I haven't posted in a while for a number of reasons.
The first one was communities. Over the last couple years I developed user habits with curation, and it was enough of a change to be annoying. When authors I followed stop showing up in my feed and I had to take extra steps to view their posts, I kind of lost interest in the short term. Communities are the kind of thing we need for broader adoption, but at the same time, they are less useful to such a small user base. It's not bad now that I've had some time to adjust, but I still don't go out of my way to participate yet.
At the same time I started a new IT contract, one that I am less than thrilled with unfortunately. That also zapped my free time and motivation for writing when I actually have it.
Then came Tron / Justin Sun.
Look, I understand why people were excited at the possibilities. I was lukewarm from the beginning. Why? Because Justin Sun and his Tron project DO NOT legitimize STEEM, it's the other way around. As tumultuous a beginning STEEM may have had, it has a dedicated community driving it forward. Sun would love to have such a rabid intelligent community behind Tron, but instead he's got a bunch of shills and NPCs.
Why do I feel this way about Tron? It goes all the way back to its inception. From:
- The thrown together plagiarized white paper
- To the hyped up Ethereum ICO
- To the catch-up game to match a hyped up blockchain to a garbage white paper
- To the scammy and cringe inducing marketing techniques
- To the scores of chintzy and scammy Tron gambling DApps
- To the narcissism, self-indulgence, and autocratic tendencies of the man himself.
As far as I'm concerned, the recent controversy aside, the purchase doesn't lift STEEM up, it weighs it down. The antics of Justin Sun cause an uproar in the STEEM community, which resonated throughout the blockchain community, and had the unintended consequence of lifting STEEM up.
Where I Stand Now
A centralized STEEM governed by an autocratic bi-polar maniac will not survive long term. STEEM has to survive despite Justin Sun, not because of him. There is no reason why Sun cannot directly benefit from its survival though. The social contract for the pre-mine stake must be preserved for the long term viability and decentralization of STEEM. It's not an ideal situation of course, but it's the only choice.
I don't have a tremendous amount of STEEM. I have three accounts with a total of about 115,000 powered up steem total. On the aggregate, I think that puts me in the top 200 wallets. Since Justin/Tron arrived, I bought about 10k STEEM total in solidarity with the effort to defend decentralization of the blockchain. While decentralization in STEEM wasn't perfect before, we had the potential to improve it. With a dictator firmly in place, that opportunity will be all but gone.
I'm Not Buying The Bullshit
Tron and its minions put the STEEM community on the defensive from the very start with their conflicting messaging. Posting flowery language on STEEM. Posting inflammatory language on Twitter. Posting inflammatory language on STEEM, and then editing it after the fact. What about the open manipulation of major crypto exchanges? After this latest post by Justin, I'm supposed to believe him? And you people buying his nonsense, have you been living under a rock? Do you not look at Twitter and Medium? Are you not familiar with the Tron ICO, or the toxic cloud that follows Sun and Tron around the cryptosphere?
Wake Up!
Anyways, I'm back now, and hopefully I'll be able to write more. I'm not going to let a single stakeholder influence my actions, and make no mistake, that's all you are. To those of you fighting the good fight, buying more STEEM, and voting witnesses outside of your normal choices,
I Salute You!
I have no delusions about it, Justin Sun and Tron may win this battle, but what I do know it will cost him a great deal more in the long run than he anticipates. For the future of crypto and decentralization, I am proud to be in this fight. If all you care about is posting and collecting worthless tokens that's fine, I only ask that you get out of the way of those of us who have the bigger picture in mind.
As always, thoughtful debate and discussion are always appreciated in the comments.