Concerns for the future...though sometimes the future arrives with great velocity
The following are concerns I have for the future well-fare of the Steem economy. I am in no way implying any wrongdoing in the present. It is entirely possible that I am not in possession of the latest facts and therefore that my concerns are misplaced. That being said, I believe my concerns are important enough to raise.
Here goes....
Steemit.inc is a profit making company with shareholders. There is no inherent problem there at all, but I genuinely believe we could be moving into dangerous waters as a result of the amount of Steem I believe Steemit.inc is in control of. It's not only the steemit steem account, but also the potentially hundreds of dormant steem accounts containing massive amounts of Steem. To my mind, this situation presents an ever increasing potential for conflicts of interest to arise between Steemit.inc and other participants in the Steem economy.
It was my impression when I joined Steemit and bought my initial stake in Steem, that the steemit Steem account was effectively a benevolent whale, there to protect, nurture and grow the network using the funds for development, supporting markets, counterbalancing adverse network activity and marketing. I understood these reasons and felt comfortable with them. I also understood that Steemit, our flagship Steem application was owned by Steemit.inc, just one means of engaging with the Steem Blockchain out of potentially thousands in the future.
As far as I can tell, Steemit.inc has always acted with complete integrity and in the interests of Steem, the Steem economy and obviously Steemit. They have been hard working and faced the challenges of launching, adapting and growing this revolutionary social media economy with fantastic skill.
What is the future concern then? It may be very well to say that Steemit is just one application for accessing the Steem blockchain (they will compete for market share the same as anyone else) but when the company who owns that one application (and it is the currently the primary application) also holds such a massive stake advantage in a stake-based consensus network, to my mind, it presents a significant risk. Shareholders of companies can change and with those changes come potential changes in culture within Steemit.inc, so whilst I presently believe in the integrity of those with gigantic influence, the longer this situation remains, the greater the risk.
So what could happen that would help to allay some of my fears? ( @ned I can appreciate how busy you probably are but I would really appreciate your input on the following.)
- Clarification of the relationship between Steemit.inc and the steemit Steem account. Does Steemit.inc own the steemit Steem account?
- Clarification on what other Steem accounts Steemit.inc owns and the total Steem involved.
- After Steemit.inc is fairly compensated for their effort, investment, with a strong position within the Seem economy assured and ample future development funding, what would be the total stake in Steem that remains under Steemit.inc's control? What is the ideal amount of Steem in the steemit account?
- If there is a plan to address the concerns I've raised, how soon before it is shared with the Steem community? How soon before it is implemented in earnest? Is there a roadmap we can all see?
- If there is no plan to address these concerns, please would you state why they are not a concern?
- What will Steemit.inc's actual expenditure in marketing be over the next year?
- What are all the Steemit.inc funded marketing initiatives to date and those scheduled in the near future?
I hope that Steemit.inc and anyone else who reads this, understands why I think these are important questions to ask and answer. I feel mostly gratitude and a huge amount of respect for the architects, developers, investors, witnesses, market makers and steemit.inc employees. I feel enormous gratitude for the fact that Steem and Steemit exist at all. In order to preserve the developing steem economy, these issues need to be out in the open, discussed and dealt with as quickly and sensibly as possible. If there are channels where all this kind of discussion is happening already, well that's fantastic! Take this as an indicator that the message, the information, needs to be more effectively disseminated and that some are very anxious to see more evidence of things happening! :)
Happy Steeming