Twitter just changed Steem's value proposition
In a surprise announcement on July 13, Twitter announced that they had begun a new monetization program for creators in their new program to share advertising revenue. What does this mean for Steem?
Introduction
Pixabay license from: source
From the time that I arrived here, the dominant narrative for why someone would want to use the Steem blockchain has been, "get paid for your content". Of course, there have been other narratives too, but "get paid for your content" is the one that always stood out. And for a while, Steem was the only place where this was possible for most textual content creators.
In the last couple years, substack emerged as another place where people could get paid for textual content. Now, with this week's Twitter announcement a 400 pound gorilla entered the room, and the competitive landscape has really shifted. At this point, "get paid for your content" has lost a lot of its uniqueness in the competitive market place.
So, does that mean that it's time to pack up our toys and go home? Of course not, but it does mean (in my opinion) that we need to rethink Steem's value proposition. With substack, and now Twitter, in the arena, we really need to think about how to distinguish Steem. It seems clear to me that we should deemphasize the "get paid for your content" narrative. But what should replace it? Here are my thoughts for the top-4, which I'll discuss in the upcoming sections:
- A new model for content consumers & promoters to sponsor content creators
- Content creators can direct blockchain rewards to their fans
- Ideal platform for AI training
- Censorship resistance and ownership of data.
Read on for a few sentences or paragraphs about each of these topics.
A new model for content consumers & promoters to sponsor content creators
I have actually believed for a while that this should be Steem's primary narrative. I wish I were a marketing-type who could craft the right messaging for it, but (IMO), this is Steem's strongest attribute. And it is horribly underutilized.
What are the current models for sponsoring content creators? Basically, advertising revenue and subscriptions. Each of these have their problems. For advertising revenue, content consumers have to tolerate disruptions to the reading experience and pervasive tracking. For subscriptions, the content creator has to hide their content behind a paywall, and it limits the size of their audience.
the subtle difference here is that the narrative is targeted towards the people who support the content creators, not the creators themselves
Steem provides a 3rd model. Let's say that I want to sponsor Steemizen video artists like @skycorridors and @answerswithjoe or science writers like @o1eh, @sarahjay1, and @jorgebgt. I can buy STEEM and stake it as STEEM POWER and support them with my vote. The supported content producers can open their content to the public, for the widest possible audience, and there's no need for tracking or disruption from the advertising.
As an added bonus, that STEEM POWER is always mine, so it doesn't really cost me anything (not counting the unavoidable market risks and opportunity costs) to support these creators. My asset is staked, but it's not surrendered.
So yes, the content creators are still getting paid for their content. And they can get paid without subjecting their readers to advertising or subscription paywalls. But, the subtle difference here is that the narrative is targeted towards the people who support the content creators, not the creators themselves. Why pay a subscription fee every month when you can support your favorite creators by directing blockchain rewards, instead?
Why pay a subscription fee every month when you can support your favorite creators by directing blockchain rewards, instead?
Coincidentally, I just learned yesterday that a prototypical service has been available for 2 years to potentially "grease the skids" for this narrative. See the post from @joviansummer, [ENG] How to support your family members and friends with @jsup curation project. I'll be considering whether and how to make use of this service for the Popular STEM community.
Content creators can direct blockchain rewards to their fans
As far as I know, Steem (along with other copycat blockchains) is unique with its capability for multidirectional sponsorship among content creators and their fans. A content creator who invests in the Steem blockchain can reward their most loyal fans by using upvotes to direct blockchain rewards to those fans' replies.
Obviously, I can't be 100% sure that this is a unique capability, but I'm pretty sure that Twitter and substack don't offer anything that resembles this ability.
As in the case of sponsorship, the content creator doesn't need to part with any assets in order to exercise this capability. All they need to do is to stake the rewards that they earn by posting here, and they can unstake it at any time (with a 4-week time frame for complete liquidity).
Ideal platform for AI training
We spend a lot of time here talking about the problem of AI, namely, AI-generated content that masquerades as human-generated. Every platform that contains content is now grappling with this problem, so it's not unique to Steem. However, AI can also be valuable, and we shouldn't forget that.
When I first got here, I made, A Far-Fetched Prediction
If (big IF) steemit survives as a company, in 5 years or maybe 10, steemit's ecosystem will have better AI than Google or Facebook or any other closed company.
That was in 2016, so odds now are that my prediction was wildly wrong. But I still think that the underlying reasoning was valid. Steem has open access, decentralized development, structured data, large incentives, and a reward system that makes it an ideal platform for reinforcement learning.
In contrast, Elon Musk's Twitter is currently going about restricting access to AIs for use in training and putting up a paywall for write-access to the API.
Yes, we should continue trying to tamp down inauthentic posting of AI content, but we should also be encouraging the use of AI for other purposes like plagiarism (and AI) detection, recommendation algorithms, curation services, chatbots, and countless others. AI is a world-changing technology, and we should be cultivating its (proper) use in the ecosystem.
Censorship resistance and ownership of data
This has always been somewhere on the list of Steem's advantages, and it still is. Unfortunately, in the popular mind it's not highly valued. Still, it's an advantage that shouldn't be overlooked. Censorship can happen at the website layer, and even at the API layer, but not in the blockchain itself (as far as I understand).
Here's what the whitepaper says,
Freedom of speech is the foundation of all other liberties and any infringement upon freedom of speech undermines the only peaceful means of reaching consensus: discussion. Without free discussion voters cannot be fully informed, and uninformed voters are a greater threat to society than losing the right to vote. Censorship is a means of stealing votes through limiting public discourse. Steem is committed to enabling free speech and building a free society.
The so-called "Twitter Files" revealed the great amount of censorship that's being conducted by the larger social media companies, and people are "de-platformed" on a whim (across the political spectrum). On Steem, the account owner always retains control of their data, and if they get de-platformed in one place, they can access their data in a different manner.
Conclusion
In summary, Steem's "get paid for your content" messaging had already met with limited success before Thursday's surprise Twitter announcement, and now that message is severely weakened. If we want to grow the ecosystem from here, we need to refine the argument. To that end, I've suggested four alternate value propositions that can be used to differentiate the Steem ecosystem. They are:
- A new model for content consumers & promoters to sponsor content creators
- Content creators can direct blockchain rewards to their fans
- Ideal platform for AI training
- Censorship resistance and ownership of data.
What are your thoughts on Twitter's surprise announcement and how it impacts the Steem blockchain?
Thank you for your time and attention.
As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".
Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.
Pixabay license, source
Reminder
Visit the /promoted page and #burnsteem25 to support the inflation-fighters who are helping to enable decentralized regulation of Steem token supply growth.
Unfortunately, STEEM's "get paid for your content" already lost its strength significantly when "delegate and get self-vote" service dominated.
In my opinion, the only way to effectively counter this situation is to use the same reward amplification(or exploit, depending on how you see it) mechanism for supporting others. That is, "delegate and support others" service is needed. Or, as you mentioned above, you could "delegate and support your fans" with the same mechanism.
That's the main reason why I came up with @jsup service. For STEEM's long-term growth, we need to direct rewards to others rather than oneself. I think that's why STEEM's upvote existed in the first place.
I have said for a while that (audience plus rewards) is more valuable than (rewards alone). If we want high-power influencers, we have to figure out how to connect content creators with both.
The nice part of the "delegate and support others" model is that the delegator can insist on a certain level of quality, and that could potentially attract an audience.
I agree. We need to connect people. Steemit should be content creation/consumption platform rather than token mining pool.
TEAM MILLIONAIRE.
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Thank you!
I am still quite sure that it is not more and more (less talented) authors who are needed, but a stable number at a high level.
Yes, there are also consumers for funny sayings or nice pictures - but those don't have a significant stake. For these readers/viewers there are enough places online and offline where they can find everything they are looking for.
For investors who are really interested in investing, promoting and adding value, the current status of Steem is unsatisfactory and discouraging.
TEAM MILLIONAIRE.
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I don't know if my marketing thoughts are worthwhile, but maybe something like "passive patronage". Rather than passive income to yourself, the goal of passive patronage is for your assets to support creators you value. Conventional tip or subscription models involve traditional transactions so the consumer loses money so it can be gained by the recipient, but in the Steem ecosystem the "tip" one gets from an upvote doesn't cost the voter anything, their stake stays the same.
The big problem is the network effect, if the creator isn't posting their stuff to the chain there's no way to get the tip to them, so patrons can't get the value that the coin could have.
It's sort-of a chicken and egg problem. You need creators to bring supporters, but you need supporters to get creators. The focus here has always started with the creators, but maybe we'd do better by reversing that. Especially after Twitter's announcement this week.
Indeed competition is quite tough and everyone trying to bring more creativities in popular social medias like fb,insta, YT and now twitter. Steemit is open for all like other social media though many not even familar with crypto, steem and tron and the number is huge at my place and also at many region where crypto is banned.
When blockchain brought the concept of paying content creator, social media owners are also in the competition and investing a little to make the content marketing enlarged.
If "normal" brand start paying for content people will maybe be more interested in looking at other way to earn for posting (like steem)
That's a good point, too. Especially in light of the fact that Twitter content creators have to meet certain visibility metrics, and they have to pay a monthly "verification fee."
pay2earn that's a fun thing
I think that delegating has its value as long as the user that we delegate to is active, constant, another matter is, many users say they have many followers, but if we analyze, only some are loyal, so I prefer to have few loyal followers than many who simply they are there, and in relation to giving self-votes, I like that, if I had a high voting power, I would not hesitate to vote for myself, I have earned it, so it is fair to have it, obviously also give to people who they comment, conclusion, it is more a matter of analyzing individually at 60% and collectively at 40%
Advertising is the engine of progress, encouraging authors is one of the ways to force them to write on different sites. The more activity on the site, the more different people come to it who do not care whether the site pays for content or not. This is according to the principle of a queue for something, since the accumulation of people will go and I will see what is interesting there)