I just signed up for the beta and agree with several aspects you found frustrating.
The beta site is also not public and all rewards will be reset after the beta.
Didn't realize this. I tweeted a link to my post, but I guess that's pretty useless if no one can read it. May have to cross-post to Steem.
Sorry, but this beta launch doesn't have much to do with the basic principles of an open, borderless, permissionless and censorship-resistant blockchain, but is more reminiscent of a central service with a token that wants to comply with or even exceed all regulations.
Yeah. I wonder if they plan to become more decentralized with time. But the current design of ID verification plus a non-public beta and private URLs makes it painfully obvious that its centralized.
From first glance it has fewer features and benefits than Steem. I am guessing they think they'll be able to achieve higher quality content... I'm skeptical. But will be interesting to see.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the beta, I would say Steemit is way more decentralized, before the Tron announcement hit us today. The future of Steem is now at risk, as Tron wants to move everything to the Tron network. Let's see what happens and hoping for the best.
Steem (the blockchain and not the Steemit Inc stakeholder) is exactly as decentralized as it was prior to the TRON acquisition announcement. Nothing in the consensus protocol for Steem has changed. The risk of a 51% attack from a majority stakeholder like Steemit Inc was always there. But now we may get to actually test whether the Steem blockchain is sufficiently decentralized to survive.
I'm writing from the presumption that most Steem users don't want to switch to TRON and there is nothing Steemit Inc or TRON will be able to do to change that.
yes this is very true, we will see now how decentralized Steem really is, I am also not really against a partnership with Tron, it all depends, what Justin Sun has to offer, and how the other investors, DApp authors and witnesses react. I could even imagine a fork of the Steem Classic chain and a new Steemit on Tron, or alternatively if the offer from Tron is really good, that the majority wants to move to Tron, then let it be so. Exciting and stormy times ahead of us :)