Given the announcement of ned on the downsizing of steeminc, what do you think about the future of the company and the blockchain, and how best can we address this issue of managerial cost?
Ned's post and comments suggest that the real cost Steemit Inc is facing comes from having to run the set of full nodes to support the platforms that run on top of the blockchain, including Steemit.com.
Whilst the Steem blockchain will continue to run, the social platforms may suffer if the interaction with the blockchain is reduced.
One possibility here is to require the top 20 witnesses to run full nodes. Currently there is no requirement for them to do so.
Top 20 witnesses receive 300SP per day, so 110,000SP per year for their services. Some of this revenue could be spent supporting the blockchain costs.
One solution to arrive at this point indirectly, without any Hard Fork, is some kind of statistic showing how much of the node support each witness provides. Users can then rely on this statistic in deciding whether to vote for a particular witness.
An educational campaign and push for witnesses that provide the most support should help in spreading these costs and decentralising the blockchain away from reliance on Steemit Inc.
A tweak to the witness rewards system, with more witness rewards provided to lower ranked witnesses, may also help to encourage a greater number of nodes and further decentralisation. Some analysis of the numbers on this point would be useful to determine the most cost-effective solution.