What do dSound, dTube, dLive, and literally every other service on Steem have in common? They all claim to be decentralized and none of them are. You can't just slap an app on a blockchain and call it decentralized.
What makes Steem decentralized?
Some would make the argument that Steem is not decentralized; that it is centralized around investors/whales. If anything, what makes Steem decentralized is the witness dynamic. Witnesses are basically Steem politicians who run dedicated servers that keep Steem up and running. Because witnesses are elected (albeit with stake-weighted votes) an argument for decentralization is valid. Another reason why Steem is decentralized is due to the nature of open source software. Steem is open source, therefore anyone can fork/clone the blockchain and start their own servers. It is this variable that promotes decentralization above anything else.
#decentralize
In order for dSound, dTbue, dLive, etc to be actually decentralized they have to open source their work. No one wants to do this because they want to monetize it. At the very least, in order for a blockchain service to be decentralized, there must be a way for users to create their own servers. I'm creating a game for Steem and players will easily be able to create their own servers.
I may not open source my code, but I don't need to in order to accomplish decentralization. If people can create their own servers, then the application in question becomes infinitely scalable. The entire world can use the app at any time because there is no centralized server to rely on. How many times have you tried to use a Steem service only to find out that it's temporarily out of order? This would never happen to a truly decentralized app.
Speed
Everyone talks about how fast Steem is because our blockchain has more transactions than other blockchains. However, because all the services of Steem are centralized we will experience severe growing pains. If tomorrow we suddenly had 10 million users, nothing on the site would work.
Creativity and Innovation required!
No one wants to open source their work because doing so is a big risk. Traditionally, open source projects don't make enough money. However, this is about to change. The Blockchain is a platform for open source work and it is going to pay out quite nicely with the right organization and leadership.
Paid-To-Play
In my last post I talked about a new business model: paid-to-play. With clever organization, blockchain app creators can use the proof-of-brain dynamic of Steem to flesh out the skeletons of a bare-bones app. Basically, Steamians will be paid to help create, maintain, and moderate the apps on the blockchain. This requires some serious innovation on the part of Steem developers. Apps must be structured in a way that allows users to create valuable content.
Because I'm speaking so generically here I can see why some of you would think that this is just some kind of unattainable pipe dream. My next post will likely explain in more detail the concept of paid-to-play. One of these days I'm going to stop talking, and start producing results 👍