as long as you were adding value to the community
So anyone from any corner of the Earth who was good could make progress and make a name for him/herself on this Platform
And even though it was not perfect, we still loved this Platform because there was a sense of community and that most of the issues were coming from outside, so we united and always solved it
But ovettime the cracks began to expand, community memebers started toeing the path of destruction, and unlike Nokia, Steemit is decentralized, so you cannot put all the blame on Steem INC
Then the bots started appearing. At first they seemed nice and helpful, @cheetah who works tirelessly to eliminate bad content and the darling @bottymcbotface that gave many users their first welcome message and a Steem Tip
Streemian and Steem Voter which enabled you to support your favorite authors even if you were off line at their time of posting
Other bots came around which helped you resteem your post and also the ever present @steemitboard that helped you keep track of your achievements and progress
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Then the voting bots arrived. At first I believed that they were harmless. I believed that voting bots were a way to get visibility for any post you feel more people need to see.
Now almost a year later, I find myself using voting bots more frequently.
Now In my opinion paying for votes is not the main problem, the main problem arrived when the option to delgate STEEM POWER to bots was Introduced by Voting Bots. I was demoralised that day it was released and why some Steemians were celebrating that they could earn from idle Steem Power
I Knew that this development will cause more harm than good in the long run. As the numbere of people who delegated to bots increased so did the number of people supporting others with votes based on the original system reduced
Curation Trails which was run by community members had to be deactivated since they were saving STEEM POWER for bot activities. Some could not resist the additional rewards that came with delegating their STEEM POWER to bots
So in the end the demand for voting bots increased as more and more people used it for visibility and also the hope of getting extra votes when their posts trend
Worse still the Promo Steem was in full force and thousands of new accounts were being created on a daily basis, however most of the STEEM POWER that should have been used to curate this newbies were locked up with bots.
Where can a newbie get Steem to boost his/her post ?
I am concerned for all this because Steemit has some of the best developers in the Blockchain space who are working hard to build various tools and Applications that will help us harness the STEEM blockchain, but if there is no one around to use it, then what's the point
Steemains like @roadscape, @timcliff and a whole lot of others are working hard on STEEM developement, SMT's and Hive Mind will soon be launched
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A lot of Applications have also been built so far like Dtube, Zappl, Steepshot , but all these applications will not see mass adoption if there is no one around to use them. It is the people currently in the Blockchain space that will help push them to the outside world
And if Steemains don't end up using these Applications how will they achieve mass adoption
We have the stuctures in place but the community is slowly dissipating. The amount of Steemians that will Port to other upcoming reward based Social Media like like ONO and Narrative is on the rise
There was a lot of excitement in the community when it was rumored recently that Dan larimer was building a Steemit like Social Media. Everyone was asking for a launch date.
In as much as I am angry at the current state of Steemit, I believe it will do everyone no good if Steemit fails. Even someone like Dan won't want to have a failed project in his resume
Abandoning Steemit is not the best solutions to the problem we are in now, we have to find ways to solve the issue. I believe that the witnesses and the community can come to a concensus of how best to solve this issue. it should not be left alone to STEEM INC
My Suggested Solutions
One of the reasons why I was able to stand firm on Steemit was the amazing suppport I got from Project @curie. I will forver remain grateful to that project and I think those are the kind of accounts that deserve delegation
Similar Curation projects like @ocd and @steemstem have arisen to fill in the gaps but there is still much work to be done in that area.
The best way in my opinion to alove this is by :
+ Delegating more STEEM POWER to Niche curation projects like @steemstem
+ Eliminating the option of delegating STEEM POWER to voting Bots. Let more STEEM POWER be available for intra community support.
These are my suggestions, you can share your thoughts in the Comments below
We need these developments so that we can build a community that will be as indestructible as the Legendary Nokia 3310 Model
Thanks For Reading. Looking forward to your comments
I will love this post to get visibility, so i implore you to resteem.
Wow, what an approach!
Well I completely agree with about all you've said so far. I think you're right that this yearn for profits by delegation to bid bots has reduced the yearn for curating quality contents and building newbies.
And I think this practice should be reduced to a large extent in order to reduce the detriment suffered by the aspect of quality curation and community building.
But I don't think the practice should be stopped completely, I only think it should be kept at such a degree that would not hamper the other loveable practice of quality curation and community building. This is because the option to benefit from idle steem has brought some value to the steem coin and to steemit as a whole. This option makes owning steem more lucrative/attractive and makes people invest more in steem. I think I do not even need to say how beneficial it is that people are investing in steem!
This investment is also the building of steemit (what we all want). Further more, I'll say that the Steemit community has shocked me over the months with the amount of generosity and love on display here, never have I seen so much love in one place. Steemit has a lot of people still doing the community building and quality curation. We still have a host of other curators, using their steem power for all this good. We have: @steemstem, @wafrica, @onequality, @busy, @ocd, @sneakyninja, @familyprotection,@steemiteducation, @stach, @welcoming, @curie, @aggroed's MSP and whole lot of others which I can't even finish naming in a simple comment! Of course, I'm asking for the number of curators like these to increase and that delegation to bid bots reduce but this delegations shouldn't be stopped.
How then do we reduce this?
I think, the same way you have suggested (but reduction rather than elimination), calling on witnesses and the entire steemit stakeholders to talk more on this issue and profer advices.
@nevies, the son of Aphrodite.
Thanks for your comment. It is amazing
It is people like you who make engagement work.
😀😀😀😀
powerful , awesome and amazing just like the trinity we have all come to know, I love this post, more plz
While Steemit is still in its early stages, drawing comparisons with Nokia's story seems logical from what I have seen in the past 10 months.
I have read quite a lot of articles expressing sentiments such as these in the last two days. I wanted to write one by myself as well. Let's see what I come up with.
It is a mirror of what happens when technology is placed before Humans.
I will check you blog later to see what you writes about this.
@ogochukwu
Thank you for sharing @ogochukwu
Comparison with Nokia? Anyway we all are entitle to our view. I have been a victim of renting out of SP to a bot because of the good returns testified by a friend. But after a while, I withdrew it. Why? The rent sap me of the SP that I use to encourage new steemians. I have introduced about 20 persons and have been encouraging them with my one cent upvote (better than getting nothing). Anyway there must be a reason why the rent of SP is still allowed by the steemit developers. But left for me let ideal SP be delegated. But if you are still active on steemit let's help the likes of me by curating our post, and build up a fellow steemian. Thanks for tour post @ogochukwu
Delegating to bots robs you of the power to build Human connections with your SP. @godswill
wanted to write something in this nature a while ago.. But i went mute!!! SBD price was high then and people would have jerked their kneels at my face.
lolz @ttopswag
As far as the price of Steem is high people ignore what is happening. But once the price drops and rewards reduce everyone remembers the reward pool.
They also mumur in private but when posts like this affords them a place to speak their mind. everyone goes mute.
Steemit is too political, nobody wants to shake the table.
@ogochukwu
Table that i will soon break, everyone standing one it if not careful will fall and break leg....
My bombshell of a post is going through corrective process... Infact, i don dey farm C4 for this matter.
Hahahahahaha 😁😁 @ttopswag
The wisest have spoken. I'm still getting to know steemit so I won't come up here and act like I know 100% of the things you said.
Thank you very much for this,I think this goes even beyond steem and technology. For every business model, once the people are ignored the business starts dying away.
Really. Thank you for this @Ogochukwu
Great post. Kindly folw bk
Nokia underestimated the desires of the people. It backfired.
Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale & @upmyvote team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-04-09-18
We really liked what you did with your article. Please keep up the good work!