Thank you to @fredrikaa and @howo for their great work for a long time on STEEMPRESS, and for this inspiring recent post: HERE
I have been participating in the discussion, some of it in private, about the future of 'guest accounts' on the STEEM blockchain. This aspect is CRUCIAL - and I see it very clearly, yet I have occasionally had trouble being understood. A guest account system that actually makes a guest account per person, is missing the point.
I propose the 'Ghost Writer Account'.
I have proposed and explained this idea to several groups. Some of the images I use today are branded for a project I had pitched this idea to, but this can be done by any project. This is in the vein of my long standing insistence that STEEM is infrastructure.
1. User logs in with Legacy Account
2. Front-End site manages data base of user log-ins with a cookie, pulls email, profile picture and user name, and possibly other information, into database.
This is the part of the process that a competent full stack developer would need to be apart of. I cannot do this but I have 'outsourced' this part for testing to a wordpress plugin called Auth0.
3. Users Comment on Content
A company service account will facilitate the posting of the site to the blockchain with all relevant information including, preferably - profile picture. All RC's can be managed by the applications/businesses and none of the hassle for the users that don't want that additional level of control and responsibility.
All wallet, tokens, earnings, etc. that a OAuth login comments earn could be tracked by the very same centralized database. Exchanges do this all the time for their customers.
With rewards earned and after learning more, interested users would already have tokens with which to upgrade to a FULL ACCOUNT (3 steem threshold).
What GHOST WRITER accounts cannot do -
GHOST WRITER accounts, with enough SP, can comment for hundreds, maybe even thousands of users per month - But these accounts cannot properly 'vote' on the blockchain, but any front end that would be implementing this system could easily make it seem like they could vote.
The displayed votes should be a sum of the Blockchain Votes and the manually counted OAuth Votes. Non registered votes (by users who are neither logged in with OAuth nor STEEM, should not be counted).
This comes as a surprise to many who have spent so much effort in onboarding:
NOT EVERYONE NEEDS AN ACCOUNT
In fact, getting one might be a disservice to some people. Not all, there are always going to be people and companies who will want to build, who will want to invest, and who will want and need full control.
But Grandma does not need an account it should just be easy for her to click 'like'and type a comment.