Yes, Steem has problems
We know that, and I'm not one to defend it blindly. I know that token distribution is not optimal, I know that the best content is not pushed to the top, I know that account creation is painfully slow, I know all of it. Anyone who has ever followed this blog knows that I've been discussing these issues for a long time and that our project @helpie has been my response to it.
But at the same time, I think we need to be fair when we have these conversations. For one, I don't know of any blockchain that is perfect, I don't know of any token distribution that solved "inequality" and mind you that the word itself is tinged with socialist/communist rhetoric which to me signals it's time to pull the hand brake lever.
Without diving to heavily on this particular aspect of "the problem", let's say that ideally a healthy economy should have equality of opportunity, but never and I do mean never, equality of outcome.
Now, regarding some of the specifics as to why the STEEM blockchain was not ideal for Dlive. I think @taskmaster4450's posts on this is spot on, and a must read for those who want to dive in detail.
Dlive stage entrance
Even though I mentioned this in my comment already, I think it's worth mentioning again. When this project first reared it's head, it did so out of the blue. As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember @netuoso being very skeptical about it, as the idea of investing that much time and resources in a gamble sounded quite strange.
However, it was not until @ned delegated some real power to @dlive that the platform itself, took off. This event happened at the beginning of this year, and that month is very important to keep in mind as you continue reading.
Now, let's apply some logic to this, and just so that I've covered any doubts that someone might have, let me preface my opinion with one detail. I may not be a developer myself, but having worked with @therealwolf over the past couple of months, and understanding the gargantuan task of developing software for a blockchain, I have a good sense of cost in the way of man hour resources these days. But, let's continue.
When @dlive launched, meaning when it started to work, only a few days had gone by since their initial announcement. The post of course can be looked up and these dates confirmed. We could effectively say that a ton of groundwork had been done before the @anonsteem account (funny detail), made it's entrance to the left of the stage.
One would think that the @dlive team just have had already a way to secure funding for such a project. After all, it would take more than a few STEEM tokens to pay for such a platform. Without even mentioning that up until yesterday, they had never powered down to pay for their costly servers. A fact that I personally appreciated, even though right now I feel quite naive. This to me further proves that funding at least the core of it, was somewhat secure for the insider team. Unless somebody can show me developers of this caliber that believe in such levels of idealistic altruism.
The Warning signs we missed
And this to me is the only silver lining here. Because as individuals who understand the core principles behind decentralization, somehow we missed all the red flags, almost all of them. Maybe we got too caught up with the letter "d" at the beginning of the name, maybe.
As I previously pointed out the @dlive model was edificed with minimal interactions with the STEEM blockchain. For example, no custom jsons scripts were employed that I know of, with custom memos, to store anything pertaining the @dlive ecosystem. They had and have, their own account following, their own chat, etc, all of it of course centralized.
On top of all that, they were so independent from the STEEM blockchain itself, that I was mesmerized with the fact that when the STEEM blockchain halted, @dlive continued to work as if that had nothing to do with their app. Please take a second to think about that.
So we could conclude that this was done 100% by design and not happenstance. And let's not forget their system for storing video files, again, centralized. They host all videos on their servers, and even announced they would be taking them to LINO. On that note, if you are one of those steemians who is uninterested on participating of LINO, there is a very useful post by @patrickulrich on howto liberate your content from them.
But, let's recap the red flags: Centralized Storage, Centralized Account Ledger (running in parallel to steem), Centralized Communication (streaming and internal chat).
All this without even touching on the fact that this whole project was closed source. Again, something we must ask ourselves why we ignored nonchalantly.
Undisclosed Relationships
All this and yes, there is more. As it turns out, @wilsonwei777 the CEO of LINO is @wa7 (Kent)'s best friend. They went to college together and as you might guess studied the same field. This information is easily verifiable with some basic google knowledge.
Now, as we can clearly see on this very blockchain @wilsonwei777 was heavily involved in the development on @dlive. Proof can be found on his very blog, where he was testing the streaming features as the project was about to get it's legs. And, that's not all, other members of LINO were also part of @dlive such as @cqf and @zac2116.
If you ask @wa7 about this, he might tell you that he just needed some help to get @dlive off the ground, and that would be a valid thing to say. It would, until you find pictures of the founding members of LINO like this one:
Guess who?
LINO and it's funding
It took but a few minutes to find information about this blockchain. As it turns out, it's been in the news for a while, quite a while. As a matter of fact, one of the articles that really jumps to my eyes is this one from coindesk where it clearly shows they managed to raise 20 million dollars for their blockchain project.
The date of this article, January 2018. Remember when I mentioned that the month where @dlive received it's delegation was relevant? Yes, same month. But, let's continue.
Since the funding was somewhat secured, it was time for the @dlive team to change it's focus, to start making some noise if you will, and put the word out there: LINO is coming.
They changed their mind, you say?
I thought about that too. I thought that maybe, I was being too harsh, that maybe my gut instincts where off, I'm just human after all. But, since this is the way my brain operates I kept on digging, I kept on talking to people, to friends, to trusted allies.
Right about when I was ready to say, "Well, maybe, I'm not being fair", this little piece of information made it to my screen. Please note the outlined parts.
The date of this Medium Article, March. This means that only three months after receiving the generous delegation from @ned, @dlive/LINO (they are one in the same) felt completely comfortable with stating officially on their medium account that the experiments on steem were going quite well.
I find it fascinating that they did not list any of the problems STEEM has on that medium article, and because I don't want to sound cynical, I'll be blunt. all those problems existed back then too, right?
Delegation Abuse and User Base Farming
You could say this is mainly my biggest problem with the whole thing. I remember many months ago asking @smooth if there were some guidelines regarding @steemit's delegation practices. I don't blame @smooth for not responding to me, since I'm sure he has no clue if I am of any relevance, but the question however, is relevant, and it's relevant to absolutely everyone who has invested time and money on this place.
From my understanding, my basic understanding that is, the delegations that @steemit inc has "handed" out are there solely for the purpose of enriching STEEM's ecosystem. In other words, any project that is not for STEEM, and exclusively so even, is probably not a project @steemit would be interested in supporting and understandably so.
To those who don't understand how this works, because there are those who have left some uninformed comments on that @dlive post. The "money" sort of speak, comes from us, from you, from me, from anyone who has bought STEEM tokens. If no one buys a token, if the market does not have buyers, you could hold millions in your wallet, and it would be worth the same as numbers on an excel sheet. In other words, this whole idea that nothing was lost is so uninformed it almost pains me.
But on top of that, to me the one thing we can't fail to observe is how this bait and switch tactic was designed to literally extirpate the users from @dlive onto the LINO blockchain. A lung transplant done with a spoon and a bottle of vodka. An untested, unused blockchain with no market value, at least at the moment of me writing this.
Now, this blockchain could be amazing, it ver well could be, but as I've said before. Technology is important, but users are just as important. Having the fastest most secure blockchain in the world would mean nothing if you had the same three people posting their fortnite videos every day. The obvious conclusion is that they intended to take steemians there, and "bribe" them with 100 tokens.
For their convenience however, they are transplanting their content onto LINO. As you read that last bit, think about the concept of decentralization and try to contort logically, but please, don't hurt yourself.
Insult to Injury
Again, in very much their style @dlive decides to rebrand. They need a new logo, a new look, so they went back to the user base that has given them so much, and got even more.
When the contest was announced, it was done so with some interesting rules. I believe it's important we don't dismiss the little details.
Now, I'm also not a designer by trade, but I so happen to live with one. I remember having plenty of conversations regarding this very contest, because from a designer standpoint it made absolutely no sense. Why ninja? Why yellow? Why now?
Exploring those questions is somewhat subjective, but it might be enough to say that the way branding works, at least normally, is that you try to have elements of resemblance to the overall market you are operating in. In other words, a STEEM app, looking STEEMish (made up word, I know), makes a lot of sense.
The obvious intent to detach itself from the STEEM brand by incorporating incompatible colors(purple is the opposite to yellow), seems too intentional, it cannot be just a coincidence.
On top of that, some prizes being given away in the form of fiat, also tell a story, but I need not to continue to beat on this horse.
Conclusion
As a small entrepreneur I guess I have to give it to LINO, in the sense that they played their cards right, and as far as I know got away with everything. However, as a steemian, I'm very disappointed and to a point disgusted, if I'm to be honest.
But there is a huge lesson for us here, and at least we can say that is the silver lining of this whole debacle. The community should require more transparency from now on. I don't think It's unreasonable to ask for a clear understanding of how the "backdoor deals" work, and how a delegated STAKE is supposed to be used.
A minimum set of rules should exist, as the responsibility of millions of dollars cannot fall on the decision of one person's bias. I say this respectfully but also firmly, because I want what's best for STEEM and if I have to pick between being too careful or speaking my truth, I pick the latter.
As I was getting ready to publish this post, I saw this come across my feed written by @tcpolymath. This tells me I'm not alone on these sentiments, and that requesting some clarifications is nothing anyone should feel shocked about.
At any rate, I don't want anyone to leave this post thinking that I'm signaling the end of the titanic's journey, not even close. To me this whole experience, as bitter as it may be is a huge lesson for all of us. And believe or not, at least about that, I'm grateful.
Steem on my friends.
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