@dragosroua thank you for this informative post. I follow you because you have a talent for explaining tech to the rest of us who are tech-challenged. Thank you!
I understand the concept of the witness nodes, but still a bit foggy on the seed nodes and their role. How do I, as a steemit.com account holder interface with the seed nodes?
Also, theoretically I see Steem / Steemit.com as a network of people who are seeking win/win transactions with each other. We follow who we want, we develop content for an audience and our audiences grows (or fails to grow) based upon our ability to meet the audience expectations. It's one of the best expressions of a truly free market. I'm excited for the future.
And thanks again for all your contributions.
A seed node is a server always in sync with the network (containing all the blocks, that is) that you can interact with programatically, using some of the libraries available (javascript, python, or, in my case, PHP). It's like having your own database server, only it synchronizes itself with the blockchain.
On top of that, they're also helping the network sustain big loads.
Many thanks!