The Catch 22 of Decentralized Social Media Platforms
The recent crypto purge on YouTube reminded a lot of people of the benefits of decentralization, and the disadvantages and power of centralized corporate authorities like YouTube and Google.
Whether it was a mistake or intentional, lots of Crypto Youtubers had their videos removed and received one or two of three strikes which scared them into not publishing anything while the jury (and YouTubes support staff) was out for Christmas.
The fact that this happened over Christmas added an emotional component that none of the affected people will ever forget. It’s not only those YouTubers but also their fans and followers.
Links to LBRY and Steemit were thrown around like nobody had ever heard of them. “We need to use decentralized social media more!” Yes, we do indeed.
Crypto Social Media Expert Randy @hilarski called them out: “You preach decentralization but you’re still posting on centralized platforms. It’s time to walk your talk!”
But the truth is, besides (or because of) being complicated to use, those decentralized platforms can’t compare with YouTube in terms of reach yet. There are simply too few people on there.
What's an influencer to do when there's nobody to influence?
Michael of @boxmining talks about this here from 5:45min on:
If our goal is to inform and educate people, and to inspire more and more of them to join the crypto space - shouldn’t we publish our content where those people are at? There is no point in posting our content on specific platforms, if our audience doesn’t hang out there.
But if we're preaching decentralization, shouldn't we post on decentralized platforms and lead by example?
How do we get to walk our talk without alienating 90% of our audience?
So how can this be solved?
In the short-term, I guess many people will have double and triple work and maybe even hire staff to post and be present on several social media platforms.
In the long-term, decentralized platforms need to become more convenient. Let's face it, right now, when you do use decentralized platforms, you agree to be highly inconvenienced. It's more difficult to post, it takes extra effort, and you reach less people. The financial rewards do not always make up for that extra time investment.
Of course, once you've found your community, like many of us have here on Steemit, you gain different rewards and your reasons and personal rewards for posting here change. Plus, you get the hang of it and it doesn't take quite as much time anymore. But how long did it take you to get there? Imagine "normal people" :) with jobs and businesses and lives, who want to use and consume their social media like they are used to from Facebook & Co?
Whichever platform will give people the convenience and "feel" of traditional social media, but with the added benefits of personal data protection and a revenue share, will win.
But that's not all it's going to take
People are still too comfortable on existing platforms. They have no reasons and no incentives to change yet.
- Most of them haven’t been censored yet.
- Most of them have no reason to look for alternative income streams, like small or large posting rewards. As long as they have a job or business and a comfortable income, they won’t care. All it takes is a good financial crisis to solve this though. Once hyper inflation hits, houses are foreclosed and businesses shut down and lay off their staff - the “mainstream” will become motivated to explore all sorts of additional income, no matter how little.
- Most of them haven’t lost their favorite influencers yet, because those influencers haven’t been censored yet. The more often this will happen, the more uncomfortable people will become and the more they will follow their influencers and look for alternatives.
In other words, we need events like The Christmas Crypto Purge of 2019 to happen, because that's when influencers truly get to influence.
Thank you, YouTube!
External motivation rarely works
Shouting about crypto and decentralization from the roof tops might make people aware of it, but it won't inspire them to take action and join. That all changes once we become uncomfortable with our current situation and become intrinsically motivated to change.
- Influencers need to become uncomfortable on centralized platforms to be motivated to use decentralized platforms more.
- Followers need to become uncomfortable with their current financial and government- or corporate control situation to be motivated to follow their influencers.
Let's influence on more platforms
The coming decade will bring plenty of incidents and situations that have the potential to tip the scale and trigger people’s motivation to join the decentralization movement, whether it’s for their money or for free speech.
Let's make sure they can find us and learn from us when that happens. No matter where they are.
Until then, let’s populate all centralized and decentralized channels we have at our exposal with our message and with education for our followers. It doesn’t matter where they find us, as long as we’re leading them to the right destination.
We don't all have to be on ALL platforms. I personally can't handle more than two :) But then, I'm pretty happy remaining a micro-influencer :) If everyone does whatever is in their means, that's enough.
Here is a list of decentralized social media
It’s probably incomplete so please add your suggestions in the comments!
About the author:
| Anja Schuetz helps absolute beginners to become confident crypto investors. She is the author of How To Stay Safe in the Crypto Space and offers Free Bitcoin Education For Beginners on her website. |  |
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