We, Steem, have suddenly been availed an amazing opportunity. @ned has always possessed nominal stake to effect governance of Steem at his sole option, but his belief in decentralization obviously compelled him to stay that imperial prerogative so that the community could prove it's competence.
We are blessed to have had that benign guidance that has enabled Steem to be the transitional state between legacy financial centralized mechanisms, and de novo decentralized society.
The DPoS blockchain @dan and @ned have provided us has been availed ~four years of experience before this existential event of the transfer of @ned's controlling stake to Tron, and while in some degree this has been squandered, in many ways this has been an extremely valuable educational opportunity that has enabled competence to develop regarding governance of decentralized society.
Steem must now fully transcend legacy centralized financial mechanisms to embrace decentralization. We don't have a choice. Steemit has been sold, and that corporation no longer can be the central provider of development if Steem is to remain an independent decentralized entity instead of an app on centralized Tron.
Heretofore, due to @ned's benign abeyance of imperial authority over governance, whales have had that power. To date we see that their due diligence has led them to see cash as king, eschewing risk to their stakes to the degree that retention has been a distant secondary goal of governance.
However, HF22 recently revealed that they aren't nothing more than profiteers, as EIP successfully eliminated the blatant vote selling mechanism and the bots that egregiously delivered the vast majority of rewards to whales. Retention was below 5% YOY at it's worst IMHO, and over 95% of rewards were flowing to whales as a result.
Even though that worst of all retention worlds has been resolved, we yet hemorrhage users today, and retention remains below 10% (at best) while ~90% of rewards flow to whales and provide ROI that diminishes risk and prudently manages their stakes.
@ned sold that controlling stake to Tron. This is remarkably fortunate, and @ned must be sincerely thanked for his heartfelt dedication to Steem for selling his stake to Tron, rather than other potential buyers. Justin Sun is a visionary and blockchain guru who has a remarkable ability to market his vision, while banksters or Goolag would have simply sought to eliminate Steem altogether as a disruption to their business models.
@justinsunsteemit has benevolently similarly held his ability to effect governance of Steem in abeyance, at least temporarily. All Tron has to do to replace all the consensus witnesses is to vote them in, and Sun has not done that yet. This reveals that he believes Steem may be able to profit Tron more as an independent entity, if we govern ourselves wisely. Clearly, this is a time limited offer.
The success of EIP proves that governance can be undertaken contrary to mere profiteering. While that has been proved, it has not risen to the level necessary to support the expense of mass onboarding Sun and Tron must undertake to justify their investment in Steemit, Inc. Retention remains subpar, and the primary goal of governance has remained ROI for whales and not growth of Steem. That has to change, and if Steem doesn't do it successfully, Sun and Tron will.
The circumstances Steem finds itself in today have radically changed from what they were a week ago. Our former considerations have therefore been superseded by extant conditions. What has been our operating procedure now must change to reflect that reality, and we must establish satisfactorily that Steem is most profitable to Tron as an independent entity governing via decentralized mechanisms right now, before Tron simply makes Steem an app in it's centralized ecosystem.
Extant stakeholders, including Tron, will best profit from Steem if decentralized governance proves competent to support onboarding masses of new users by improving retention to industry norms, and will best demonstrate this by elevating retention to the best in the industry. Sun has extraordinary competence at marketing, and can take full advantage of the best retention rate Steem can provide. It is important to recognize that if we don't provide that governance he will - and forking to remain independent will be extremely financially risky.
Prudence demands undertaking necessary risk to avoid worse risk. Clearly, while I may have utility in grasping these issues and presenting them to the community, I am incompetent to personally devise and present a holistic and effective means of accomplishing these goals. Frankly, I was blindsided by the success of EIP, and it is easy to see that better minds than mine are managing governance of Steem today. It is imperative that those minds quickly dedicate themselves to effecting governance of Steem to best enable Tron to profit from it's acquisition of Stinc by leaving them in control of Steem, and leaving Steem an independent self-governing decentralized entity. @justinsunsteemit has expressed this belief and desire in his introductory post on Steem, and in his AMA with @ned.
Folks, let's rise and shine in this new dawn of opportunity, so the rising Sun may best radiate masses of new users to profitably grow Steem to fruition in it's season. This is our season to grow. Let's not allow dark clouds of self interest to obscure that powerful encouragement that may bring the blossoming of our vision to its full potential verdance.
Is Steem and decentralization really transcendental opportunity to benefit human society to a far greater degree than legacy centralized mechanisms? We are today given the opportunity to prove it.
Here are some concrete ways I think we can do that.
1) prepare to fork at the drop of a hat in the event of hostile threat to reduce Steem to nothing more than an app. While this is risky, it is less risky than the alternative, and it is easy and facile to do. In fact, it is already done and the repo is prepared and ready to go on github.
a) we should discuss openly and forthrightly conditions that would trigger that fork, and prepare in advance necessary operations and procedures to undertake that process.
2) we should also revise our plans to implement HF23 in view of our extant circumstances. IMHO, this fork needs to include a change in how witnesses are supported. Presently, the votes for witness do not deplete VP. This allows 1/3 of extant stake to completely force new consensus witnesses into power, and this was done to enable @ned and Stinc to be able to govern Steem at their sole option in the event that was necessary in their opinion, for their financial interests. This is insuperable on a decentralized platform, a malignant legacy of centralized institutional financial mechanisms. The solution is to deplete VP by 100% for witness votes. If Tron casts 20M votes for a witness, it will then have 55M votes left. Since there is ~210M vested Steem presently, Tron is able to force 1/3 of consensus witnesses into power at it's sole option under this paradigm, but the community (the other whales) will remain competent to prevent governance from simply being at will to Tron at it's sole option. It's the only possible way to maintain decentralized power over Steem at present.
@starkerz well argued that we have been naive in simply trusting @ned to not do this, and it's time to grow up a little. @ned is no longer in possession of that stake, and Tron is. While this does diminish the value of that stake to Tron, it does not eliminate it, and if we do not do this the value of Steem as an independent entity cannot be supported and Steem will be folded into Tron as an app eventually.
I believe @justinsunsteemit will agree that this is a necessary step in making Steem a more mature and profitable decentralized entity, and in Tron's best interests in the long run. If we can't do this - and Sun can stop us - we will eventually be forced to fork off and abandon Sun and Tron, and they will lose this community that is the most valuable part of the acquisition of Stinc - and no one will profit from that more than they will by making this change.
3) governance is presently still in the hands of Steem, and while I am sure the whales are fervently discussing this present circumstance, I am also sure that some of them aren't considering what's best for Steem, but are intent on doing only what is best for themselves and their wallets. It is in even their best interests to consider what is best for Steem, because their stakes may best profit by the strong growth Sun and Tron can clearly make happen.
There is no way to eliminate risk, and prudence demands that risk be minimized to the degree necessary to ensure capital remains to derive profit from. Presently, the least risky action stakeholders can undertake is to optimize Steem for user retention, rather than immediate ROI. Tron demonstrably will do this if we do not, and this is apparent from it's history. Sun is remarkably competent at marketing and will be able to drive mass onboarding - but he will not do that just to allow profiteers to extract the rewards of those new users for their ROI while leaving retention of those users at the present dismal level.
We have to implement necessary rewards mechanisms to raise retention nominally to justify Sun's marketing expenditures before he does. He will if we don't.
At present that's about all I can suggest to those better minds and more competent governors of Steem that may see this.
Rise and shine Steemers! Our time has come. Make it happen.
Edit: sorry about the formatting of the numbered points. I am unaware of how to do that better.
I would be really interested in learning who the money grabbing whales are that are still around. Maybe some would surprise me. Maybe some wouldn't. Hope to see you in the chats sometime
Several consensus witnesses ran some of the most profitable votebots that were disruptive to the Steem community until HF21/22 ended the votebots completely, including @themarkymark, @therealwolf, and @aggroed. Whether or not you consider that money grabbing or not is up to you.
I have chosen to not support those witnesses and others that have done things for financial reasons I feel has done Steem harm as a social media platform. I hold the view that social means society, and that means people, not bots. All automated voting is a harm to the people voting IMHO, and I vote accordingly.
Be well.
Upvoted by @aagabriel for having similarities to the #informationwar tag, posts like this anyone can add the tag #informationwar so we can more easily find and upvote them! (by @aagabriel)
Ways you can help the @informationwar!
Instead of doing the right thing to secure the assets, the witnesses are whimpering and writing open letters ... standing in line to be sacrificed like sheep. They had free infrastructure and development from the STINC, which is why we ended up with witnesses posting about movies and games and travel instead of development and risk management protocols. They enjoyed the status quo, and no one took us seriously when we said that the voting mechanism for witnesses should be revisited and changed.
The community, in my opinion, bears a huge part of the responsibility for what's going on right now. People have embraced the culture of profiteering and destroyed all chances of true decentralization by supporting the wrong people.
All of this could have been easily avoided ... but what can you do, we have an apple polisher in each corner.
While every word of that is true, we have not yet destroyed that opportunity. We have failed to fully take advantage of it, but @justinsunsteemit's benevolence yet allows that opportunity to linger. As I point out, that is a time limited opportunity.
There's no point in dwelling on past failures and pointing fingers. It's highly likely that witnesses that have failed in the past to well prosecute their responsibility will prove to not be able to meet this challenge, and will be replaced. This is an existential threat to their profitable futures and them as can will do.
I reckon that most of the extant consensus witnesses are highly competent to rise to this challenge. @yabapmatt, @timcliff, @aggroed, @ausbitbank, @gtg and the rest are all extremely intelligent and have proved their competence time and again. I must apologize to those I have failed to mention, and should include many other witnesses as well as current consensus witnesses as provably deserving of our confidence in exigent circumstances, but in truth I have simply proxied my witness votes to @krnel and remain functionally ignorant of dynamics of witness modalities.
While we have yet to deploy our common authority well to grow Steem by optimizing retention, I expect this is not due to incompetence entirely. Decentralized social media, cryptocurrency, and particularly their confluence vis a vis Steem, are novel and largely untested technologies. This engenders an expected level of nescience that is not ignorance, and the last few years has certainly enabled Steem's best to become the absolutely most competent folks to manage Steem governance. I expect @justinsunsteemit realizes this and hopes to well benefit from that expertise available nowhere else.
Too long @ned's benign lead has lulled our best into complacency and driven them to take advantage of his lack of predatory self interest by maximizing their ROI at the cost of growth of Steem and optimizing user retention. I am not convinced presently this was any failure on @ned's part, as it enabled time to learn how to govern a decentralized social media platform that will benefit us growing forward (pun intended).
We now are at this crossroads that we have not been at before, and the bridge before us will burn that connection to legacy centralized financial mechanisms we must leave behind us. No one has ever gone down this road before, and I am confident we are the best to first explore it due to our experience with this path to date.
It will be fascinating to observe what our best accomplish as we absorb the lambent brilliance of Sun, who is certainly intent on fueling our growth and fruition to the best of his ability.
Thanks!
I think a lot of people are spreading FUD (not facts) of what may or will happen, based on very limited information at this point. Looks to me that nobody has learnt the lessons from the media manipulators and their crypto FUD campaigns of the past. Here we are wilfully replicating that right now (not everyone, but certain sections of the community).
I'm not saying we shouldn't be cautious or concerned about what path this takes, but losing ones mind with irrational rants serves no purpose other than protecting certain people interests around here. I guess it pays well too. Some people are crying about the very thing people once campaigned for, and it's making me wonder what everyone really wants. I don't think some steemians really know what they want at this point. Well actually they do, but that's an entirely different conversation.
For years now, everyone has been bitching and crying about Ned, steemit inc's incompetency and their lack of commitment to this blockchain, as well as their inability to fund new projects at a faster pace. Isn't this the opportunity for all of that to happen?
Ned is gone. I thought everyone would be celebrating. Steemit inc will now get an injection of funds to further develop and push new developments onto the blockchain. So what's the real issue here? I really don't buy some of the FUD that's being thrown around by some people. Are some of the profiteer's deliberately whipping people up into a frenzy because they have the most to lose out of this?
*edited
Well, the first thing we all saw was the announcement by @ned, and then we saw tweets from Sun indicating there was gonna be a wholesale integration of Steem into Tron, and our money replaced with some new token.
If that were the actual plan, I'd be rounding up torches and pitchforks myself. Sun didn't buy Steem, and he sure as hell didn't buy my Steem, or me. This however has changed and I suspect that multiple misunderstandings and translation issues have contributed to the outrage and confusion.
This post is my measured response after @justinsunsteemit's introductory post, the AMA, and the witness discussion hosted by @aggroed yesterday, and no little reflection on all that info. Not everyone has all that info, or has had time to consider it, so if the initial communication that Steem was becoming an app on Tron and their money was being replaced with some new fiat token from Tron is all they have to go on, I understand their outrage. I shared it for a minute.
We'll let them catch up with new facts as they are able, and get up to speed.
I'm not actually. @ned did some very good things, and single handedly invented being CEO of a new kind of business on the fly. Lotsa folks have lotsa criticisms, but I don't think many of them would have done better than @ned did. He did a lot right IMHO, and most critics don't give that a thought. With 1/3 of the Steem (more at the start) he never once sucked rewards up using stake weighting. That speaks pretty loudly to his character IMHO, because almost every other whale did.
He was integral to the creation of Steem and that development is a stroke of genius. He may not have been the most hard bitten CEO that ever made a profit, but he had ethical standards far above most of his peers on Steem, and created this novel offspring of crypto and social media we have come to love.
I'm deeply grateful to @ned, and always will be.
Thanks!
Thanks for your response. And BTW, this is a very well written article with a lot of good points that I agree with.
I think that was mostly PR myself. Playing to his Tron crowd and the markets in general. That's how I saw it myself at the time anyway. After all, he is a business man that's well known for his marketing skills - so it was to be expected. People put way too much emphasis and faith in one tweet and comment and came to some interesting and unfounded conclusions. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm cautious about it too. But without more to go on, what's the point in going ape shit like some are doing.
I think it would have been wise and responsible for many to do this first, rather than be whipped up into a frenzy without much information and continue to spread the same initial FUD. That was my real point here.
But like I said, I think many are just being opportunistic about it all. Trying to make hay while the sun still shines (oops pardon the pun).
Anyway I chose to come to your post and comment, because I knew you would give a measured and well calculated response...so thanks:)
I appreciate your feedback whenever I can get it. I've been long impressed with your ability be reasonable, and generally learn from everything you say.
Thanks! That's a very nice thing for you to say, and the feeling is definitely mutual. I do wish I had more time to devote to this blockchain and some of the conversation that go on, but that's the way it goes in life sometimes. I just hope it didn't seem like I was attacking you in any way. It wasn't my intention:)
I avidly seek criticism, as only that enables me to correct my false understandings. If you attack my ideas I do not feel like you're attacking me, because I need to attack my ideas, and the more people that attack them the better. Science can only disprove false hypotheses, and I don't want to continue believing false hypotheses.
This is false.
Before delegation was a thing ned's posting key was on more laps than a napkin.
As i mentioned elsewhere, dlive, dtube, utopian, curie, among others have taken literally millions of dollars of steem, converted them to btc, and left us holding the bags.
Those dapps didn't share a cut with @ned, AFAIK. He didn't profiteer. He was surrounded by profiteers, and did the best he could with who he had to grow Steem - not line his wallet with rewards filched from creators.
You'll note I don't throw any of those institutions bones. I'm not saying I think @ned didn't do anything wrong, or that he couldn't have done better. I'm saying he didn't profiteer from his stake personally, and probably did his best.
You'd have done things differently, and so would I. Everyone would have, because we all are different. Everyone's a critic. But @ned created Steem from nothing but a vision, and no one else did but @dan, with his help.
The examples you give do not reveal profiteering by @ned. If you're going to make such an accusation, back it up with at least a mechanism that supposedly flowed ducats to @ned's accounts.
I don't see even a theoretical mechanism in your accusation of that happening.
Does him profiteering by selling steemit's stake qualify?
Irrespective of who actually profited, those steem came out of the votes of all of us involuntarily due to his decisions.
If his only profiteering was to keep his favorite projects funded, then he may not have profited in steem, but in self gratification of knowing he was screwing everybody over to pay his sycophants.
Regardless, he is dead to us now, we can stop putting our energy into maintaining his relevance.
Look, you seem to have very strong opinions regarding @ned, which is why I found your comment so savage. You don't need to make him Satan to justify your opinion. He didn't mine the rewards pool to fatten his wallet, unlike most whales did, and still do.
If you want to compare selling the stake to pay developers that was originally claimed to have been mined to support development to financial manipulation of rewards, I'm not going to be able to agree with you.
I'm grateful Steem exists, and reckon we owe him honest statements rather than demonization.
You do you.
Yes, nice that his amalgamation with dan left us better off.
But to expect me to take his backstabbing in a non-personal way, no.
He actively worked against the better interests of the average user the entire time he was here.
Some things he had done for him benefited us all, some only benefited him, and his sycophants. (dlive, dtube(mostly), and utopian(on the whole) come to mind.)
So, all hail the amalgamation of ned and dan that led them to launch steem!
F' ned for not doing a better job at customer service to make his creation a success.
People invested real money on his promises of a better tomorrow, and what did he leave us with?
A done deal token swap killing the chain that only didn't happen because the profane rioted?
F' him.
Actively breaking steem and going on walkabout for two years is no cause for hero worship, iyam.
He is dead to us, let his account rot.
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