The Dynamics of DPOS & POB Pitch Money Against Freedom in a Constant Brawl for Decentralisation Over Centralisation... But We Will Evolve!

In a recent post by @kennyskitchen on the ongoing downvoting saga on Hive, I came across a comment by @valued-customer that inspired me to think about the core issues involved, beyond mere rewards and politics. Decentralisation is the key issue for Hive's success and the consensus based 'Proof of Brain' algorithm is directly strengthened/weakened by the degree of decentralisation/centralisation in place on the network. Being distracted by card games and other apps that are unrelated to POB, while Hive is based on POB is potentially problematic... Are you excited to explore these topics? My brain waves are revving up, ready your intellectual surf board!

_{Source: Jeff Bezos Inseminates Space - by Beeple}

The gist of the comment by @valued-customer is that it is the unnatural accumulation of power made possible by the industrialisation of the world which has caused so much death, hardship and suffering over recent centuries and that this centralisation always causes problems. When we see this type of centralisation reflected on social media platforms, we expect problems to arise and they do indeed tend to. Of course, as in the offline world, one person's observation of a 'problem behaviour' in another tends to be a 'philanthropic service to humanity' in the mind of that other!

Centralisation of Hive Stake & Proof of Brain

Centralisation of stake directly colours the result of 'proof of brain' such that POB starts to reflect the disproportionate involvement of specific brains. If the big stakeholders only have interests in increasing their wallet and not in furthering the intellectual dream of promoting greatness of thought and creativity/enquiry, or disagree with the definition of these things as compared to the consensus in the wider community - then there will be discord and complaints. Such discord and complaint in a community leads to low morale and devaluation of the community (thus also a loss of value of the token).

In the presence of a significant wealth gap, as occurs on Earth and which continues to grow daily, the more a community expands, the more the discord grows when stake weighted power is pitted against raw human consensus. Hive is a mish mash of human sentiment consensus that is NOT stake weighted and which translated into market sentiment and community morale, along with the numerical stake weighted consensus that is calculated and labelled as 'proof of brain' on the blockchain. Denying one in favour of the other will cause problems to the stability and growth of the platform.

Despite the claims from some that many Hive posters are 'just here for the money', the reality is that most of us have grown up groaning at the biases and lazy thinking present in mainstream media, education systems and political circles and are tired of screaming at TV sets. Decentralised social media (with built in meritocratic metrics) could and should be the place where we finally get to evolve out of this horribly isolated, information hell hole - and so to many people, seeing the overall quality of the information ecology on Hive degraded through attempts to 'protect the reward pool' is more saddening than the thought of 'losing' any financial rewards.

Just as there are complaints that posters are exploiting the reward pool with (subjectively assessed) 'junk' - so too is the opposite true.. That there are complaints that curators are numbing and dumbing down the results of POB for reasons that may or may not seem equally as nefarious as anything the 'junk authors' might be accused of. The interests of large wallets CAN become at odds with the interests of the community and a middle ground is needed that includes a greater appreciation and fairer assessment of the motives of many posters on Hive than I am often seeing from some of the larger downvoters here.

The community morale is a key metric in the future valuation of Hive and this is often, currently, being hand waived away while those involved point at Splinterlands as if Hive is actually just a card game network with a blogging system that somehow got bolted on but shouldn't really be here.

Information Is More Important Than Money

When 'proof of brain' is too coloured by one individual, POB clearly becomes only 'proof of wallet', since the actions of the account holder in question become powerful, not by merit of anything that can excite the brains of others, but instead by the amount of wealth they have somehow invested. This can be counter to the aim of 'Proof of Brain' and thus the underlying design of Hive as it stands.

We see this dynamic present in the offline world too - in newspapers with editors motivated by advertising revenue and political agenda, rather than pure knowledge and intent to share information for the greater good. 'Newspapers' have long become narrative control papers in most cases. This tends to bother people more than the loss of money in many cases. Humanity needs replacements for these information control networks that have literally held back the evolution and freedom of humans for too long. Information can often impact survival more than money can - so in that sense alone it is priceless.

Even if users agree with the voting of the accounts who continually penalise certain topics or posters, regardless of the quality of their work, they will still likely feel that the voting is wrong because it is not being done based on intent to promote greatness, but is instead being done to remove information from circulation - whether directly or indirectly as a result of a loss of the financial power needed to free up time to create more content in future. The underlying nag that information is more valuable than money, more often than not, outweighs any thought that downvotes might slightly inflate the reward pool for 'everyone else'.

Note: The upvotes of the largest stakeholders are boosted in a weighted way that favours these stakeholders over everyone else, when downvotes are applied to the rewards at payout time.

Decentralisation and Layer 2 Tokens or Greater Social Agreement?

The ideal solution to this inherent and potential conflict of interests is greater decentralisation and the need for that is currently high. Layer 2 tokens provide the promise of real decentralisation, but we are not quite there yet due to high cost of entry to creating them and other issues.

What upsets many people currently who have long understood this conflicting dynamic (between Proof of Brain and Proof of Wallet) is that the problematic outcomes of centralisation on Hive only manifest if those in the most centralising positions in the network deliberately cause them to emerge by their voting choices. So the annoyance is not inevitable and always has someone to blame for it's presence. 'Why can't we all just get along?' :)

For those who see decentralisation and free speech as the primary selling points of Hive, being told that the downvotes are 'to improve the quality of information on the network' in order to try to increase the value of Hive, is a kick in the face. Any potentially beneficial effect of the downvoting is always tainted by the huge negative of seeing/feeling freedom of speech and open discussion of the merit of ideas being eroded/removed by the actions of a very small group of thinkers/brains. The claim that the downvoting is actually a positive action for Hive is hugely at odds with the observation that the downvoting is a threat to the core selling points of Hive. Accurately measuring which side is more important is something that relies on accurate measurement of the wider public perception, but too many individuals are involved in forming public perception for us to really appraise it overall with accuracy. The best we can do is point to price changes and look mystical as we claim that the recent price gain was due to developments that are in alignment with our own agenda and not, in fact, due to other reasons entirely.

For now, I see Layer 2 tokens as the failsafe option to resolve the downvoting disagreements. However, I know I share the sentiment of many people when I continue to feel surprised and a bit sad that those adopting certain militant downvoting patterns don't see that by reframing their perception of the value of Hive towards decentralisation and away from 'card games' or other such add-ons, they could actually help the value of the token far more than their 'policing' ever will.

The Big Picture For The Long Term of Hive

If the aim of the downvoting and also the development of layer 2 communities and of developing Hive itself in the first place is to grow Hive and produce great returns for investors - then there is a need to consider the big picture beyond short term and frankly quite limited frames of reference.

Markets tend to be driven by supply and demand. There isn't a shortage of 'content policing' online, Silicon Valley has an abundance of that for us. There IS a shortage of empowerment and respect of individuality online - which are both potentially core selling points of Hive. Hive can potentially supply a huge demand among web users simply by consistently and strongly demonstrating real commitment to continually providing an alternative to platforms where content policing is agenda driven.

This is a market arena that is driven by thoughts and sentiments and every factor involved in the operation of Hive that has a baring on decentralisation and the ability of community sentiment to feel respected WILL change market demand for Hive.

The hole in the market which needs to be filled with truly decentralised social media that feels egalitarian will be filled by something and it could be Hive. However, the success Hive has here will be relative to the overall intent within the community to create such a culture. Large stakeholders will always have a surprisingly large capacity to direct community intent as people hunt those rewards and seek to appease the stakeholders to get upvotes and avoid downvotes.

Ironically, the people who are 'just here for the money' are more likely to publicly be in agreement with whatever the big stakeholders do/say than they are to be in opposition to it. Just this factor alone means that those being heavily downvoted, by dissenting away from the interest of 'big stake', are arguably less motivated by money than those who tow the line! Clearly there is great potential for disagreement, confusion and frustration when such wildly different perceptions of the same situation are being held by key people involved.

For the sake of community morale and delivering on Hive's core selling points, I personally see that the big picture urges downvoters to be diligent in their investigation of anyone that they Nuke, lest they trigger a cascade of events which negatively influence wider public perception of Hive as a whole. Since the spirit of decentralisation implies careful attention being paid to ensure the absence of centralisation, large stakeholders would do well to train themselves to zoom out of temporary dopamine fixes and egoic agendas, in order to take in the bigger picture for Hive that includes a broad range of viewpoints held by a large number of people.

Whatever the community chooses here, I feel confident that Hive is strong enough and the people here are smart enough to create solutions that genuinely feel good to everyone, rather than accepting the mediocrity of repeating the strategy of steemrolling individuality and limiting alternative views that has plagued Web 2.0 for so long!


Wishing you well,
Ura Soul

Read My User Guide for Hive Here