Social Media Compete For Bitcoin
Content creators are increasingly migrating to blockchain-based Facebook and YouTube equivalents. Steemit, DTube and LBRY lure with new payment models and a new audience. This exodus increases the quality and quantity of the available contributions to the new alternatives. This makes the networks more attractive for new users.
Facebook and YouTube are yesterday's snow
Steemit is a social network in which users are paid directly for their content. For this purpose, the Steemit own Kryptowährungen Steem-dollar and Steem-power are used. We have explained how this network works exactly. There are now about one million Steemit accounts. Compared to Facebook, that's little; 120,000 registrations in March 2018, however, bear witness to rapid growth.
The Blockchain platform DTube is based on YouTube and is designed for video content. DTube uses the STEEM-Blockchain as well as Steemit. Accordingly, users are also paid in Steem dollars for their activity. There are no promotional clips in front of the videos like YouTube. One example of the DTube success is the YouTuber "Furious Pete". His videos on weightlifting and eating contest follow almost five million people on YouTube. Some of his videos still appear exclusively on DTube.
LBRY is a platform for movies. Artists make their work directly available to the target group. The idea behind LBRY is that artists can market their works without giving up control over payment to an intermediary platform like Netflix or Spotify. About 600,000 users are now registered on LBRY.
Reasons for the success of the networks
Steemit, DTube and LBRY have one thing in common: they offer their users a fair and transparent payment model. However, the big competition is increasingly becoming a cross-fire of critics, for example because of the distribution of advertising revenue through YouTube. The data scandal around Cambridge Analytica also motivated many users to leave Facebook. Competitors will benefit from this.
Assessment
The fact that the mainstream platforms do without the trading of their users ' data is unlikely. Steemit and DTube, on the other hand, also enable passive users to earn income. Because not only own content, but also comments can be paid by other users with an "upvote". Even members who are the first to like (and thus contribute to its popularity) a later popular article get a reward. Unlike Facebook and Google, users earn money for their data and activity. Dan Novaes, co-founder and CEO of the current streaming service, says:
So far, I don't think people have realized how valuable their personal data is.>
With the Blockchain, people have the opportunity to be paid for their time, attention and data. Your valuable data will no longer be controlled by a few giant corporations.
Moreover, for the social media services based on Blockchain, it speaks that they are not susceptible to censorship. Bad posts are punished by the community, but cannot be removed from the Blockchain. Likewise, the platform itself has no way to delete posts. In repressive political systems, this is a strength. However, with embarrassing posts after a few glasses of beer, this can also go backwards. Therefore, and this applies not only to the Blockchain: Think first, then write.