Hold up, what is, yours.network?
Yours.network is an upcoming social network which is built upon the users transacting bitcoins with one another, yours, quote:
"makes it easy for content creators and curators to get paid for their work" *(source)
The idea behind yours is that users all have a BTC backed wallet assigned to them from which they can tip content creators. When a user sees a thread they think has merit, they can tip the thread, paying from their wallet towards the thread (read: it is a pay-to-vote system) Users tips towards a thread go to both the author and to earlier curators.
Well, the way the yours developers see it is that,
"Curators are willing to pay for good content because they know they can profit by reselling it." (Yours blog, Apr 19,2016 post)
The potential to be paid by future tippers is intended to be an incentive to encourage users to become curators, tipping articles based on their arbitrary, but honest opinion of what has high merit.
If one's goal was purely to convert time spent curating into the attention of others, free social media already allows them to do exactly that, without paying in a dime. Likewise, if you are attracted to the idea of profiting real value from your efforts at curation, you can do that here on Steemit, again without paying in a dime.
The steemit devs made bold decisions that the yours team wasn't prepared to make, most important of which was to create their own blockchain and associated cryptotokens rather than rely upon the infrastructure provided by an established coin. It was a risky move, and it was also more technically challenging than standing on the shoulders of the developers of an earlier blockchain, but the fruits of their labor allowed them to enact custom protocols and tailor the blockchain to the steemit community. Not just that, but steemit having its own blockchain allows the developers to react to problems swiftly, as they don't have to live with the legacy decisions made in regards to the blockchain long before their project started like the yours team will have to.
The steemit devs have already proven they can quickly respond to problems on the network.
I'm sure you all remember that very recently (from about a week and a half ago through 3 days ago) vote bots had reached a critical mass on steemit and downvote bots were causing real harm to the community. Well, the devs decided to fix that rather promptly by making changes to how downvotes are weighed.
Yours took the position in pre-development that building a blockchain rather than relying on an existing one was a mistake, and now they are going through a phase of self-justification. In their direct comments about steem, yours posted on their blog,
"Although we are delighted to see blockchain social media a reality, we worry that Steem can’t last. The burden of building not just a community and a technical platform, but also a novel cryptosystem and supporting economy, is extremely high. " (Yours blog, July 14th, 2016)
Frankly, I read that something like "we aren't prepared for that so neither are you."
But I don't think I'm crazy to think that the network that which designed its own blockchain and crytpocurrency to back the idea of a microtransaction income for use will be more succesfull than a project which is essentially pay-to-curate. It can hardly be understated how the average user (the silent lurker/voter) is not going to be drawn to a network which charges them for an activity they have grown accustomed to doing for free.
