#B1June ... "Voice" (MEOS) Announcement
... "The Crypto Social Media Revolution Has Arrived!"
A week ago, I wrote an article entitled, MEOS ... June 1st ... The STEEM/Steemit Killer that generated a lot of feedback. In it, I excoriated STEEM/Steemit Whales and Witnesses (for the millionth time) for having squandered a 3 year crypto social media monopoly and predicted, based upon the occurrence of predicates, that the rumored upcoming June 1 MEOS ("Voice") launch would decimate our blockchain.
The predicates were not fulfilled.
At 7:15 PM EST, Block.One (EOS' development company) released their Keynote Address (recorded before the actual event to an empty auditorium) as part of their massively hyped June 1st shindig in Washington, D.C.
I own an advertising agency and hence the quality of advertising/marketing initiatives is something I cannot help but notice. It wasn't long before I began to cringe. A bunch of computer nerds awkwardly competing with one another to look the most "dressed down" for the occasion ... "Dude, I'm even more chill than Steve Jobs."
"Nevermind," I thought to myself, "You're being too judgemental. You're ex-military and critical of all Millennials who think they're too special to make an effort to impress. If they provide a functional, Cheat-Free Steemit, I'll DM them some PR suggestions for their next go-round."
In the Keynote's 26 minutes and 14 seconds, five separate speakers managed to take the stage (on multiple occasions) ... an oratorical Musical Chairs, with one guy verbalizing a bucket of buzzwords and hackneyed cliches before tag teaming the next. While it's true that computer programmers are not notoriously charismatic (and therefore it's incumbent upon the rest of us to cut them some slack), one would think that prior to such a "Momentous Announcement," they would have invested a small portion of their $3 billion in cash in a public speaking coach ... and someone with command of language to help them write their speeches, as when leaders speak, their job is not just to inform, but to inspire.
They did not.
This fella never once removed his hands from his pockets. Public Speaking is difficult for many ... but if you can't do it, find someone who can. You only have seconds to make a First Impression and people's investments are dependent upon your ability to do so.
Of those 26 minutes and 14 seconds, only six minutes even addressed the BIG NEWS, the launch of "Voice," a new crypto-based social media platform. It was a veritable parade of platitudes to announce a Twitter knock-off, differentiated only by having no character limits and its ability to earn Voice Tokens.
So ... what's so wrong with that?
As it turns out, the Voice Tokens aren't redeemable for other cryptos (including EOS) or fiat. Their only use is the ability to bump up the position of one's comments on other people's posts.
WTF!
"Cryptos" are about "being money," remember?
Dan Larimer included a single sentence that might provide a modicum of hope:
"And this is just the first way to use your Voice Token. But we plan to have many more ways to use and earn Voice Tokens in the future."
Well, what the Hell does that mean?
If one of those ways is not their conversion into fiat, then Voice Tokens won't be worth squat to anyone. And, if such future convertibility is intended, then this was the Mother Of All Omissions? Ought people accumulate them on the off-chance they might one day be redeemable ... or spend them with abandon on "comment amplification" because they'll never possess monetary value? And, if people did the latter, and someday the tokens did become redeemable ... wouldn't such people be utterly furious?
"You mean to tell me I pissed away $25,000 on comment amplification? I could have paid off my daughter's college student loans."
Remember all that talk about the evilness of Facebook and YouTube because they were monetizing users' content and keeping all, or almost all, the profits for themselves and their shareholders? About how the content creators were getting screwed? It would seem as if the only ones who will benefit financially from Voice will be EOS holders. Perhaps tellingly, not a word about any of this from Dan et al.
Dan, I'm a content creator ... where's my cut?
The Best ... And Worst ... Thing That Could Have Happened For STEEM/Steemit
In my pre-launch article, I opined about why STEEM/Steemit was so vulnerable to a MEOS ("Voice") launch (presuming it would be a functional, Cheat-Free Steemit 2.0 as rumored):
Corrupted systems (political, cultural, economic) ALWAYS implode.
The reason is simple: All complex systems create force-multiplying positive or negative feedback loops (sometimes both). STEEM/Steemit is a complex system that is corrupt to its core. The pretense of "quality mattering" is long dead. Notwithstanding a few notable exceptions, Orcas and Whales (85% of SP) aren't even pretending to care about quality or curation. Instead, they're leasing their SP to bidbots or DApp projects in which they have an interest so as to generate Passive Income in the form of interest ... instead of earning Curation Awards from their SP holdings as intended.
Fair enough, it's their money.
But as most people over 18 understand, nothing is life is free ... and actions have consequences. By seeking to maximize their own short-term profits, they knowingly destroyed the Central Premise upon which the entire blockchain was constructed (and yes, Steemit was/is the essence of STEEM), that: Content Shall Be Compensated Commensurate With Its Quality.
And people like me ... the A-Team Content Creators ... are not happy about it.
And hence, my repeated admonitions that the moment a "viable alternative" to Steemit appeared, there would be a mass, and IMMEDIATE, exodus of the quality content producers and that STEEM's figment of legitimacy would evaporate.
Despite EOS's Big Announcement being a non-event, every word of that was, and still is, true. STEEM/Steemit will live another day, but the vulnerability remains.
It could have been my imagination, but during the weeks leading up to the Voice launch, I thought I finally sensed fear. That amongst the more thoughtful of the Whales and Witnesses there was the realization that the chickens had finally come home to roost. It seemed like there was an increase in scurrying about, trying to enact reforms to prevent a looming catastrophe.
But now that we've dodged the bullet, yet again (as if by Divine Intervention), will that continue? Or, will they revert back to arrogance and complacency, pretending that we don't have HUGE systemic problems in need of serious systemic reforms?
Admittedly, I struggle to be an optimist.
Whatever the machinations of other crypto blockchains or traditional social media platforms, unless and until the endemic vote-buying/selling and other game-rigging manipulations cease, we are living on borrowed time.
*****
We have just been granted a temporary reprieve. I hope we are wise enough to use it.
Quill
*****
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