Alright, friends. Gather ‘round. This one isn’t going to have any pinup photography. It’s just a freewrite, sharing some thoughts, venting some frustrations and heaping some praise. This has been a very disruptive time for me in regards to the blockchain world. Sometimes disruption is good. Sometimes it’s too much, and you can’t get your footing. That’s where I’ve been for the last few weeks. As many of you know, Block One launched the beta for Voice. I was excited for it, not as an alternative to Steemit, but in addition to Steemit. During this same time, I joined UºS Community, Steemit was sold to @justinsunsteemit, Steemit soft forked, BitCoin went over $10K and almost below $8K. I kind of have blockchain whiplash.
I think this post is meant to give an honest look at Voice, but I’m certainly doing so with a Steemit bias. That bias, however, is something that’s going to be shared on Voice as well. I know there’s a lot of ugly history on how @dan left Steemit. A lot of feelings of betrayal, but in his defense, most of the interviews I’ve seen on the subject came down to having repeated disagreements in @ned’s stubborn vision and leadership. I have to say, I’m sympathetic to that as a Steemit user because as it turns out, @ned’s been a dumpster fire as a CEO. I’ve followed @dan’s work with EOS, and as many of you know, I’m a Media Producer at @eos.detroit, so the launch of Voice has been something I’ve anticipated since June of last year.
As the launch of Voice beta drew closer, some of the euphoria and optimism began to wear off. KYC was a big ding, but I understand it as a philosophy. All social networks have to reconcile that, and whether to have identity verification, or not; the advantages and disadvantages of either. Then, the second shoe dropped. Content restrictions. It sucks, because I am a photographer. As much as I may like porn, I don’t shoot porn. This was the first conscious revelation in just how good we have it at Steemit. It’s not that I wouldn’t be able to show off some of my more erotic art, but that it's a massive red line through free speech. It certainly isn't an alternative to Facebook, Instagram and other mainstream social networks, which Voice is claiming to be.
Now the token economy is active, even though Voice tokens won’t have value until after the beta ends. All tokens will be reset at that time. Fuck, though. It’s already a shit show. It is beta, so I trust things will improve, but for a community that has a stake based token economy that isn’t currently available to buy on exchanges, I don’t see where the bragging rights are in having the most Voice. “The most”, to me, means you’ve been disproportionally rewarded and rather than redistributing those rewards […Voice tokens actually come from your direct wallet, not a chain based reward pool like STEEM] you’re hoarding them like a dragon on a pile of gold.
The early culture, so far, seems to be greedy and a gaming hierarchy. I hope it changes, but for now, it’s really gross. Maybe I’m idealizing things a bit, and maybe all hierarchies are like this […which could explain why I tend to be on the bottom of them both in the real world and internet world], but the glorification of getting the most, giving back the least, and watching the accounts that produce the worst content […in my opinion] get all the rewards is really discouraging. It’s so counter-intuitive. Great. You’ve gamed the entire community out of a reasonable distribution and you have 90% of the economy. No one comes. The ones that do won’t stay, and the value is almost worthless. You win. I guess?
Steemit did start like that, and I remember it. It was the early days. My first post made $1600 and my head exploded. My next ten posts made about $0.23, and I’d watch @charlieshrem just milk the reward pool like crypto-udders. It almost made me quit, because I understood this was a game, and you didn't win it by creating stellar content. Later came @jerrybanfield and the upvote bots began. Sadly, I think the upvote bots were a response to the average user feeling like they couldn’t get visibility or decent rewards without them. It was a vicious cycle. Curation initiatives likes @ocd, @curie and hard forks that attempted to lateralize rewards were the only thing that helped keep Steemit from eating itself alive.
I’m getting out of Minnesota tomorrow. It’ll be my first travel since August. Some work, some pleasure. I’ll be kicking it with @roadscape for a few days, giving him my thoughts, as a user, on how impactful Hive and Communities have been on Steemit these last few weeks. I’m looking forward to brainstorming on the novels I’ve been chipping away at. @roadscape and I tend to get lost in these deeply enlightening conversations about humanity, governance, future technology, purpose, both as individuals and as societies. It’s great fodder for fiction and good for the mind and soul. Thanks for giving me a platform to air my feelings, but rest assured Steemit, I love you.