-== Full Disclosure ==-I am not a financial advisor nor is any
content in this article presented as
financial advice. The information
provided in this blog post and any
other posts that I make and any
accompanying material is for
entertainment purposes only. It should
not be considered financial or
investment advice of any kind. One
should consult with a financial or
investment professional to determine
what may be best for your individual
needs. This is only my opinion, make of it
what you wish. What does this mean? It
means it's not advice nor
recommendation to either buy, sell,
delegate, or undelegate anything! It's
only meant for use as entertainment
purposes. With that out of the way, let's do some entertainment, such as it is. I realize walls of text might not be entertaining to everyone.
It all started with an interesting series of posts by 
- A quick little note for all of you delegating to dstors - Wherein whatsup makes a note about some dialog she had in a prior comment with someone at
. In her note, she makes a comparison between one app and another. Apparently, dstors took offense to this comparison.
- Check out the Classy Behavior Of the Dstors Crew on my post! - Due to flags applied to the previous note, whatsup thought it'd be a good idea to document more.
- Concerns about @dstors project - Apparently,
was also having concerns. His post was written 5 days prior to whatsups' posts and hidden until after whatsup reblogged it and the community got it visible again (I might not have the exact order right).
You can get even more caught up by looking over these threads.
After the dust settled, I was left scratching my head. I have never delegated to dstors, but I have delegated to other projects. It got me wondering what the breakdown was in my process of deciding who to delegate to, if any.
Here's what I came up with:
Q: Does an app need to define what it means when they say they're "on the blockchain?"
It is a plus if they can produce a whitepaper. It's also a plus if they can show, in their whitepaper, what specific aspects of the blockchain they plan to use in order to solve problems. It's also a plus if they can release code that shows specific examples of how they plan to solve problems, although that might not be appropriate for the whitepaper, per se.
Notice, I'm saying "it is a plus." I'm not saying any of this is a requirement for a legit app. These are just some ways a potental app might go about proving what they mean when they claim they're "on the blockchain."
There are plenty of apps that launched doing none of this and were still great apps.
Q: Is delegation an appropriate way to support development of a project?
First of all, (for entertainment purposes) it is my opinion that delegation alone does not make your app "on the blockchain." That would be circular. "Delegate to my app because my app is on the blockchain if you delegate to it so my app is on the blockchain." Circular.
An app can claim they need delegation in order to support development, but that doesn't make it "on the blockchain." Notice, the keyword: development
I point this out because, at least for the moment, Upvotes are the main way STEEM Power provides benefit. I would love to see more use cases for STEEM Power than just Upvotes. Ok, there are other benefits like Downvotes. And Resource Credits. But if you delegate, you are telling the platform that you want this project to have bigger Upvotes. And how do Upvotes support a project?
Well, you can come up elaborate ways to sell Upvotes. I'm not against selling Upvotes. I'm not against a trading platform for buying Upvotes. But that's all we're talking about. Upvotes.
So can you support development (remember that keyword, here) of a project using delegation? Yes. Either by Upvotes directly or Upvotes indirectly. But either way, development is being supported by the Reward Pool.
So it all boils down to, is it appropriate to support development of a project using funds from the Reward Pool?
The real question is, do these apps, supported by the Reward Pool, return value to the platform? Do the rewards just exit the platform or do they really go to the app's development? And if it goes back to the app's development, is this a sustainable model for this app and the Reward Pool in general?
The answer is maybe. But even if it all works out, it needs to be fully described ahead of time so that people know why they're delegating. Even if it's just: "Delegate so that the Reward Pool supports app development."
There are plenty of apps that are currently doing this and they are still great apps. And they're still supported by the Reward Pool and some return value to the platform. Some of them are moving on to a more robust funding method because they've outgrown this model. Some apps never used the Reward Pool for development funding in the first place. And some of them have moved on from the platform entirely, after realizing they couldn't fund their project from the Reward Pool and/or they weren't returning much value at all.
What we want to avoid is funding development using the Reward Pool while getting little or no value returned to the platform.
Example: I'm going to start selling hamburgers on 5th and Broadway, please delegate to me. I cannot claim: "The First Hamburger Stand on the Steem Blockchain!"
So let's tie all this back to dstors.
In what sense will [dstors] be "on the blockchain?" Will it track items that people list for sale as
custom_jsonso that third parties can follow the life-cycle of individual listings?
At the time of writing, he has not answered my question.
But you can see where I'm going with this. Setting aside any any elaborate Upvote trading system dstors might intend to implement, how do they intend to make their app leverage Steem?
I'd love to see a non-fungible asset for each item being listed on dstors. Then, each item could be traded in some kind of market system. Does this fully leverage a trustless transaction? No, but it most certainly would put the app on the blockchain. And I think it's a reasonable minimum viable product for an app that has already compared itself to Steem Monsters:
Because he has not yet gotten back to me, I decided to look at 
But I'm not sure there's really anything substantially mind-blowing on steemfleamarket. I don't see any mechanism that uniquely facilitates trade (with or without trustlessness). I see a slightly less elaborate Upvote and Resteem buying mechanism than dstors. I see WordPress integration. I see an attempt to create some kind of Review Process, but that's based on Upvotes and Resteem buying too.
That Review Process in particular is kinda funny to me, actually. Basically, people post "How did I do?" And people reply "You did great!" Then they all upvote each other. Hilarious.
Anyway, check it out. This is the first attempt to implement the steemfleamarket idea:
GIVING AWAY my 4K mirrorless SONY A6500 camera on # STEEMFLEAMARKET - Wherein kaliju personally lists his camera for Upvotes (he got 4.63 SBD, watch the video).
This was the template:
- MAKE A POST DESCRIBING YOUR GIVEAWAY ITEM
- TAG IT WITH # STEEMFLEAMARKET
- SET THE UPVOTE TARGET OF THE INITIAL COST OF THE ITEM
- IF UPVOTES COVER THE COST: SELECT WINNER BASED ON THEIR COMMENT OR RANDOMLY
- IF UPVOTES FAIL TO COVER INITIAL COST: SELECT 9 RANDOM PEOPLE, BASED ON COMMENTS, AND DISTRIBUTE 90% OF THE TOTAL PAYOUT TO THESE PEOPLE.
At the time, this is what they meant by "on the blockchain." Personally, I would word it as "Raffles Funded by the Reward Pool." Is that still on the table for dstors?