Ice Puddle and Distributed Networks

I was having a conversation with the photographer @justinmullet on some of his recent posts about Steem vs the commercial alternatives out there (check out his work if you have not already !). I thought it might be worth putting a summery of the ideas from some of those comments into a post as it seems applicable to a broader audience. Everyone here initially focuses on the direct financial rewards possible with STEEM, which is fine but I think it misses the real benefits. To me the revolution here is the fact that you own your own network. There is no middle man between you and your followers on the blockchain that can take them away from you and decide that "oh by the way now you have to pay to reach them". The network of engagements you build here will last as long as the blockchain is kept alive. This is the real beauty of distributed networks as the connections are 'owned' by the people who make up the network.

Previous to STEEM I spent most of my social media efforts on Instagram. In the past 8 weeks I have had my reach cut on Instagram by 50% (from 15-30K views to 7-12k views). Evey post I now put up they say is 95% better than the last post and recommend I pay to promote it. Instagram has killed my reach to force paid promotion on accounts my size (~50k). They have also removed the option from me to return to a personal account from a business account (despite what they say on their FAQ). I know a few others who this has happened to recently so it seems like a concerted effort to monetize what I would consider the micro influencer market of accounts with aprox 30-80K followers. There is a reason both Instagram founders disgruntledly resigned from Instagram a couple of weeks ago. The current monetization crush is similar to what happened to Facebook about 3-4 years ago and now accounts there with 200k followers on FB are lucky to get a reach of 1k people when they post something if they don't promote it.

As for addressing the content discovery and interface issues we have at the moment on STEEM, all that will come with time. Steemit is a proof of concept interface and will fade away. Other projects like SteemPeak will take over the vanguard of the long form blogging interface and implement alternative content ranking systems. In addition an array of apps like APPICS using SMT's will take on applications like Instagram directly. By this time next year the masses will be able to download DApps like APPICS on their phone, create an account instantly (thanks to HF20), just use their fingerprint scanner on their phone rather than remember or even understand crypto keys, and post away with a similar experience to what they are used to with applications like Instagram. Even @ned has announced his own new interface project.

The prospect of rewards will lure them in, but they will stay because the system works exactly as they are used to without being manipulated by an algorithm. One just has to look at the Vero madness which swept Instagram a couple of months ago to see the latent anger which lies below the surface relating to the manipulative nature of the algorithmic feed on platforms like Instagram. Vero really offered nothing other than a return to a chronological feed (although still controlled by someone else, in this case Saudi royalty rather than Californian shareholders). The Steem blockchain and SMT's offers so much more before you even start to think that people one day will be to pay for a coffee at a cafe directly from their STEEM based apps on their smart phone.