
Blockchain Promises a Third Wave of Social Media - Andrew_Quentin
http://www.trustnodes.com/akasha-great-social-media-experiment
======
current_call
_Though it seemed for a period that Reddit /Facebook ended the constant
migration, the cool kids are once more on the lookout for a new coffee house
as it has become clear the current platforms have many intolerable
shortfallings._

Yeah, I guess there were people stupid enough to think Myspace was forever
too, but that's not your entire demographic! I bet all the cool kids can't
wait to switch over to the newest social media platform. Oh wait, all the cool
kids are still on IRC, email, and personal websites.

 _The pre-alpha version is to be released sometime this month when we can all
see how this works in practice, but from Alisie’s description, the platform is
a mixed combination of Medium, Twitter, Reddit and Facebook all in one._

Medium, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebok all in one?! Sounds legit.

 _Combined with the quadratic voting mechanism we mentioned earlier, the
entire project becomes very interesting._

Yeah, I always felt like using the same voting system as bees would improve my
social media experience. Super interesting.

The people who use Reddit, Facebook, and Hacker News(!) aren't desperately
looking for an escape. They don't care. They have and have had plenty of
places to switch to. They only care enough to get angry and then do nothing.
That's what social media is. Getting mad about things and then doing nothing.
If you actually care, do something besides up vote an angry post.

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aaron-santos
I took some notes on social networking on the blockchain about a year ago
during the big Reddit upheaval surrounding sub banning, the voat migration, et
cetera. I see blockchain based social media as an eventuality for a subgroup
of the population. The Akasha website[1] is unfortunately very short on
details.

I'm not convinced quadratic voting is a solution at all. If user account
creation has a fixed cost then there is always a number of upvotes for which
it's more cost effective to create alts and upvote en mass.

The real solution is moderation as a form of patronage. There's a demand for
moderation in all social media, the supply however is limited in Reddit's case
by a volunteer-only force and other systems by salarying an in house staff.
Fee based moderation by subscription turns into a signal selection mechanism.

If advertising isn't the signal you want to select for, subscribe to
moderation feeds that block those accounts/posts. If you want to block
racis(m/ts) subscribe to moderation feeds that block that content. Aggregate
and remix moderation feeds at will and let a market develop.

[1] - [http://akasha.world/](http://akasha.world/)

~~~
MihaiAlisie
Hello Aaron,

First of all thank you for taking the time to check out our project! Indeed
the website feels a bit outdated atm as it was designed for the project
announcement[1] and alpha signup, but we will change our website when we enter
the alpha phase (Oct/Nov most likely).

We progressed quite a bit since the website release/announcement and we are
now weeks away from sending pre-alpha invitations to the people who have
signed up on our website.

The challenge you are pointing with regards to quadratic voting and proof of
identity is indeed an interesting one and difficult to solve. Fortunately
there are many bright minds in the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond who are
working on this specific issue.

For us, especially in the pre-alpha/alpha stage, the quadratic voting is
mainly used to support the authors with ETH for their contributions with
minimal cognitive effort for the supporter - in a couple of clicks you could
send anything from 1 cent to $1 for example.

There could be weird side effects such as a sea of alt ids created with the
purpose of trolling, but it is worth mentioning that there are some costs
associated with broadcasting these new identities on the blockchain so in some
sense "trolling" will involve money.

That alone should discourage trolling to some extent, but again without real
data and real people using the system this is just a theory. We will know more
once the dapp is out in the wild :)

[1] - [http://blog.akasha.world/2016/05/03/unveiling-
akasha/](http://blog.akasha.world/2016/05/03/unveiling-akasha/)

~~~
aaron-santos
Thanks for the reply and good luck in your endeavors!

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MihaiAlisie
Hello everyone,

AKASHA founder here.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, happy to answer your questions!

