
A Social Network Doling Out Millions in Ephemeral Money - denzil_correa
https://www.wired.com/story/the-social-network-doling-out-millions-in-ephemeral-money/?mbid=nl_100417_backchannel_p1
======
ideonexus
Took a look at the "trending" articles on this network. Most of them are about
cryptocurrencies, followed by phishing-scam warnings, and finally a smattering
of other content. This seems like a network built around the hype of
cryptocurrencies that is hyping itself into value.

I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety lately that I'm missing the cryptocurrency
boat, but at the same time the more I research the possibilities I'm finding
far less opportunity to invest and much more opportunity to get taken.

~~~
aaron-lebo
There's no substance. It's multilevel marketing. This is the top post:

[https://steemit.com/steem/@ned/explainer-value-flows-on-
stee...](https://steemit.com/steem/@ned/explainer-value-flows-on-steem-with-
smts-video)

It's a great way to build a large audience of money hungry people, probably
not a great way to build a community with any kind of value. Nice hair.

~~~
darawk
I think that's a bit unfair. The idea that a niche social community would be
primarily interested in the things that are unique about their own social
community is not exactly a condemnation. Conceptually, a social network that
pays people for generating highly-upvoted content is an interesting one, I
think. It may turn out to be a disaster, but there's something there IMO. What
it'll take to really find out is some degree of mainstream usage. Right now
it's all crypto nerds using it and trying to P&D cryptos, but it isn't fair to
take that as evidence that the idea is flawed. That's just the nature of the
community at the moment.

~~~
aaron-lebo
They're interested in their network getting big so they can make money.
There's not much nuance to it. You can spin it another way but read the
thread. It's a soulless money grab, and it's disappointing because they
actually have decent software.

Once you've built a core community that is first and foremost interested in
ICOs and cryptocurrencies, how do you get out of that?

~~~
cryptoctopus
Anybody who has STEEM benefits from increasing the network effect, not just
him silly. Bitcoin and Ethereum has the exact same incentive to do so.

The idea is to create thousands of micro community who have their own ideas of
where their communities wants to go. They can use their own tokens with their
own economics if they happen to not agree with: 1\. The inflation rate 2\. The
curation reward curve 3\. The initial distribution

------
sneak
Hi there. Some of you know me from HN - this is where the bulk of my effort
has gone for most of the last year. The team we’re building at Steemit is
downright amazing, and the community around it is what keeps me going.

Think reddit, but on a blockchain (the posts, comments, and votes are actually
in the merkle tree in consensus), and the upvotes are real money - that’s
where the majority of the token’s inflation (~9% per year, decreasing further
over time) goes.

It’s sort of like a censorship-resistant, distributed pastebin. You can put
arbitrary json into the blockchain, which gets mirrored to hundreds of nodes,
permanently, in three seconds. The Shadow Brokers have taken up blogging on
Steemit.

We call it censorship-resistant, but I can’t think of a way to meaningfully
redact content already posted to this blockchain that anyone on Earth could
practically implement.

Our second annual Steemfest is in Lisbon 1-5 November and hopefully I will
meet some of you there.

------
jv22222
I built a knowledge sharing startup back in 2001 called Woyano.

One thing we learned, as a general rule, it is difficult to effectively pay
people to create good content on a social network.

The best and most knowledgeable people want to create content based on
intrinsic motivations rather than financial ones.

One only need look at Wikipedia, Stackoverflow, Quora, etc to see intrinsic
motivation inspiring good content.

I guess the main point is that once you start paying people then the
intrinsically motivated people aren't as likely to post on the same place.

~~~
exikyut
What about with moderation?

I've found reddit's "anybody can be a moderator" model to be disasterous
myself. It creates cliques founded entirely on fluff and plastic fakery, which
is horrible to see.

On the other hand, HN is moderated by a couple of people on payroll.

I understand (might be wrong, but I think this is true) that Imgur uses
volunteers, but puts them under NDA. Objectively makes sense for a site aimed
for maximum ad impressions above all else, but only objectively.

I would really, really like to find out if it's possible to find a good
balance. I'm not sure if the /. model is at the cutting edge (per se) of
social/technical interaction.

~~~
noisypl
You can always create an alternative frontend, which will moderate content
which you like. Steem gives you freedom. You can build on top of it any kind
of frontend with any filter.

For example guys from EOS decided to build own forum based on STEEM:
[https://eostalk.io/](https://eostalk.io/)

They filter out everything not related to EOS :) Of course all content is
available via generic websites/blockexplorers like steemit/steemdb.

------
hopfog
I used to be involved in Steemit with some success, mostly by writing articles
about the Steem blockchain itself and how to interact with it.

The appeal for me as a developer is that you're working with an unrestricted
firehose API. If you want to build something you don't need to worry about
limitations or breaking some terms. You can build your own Steemit front-end
if you want since the back-end is just another node on the chain.

The community is really nice and I made many good friends. Regardless of the
future of Steem I consider it a success and a tell-tale of real life
applications for blockchains.

------
nv-vn
Pretty cool, but in practice Steemit's content is pretty mediocre. There are
some high quality articles, but the front page is largely clickbait and
articles talking about how successful Steemit is. I tried to write some
programming articles (one of which got a lot of traction, actually) but I just
got bored of doing that after a little while of getting barely any views. I
think Steemit has potential if people begin to use it like Medium, but a lot
of people are there as basically a business, running their personal BuzzFeed.

~~~
ryanb23
Also, Steemit is just a terrible name.

~~~
lost_name
I agree and was curious why they picked it. I guess their reasoning is as good
as any.

> Steem is a form of esteem, which means to prize or value. Steem is also a
> homophone for steam, which is frequently associated with power, and a step
> further, steam powered trains gave influence to English idioms, such as
> ‘this conversation is picking up steam.’ The associations with prizing,
> language and empowerment only felt right.

[https://steem.io/#faq](https://steem.io/#faq)

~~~
kakarot
Still, Steem is an infinitely better name than Steemit.

~~~
QML
Copycat of Reddit (lol).

------
cujic9
I expect that establishing an extrinsic reward (ie: money) will be hugely
demotivating and actually diminish activity. Social media become a lot less
fun when an hour's worth of effort "earns" you $0.07.

Also, they should expect a tidal wave of bots and fake content. Think about
the mess Twitter is in, now add a straight path to cash.

------
cryptoctopus
This tread is full of ignorant sourpuss who missed the boat.

What people fail to see it that steemit is only 1 of many many websites being
built on top of that blockchain. Youtube, twitter, instagram...they can all be
built in their own little silos. With SMTs they will even be able to have
their own tokens with their own economic models.

Get your head around it. Steemit alone will soon pass you by on Alexa.
[https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ycombinator.com)
/
[https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com](https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/steemit.com)

------
mark242
What's the exchange rate between Steem and Flooz? Can I finally use my Flooz
credits?

~~~
buybeenz
Buy Beenz!

------
Bi5h0p
Andrarchy was trying to share something on this. I'm not sure if you've read
it and wanted to post the link here for you all:

[https://steemit.com/steemit/@andrarchy/steemit-on-hacker-
new...](https://steemit.com/steemit/@andrarchy/steemit-on-hacker-news-i-m-
commenting-too-fast)

On a side note - I am currently in the process of cashing-out my Steem tokens
in order to purchase a 10 oz. bar of silver bullion - which would be my own
little "proof of concept" that so-called, "Ephemeral Money," is actually a
real and useful vehichle for creating REAL wealth.

\- Bi5h0p

------
sp527
So they’re still monetizing peoples’ attention? I suppose it’s more noble to
pass proportionate value back to the creators, but that’s not a system
Facebook et al couldn’t quite easily adopt if market pressure forced their
hands.

~~~
andrarchy
In fact, they could use a Smart Media Token to do so :). All joking aside, the
structure of such systems are antithetical to the way large corporations
operate. That being said if Facebook decided to replicate our model (our
protocol is open source and it relies on an open and public database, which is
obviously part of the reason they won't)and distribute profits back to its
most valuable users, I would count that as a win. I bet they won't. I also bet
they won't distribute nearly as large a percentage as we do (100%) because
they have expensive data centers to take care of (I think the latest one alone
cost $1 billion). New technologies with fundamentally different economics
always disrupt large incumbents. It might not be likely, but it is possible
and the potential rewards are large and accrue to the earliest stakeholders.
Always. I'm not saying people should invest anything they can't afford to lose
in crypto projects--whether it's time or money--but if I had listened to all
of the naysayers for the past few years who dismissed bitcoin, then ethereum,
and now steem, I would be much poorer in many different currencies and I
wouldn't be part of an amazing team solving incredibly difficult problems
every single day that give it an incredible competitive advantage against
anyone who tries to do what we do. So I know Facebook can't do what we do
because they don't have us :)

Community Liaison, Steemit

------
computerwizard
I started working on a Hacker News interface for Steemit a while back.
[https://steemh.com/](https://steemh.com/)

------
smcnally
"A Wireding" reads like a Bene Gesserit activity, and it lacks the thump of "a
Slashdotting."

Either way, Steemit isn't handling it right now.

``` HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable: Back-end server is at capacity Content-
Length: 0 Connection: keep-alive ... It's not just you! steemit.com looks down
from here.
([http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/steemit.com](http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/steemit.com))
```

~~~
sneak
Someone DDoSed us. :(

------
supermdguy
This reminds me of the Brave browser and the basic attention token.

~~~
andrarchy
Great question! It is vaguely similar but different in many important ways. To
be clear we do not see Brave as a direct competitor and wish them success.
While they have referred to us as competitors, I believe that is a bit of an
overreach. First of all, Steem tokens (and the Smart Media Tokens others will
be able to launch on top of Steem in the coming months) can be transferred in
3 seconds with zero fees. This enables us to connect money to "likes" or in
the case of Steem "upvotes." Brave is a pay-to-play system that uses an
Ethereum token which is both slow (10 minutes) and has fees. Steem, on the
other hand, is a protocol which anyone can use to build applications that
leverage this crypto fuel engagement without adding paywalls or cognitive
load. The crowd acts and money flows the most valuable members as determined
by the stake-weighted vote of the users. In short, the Steem blockchain is
protocol that the Steemit team launched and leveraged to create steemit.com
but anyone can use it to fuel their app, INCLUDING apps that serve the same
use case as Brave ... but with real-time fee-less transactions (i.e. better).
If you'd like to learn a little more about how the system works you can check
out the following video featuring yours truly:
[https://youtu.be/z-V6HnfbGUA](https://youtu.be/z-V6HnfbGUA)

Community Liaison, Steemit

~~~
supermdguy
Thanks for clarifying the difference.

------
noisypl
You should definitely checkout Steemit and other services like Busy.org or
chainbb.com which are based on decentralized Steem Blockchain :)

------
andrarchy
Hi, my name is @andrarchy, I'm part of Team Steemit and you can AMA :). This
comment was originally intended as a response to aaron-lebo, but as it became
quite long, I decided to post it here.

Aaron-lebo says, "They're interested in their network getting big so they can
make money. There's not much nuance to it. You can spin it another way but
read the thread. It's a soulless money grab, and it's disappointing because
they actually have decent software."

He's right in a lot of ways and wrong in a lot of ways, but obviously I'm
biased :). Regardless of whether we agree or disagree I want to thank anyone
who even gives a moment's thought to what we're trying to do at Steemit. So
thank you @aaron-lebo.

What's right:

We have decent software. Well, when it comes to offering a free social network
that rewards tens of thousands of ordinary people all over the world for their
content in a cryptocurrency that can be traded on exchanges and cashed out for
fiat currencies, we're the only game in town, so I think we have a pretty
strong argument that we have the BEST software. And knowing our engineers I
have no problem saying they are the most intelligent, diligent, thoughtful,
nice, and hard working people I have ever had the distinct pleasure of working
with. IMO they're the best in the world and welcome proof to the contrary.

One common criticism (not made by this commenter) is that most people "don't
make a lot." First off I want to highlight exactly what this criticism is
saying: some people on steemit make a lot. A lot of other people make a bit. A
lot of people make not a lot. This is all true. But these types of comments
invariably dismiss the difference that making $5 or $10 on a post (which MANY
people DO make) can have on a person's life especially in many of the
countries where our users are from like those in Africa, Indonesia, and more.
But even with respect to more wealthy nations, I often find the critiques of
how much our users make to be remarkably tone deaf. It is certainly true that
not everyone can make tons of money on Steemit and you will never see anyone
on the team saying anything to that effect. Steemit is definitely NOT a get
rich quick scheme. It's only true that you CAN make money on Steemit and
people do every single day. That's right, the Steem blockchain distributes
thousands of dollars worth of STEEM every single day to users. In fact, ALL of
the money created by the Steem blockchain goes to users who provide some
service to it whether it's posting articles, comments, curating content, or
running a node. Like every other major cryptocurrency/blockchain protocol, the
fact that anyone is free to participate in it is part of what makes it anti-
fragile. None of that Steem goes to the team, unless of course we do one of
those things. I understand the content that is currently on the site might not
appeal to many, but the amount of rewards are real (no one denies that) and
who is receiving them changes every day. What I recommend is that people view
the lack of diversity of content on the site as an opportunity to contribute
something new to the platform. That's certainly how I looked at it when I
started as a contributer on the platform and worked my way up by creating
videos that helped explain the tech to the many lay-people on the platform.
Eventually my videos got the attention of the people at Steemit and I was
brought on board! That being said, we are still a small social network, so of
course our content is not going to be able to match the bigger players. But if
people want to look at the data for themselves, project our growth rate, and
estimate when we will reach such scale they are welcome to. All the data is on
the blockchain which is an open, public and decentralized database.

What's wrong:

We're not soulless. I swear we have souls! :) There are more than 30 people on
the team at this point and statistically speaking it's just highly unlikely
that we could ALL be lacking in what is typically described as a near human-
universal. Unless, of course, you don't believe in souls in which case, yes,
this statement is technically true. What I would say is that those in the
cryptocurrency sector are often critiqued as being TOO ideological. We all
openly advocate for decentralization for the purpose of spreading power (and
money) among the people. That's certainly why I got involved in the field and
have been blogging and vlogging on the topic for over a year, all of which is
immutably preserved on the blockchain for your investigation ;). At Steemit we
do want to make steemit.com as big as possible because we all have Steem, but
so do all of our users. So, yes, they do too. But to claim that anything else
should be the case is like saying that Facebook is better because ONLY
Facebook shareholders benefit when Facebook grows. The idea that we are
somehow more soulless than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social
network that wants to grow because their model depends on eyeballs to sell ads
to (notice any ads on steemit.com?) is pretty laughable. Yes, we have figured
out a sustainable and scaleable way to align the incentives of the creators,
developers, and users of an open, public, anonymous, censorship-resistant, and
decentralized database protocol so that when it grows everyone benefits. We're
not sorry :)

One of the most frequent errors people make (and this is 100% understandable)
is that for us it's ALL about growing steemit.com. This couldn't be more
wrong. We are interested in growing use of the Steem blockchain protocol (just
like the creators of Linux wanted to increase use of their protocol) and the
demand for Steem. I'm not saying it's not selfish, I'm just saying it's not
accurate ;). But let me be absolutely clear and I will happily hold myself
accountable for this claim for all of time: this is because I believe that the
Steem blockchain is a force for good. It is an open and decentralized database
which is not controlled by any single person, corporation, or government, that
anyone can acquire a stake in, that is free to use, that is anonymous, and
that is censorship resistant. We see a lot of problems with existing social
media solutions (like all of your personal information being held and profited
off of by a private company with tight links to authorities) and we sincerely
believe we have solved them with Steem. One can argue whether we are right,
but I know our beliefs are sincere.

PROOF: Smart Media Tokens

That's exactly why we launched Smart Media Tokens. It was always our desire to
get developers to leverage Steem to create their own applications that would
reward their users with money while enabling them to retain control over their
personal identities and protecting them from censorship, but through
conversations with entrepreneurs and developers we learned that there were
additional features they wanted. While steemit.com is incredibly important to
us and the number of engineers we have working on that site is now greater
than ever, we decided to also commit significant resources to designing the
Smart Media Tokens protocol precisely because we want to encourage other
platforms to leverage our technology. If all we cared about was steemit.com
this strategy would make no sense. Once Smart Media Tokens launch, any site
(including this one wink wiiiiiiiiiiiiink) will be able to launch their own
Steem-like token with; customized parameters, the ability to allocate founders
tokens, the ability to raise capital, and more. Shameless plug over ;).

Yes, the system is designed to increase demand for Steem and that will benefit
all current Steem holders, including the thousands of people doing the
massively valuable work of contributing content to our platform while it is
still growing. We are not idealists, but we're not soulless either. We are
ambitious and hopeful technologists who are leveraging a revolutionary
technology to disrupt a massively centralized, exploitative, and corrupt
landscape. You're welcome ;)

If you'd like to learn more, check out this video of yours truly explaining
how it all works: [https://youtu.be/z-V6HnfbGUA](https://youtu.be/z-V6HnfbGUA)

Regardless of your view of steemit, if you've gotten this far, you're amazing.
Thanks for reading!

------
lowglow
Despite all the criticisms here, this just validated Steemit as a real service
that is now a real contender.

~~~
Kiro
I don't understand why people on HN are so anti-Steemit. Disregarding the
service is very patronizing to its users. It's obviously giving them something
of value but HN is so quick on placing it in the same bag as some random scam
ICO. Not saying the model is perfect though.

~~~
adventured
> I don't understand why people on HN are so anti-Steemit.

Because people on HN that have been around a while, have seen a dozen
variations of this come and go, all the way back to the days of Flooz. Steemit
will pop and rot, for exactly the same reasons that not a single system like
this has ever worked long-term.

What Steemit actually represents is a signal that the crypto-currency mania is
nearing an end for the initial speculative wave. The big dump comes next, in
which most crypto-currency experiments that have attention today will die off.

There's nothing special about what Steemit is doing. They're slapping the
latest hype train on top of what has been attempted for two decades. It
doesn't work for a fundamental reason and there's nothing Steemit can do about
that. It doesn't matter if you use a clone of Bitcoin as your foundation or an
arbitrary tokenX with a different set of rules governing it. Slapping Bitcoin
on the concept doesn't change the underlying broken premise.

~~~
Kiro
You make it sound like it's some random social network with an unrelated token
connected to it. That's not how it works.

1\. Reward from blocks mined are distributed to the highest voted posts. This
is all part of the Steem protocol. Only a small percentage goes to the actual
miner.

2\. The whole database sits on the blockchain. It's completely decentralised.

3\. The incentive to have more Steem on your account is that your upvotes are
worth more. This is both the blessing and the curse since whales become
powerful curators. On the other hand it gives an incentive to hold Steem
unrelated to the monetary value. That's why I don't see any dumping happening
any time soon unless Steem skyrockets in value.

I simply don't agree that this has been tried before. It's a different story,
even if it turns out to be a failure in the end.

------
jordancampbell
It's literally a Ponzi scheme.

Where is the money coming from, other than speculation?

It barely even hides this fact, given that all its content is about how to
generate more content and keep all the wheels turning.

~~~
Kelab
isn't that the same for all cryptocurrencies?

~~~
theklub
Yes

------
eurticket
immediately presented with a sign into facebook popup

------
deevolution
Its not any more ephemeral than the money that our government prints. In
steemits case, they are the government and can arbitrarily "print" money. If
the government of steemit crumbles, so will its currency. Just like any other
government. Every single currency is ephemeral to some variable degree...

~~~
tdb7893
I think the difference is that people don't see USD as ephemeral because the
chance of the US government collapsing is about 0 while the chance of a
cryptocurrency startup collapsing is definitely much greater than 0

