I have been following EOS since its inception and am very excited about this project. The community just keeps on growing the closer we get to booting the main net.
I myself am interested in supporting the network and becoming a block producer (BP) but when seeing all the effort that is being made by others I just stay on the sidelines.
And this brings me to my point. BP candidates.
When I thought of becoming a BP I thought, great, I would start out using an online service like AWS to get a feel of what the network needs to run and function and as the returns start coming in then upgrade and buy the necessary equipment and set up a few servers in Malta. Give a reliable long term service and be grateful to the community for voting for me to provide such a good service. Don't get me wrong I do appreciate all the community focused projects BPs are coming up with and if the money is good enough to cover expenses and allow to do this full time I would do the same but I want to be behind the infrastructure and not doing interviews with EOSGo, love your work by the way, and others to campaign.
And what really gets to me is when I hear block producers stating "Since we have the power", "We have power on the EOS BC" and the sorts just gives me bad vibes and makes me wonder if these people really understand what having a decentralized block chain really is. Especially with what is built into EOS.
Think about Bitcoin. The end user is powerless against the miners, though some may state otherwise. And generally speaking so are the smaller miners. The direction taken by a few moves the progress of the BC to certain directions.
With EOS this is different, at least in my understanding. A BP is not guaranteed a mining spot indefinitely and each and every EOS token holder can elect a different producer every 2 mins and 06 seconds (if I am not mistaken). So wait, BPs don't really have any real power, only a duty. That duty is running the BC for 126 seconds be grateful for the opportunity.
I do feel that we could have BPs who blind people with nice words and good marketing tactics in order to get votes. Now this is not bad if your think about but brings along an issue. That marketing will cost money. Money which would be better spent by smaller BPs to bring their equipment up to a level which is viable for them to also become a reliable BP.
Wouldn't it be interesting if a BP could not be a BP (one of the 21 delegates) for more than a certain value dependent on the number of viable BPs proportion at the time.
So as a very vague but hopefully clearer example. To my understanding the current system works as follows. Currently : Given there are 10000 BPs. Out of these the top 21 are picked by way of voting as the delegated BPs (DBP). They do a good job, the community is happy and they are voted in again. The scenario continues and these same BPs keep getting voted in. And this is a possible scenario in EOS.
So the inflation rate (block reward) is given to these BPs. They keep upgrading their equipment and doing their job well. All well and good. But what about the other 9979? If the others are great BPs but lack the marketing skill then they will never be voted in. You could say, well their loss, but I would say it's our loss. As these BPs keep getting voted in they will continue to grow, team and infrastructure, and the gap between the DBPs and the 9979 will continue to grow. This scares me a bit since it seems to be making whoever comes out on top even bigger and making the barrier of entry greater day by day, week by week.
What if we could, as in the EOS DPOS could, include a cooling off period for BPs dependant on how many eligible BPs are available. So there are (24 x 60 x 60) / 206 = approx 419 BP slots per day. Each BP slot contains 21 BPs 419 x 21 = 8799 BPs needed per day. So technically nearly every BP could get a chance to be part of the delegates. Now granted most BPs will probably not be sufficient at being a BP you would want to run the network but then again that is why there is voting. If a BP could not run for more than 1 turn every 5 slots for example this would multiply the number of paid and growing BPs by 5. And if all spend their money into infrastructure then the network would be much stronger and collusion less likely.
The only reason I think of these things is purely due to watching the BP interviews and the feeling that people are just looking to grab that pole position to being the BP that everyone votes for. Reminds me of election time when any party will say anything to be put in power.
And please do not think I am talking down or ill of the BP candidates. I think the work they are doing is really good both for the network to get started and also for getting the word out that EOS is amazing. It is more that it is not the way I imagined it to be. I didn't think there would be ever growing factions looking to recruit people and give back to their community. I more imagined it to be everyone pitching into EOS rather then people pitching into corporations (the BPs not DACs who are looking to making EOS better) to pitch into EOS.
Maybe it will be more of a wait and see approach and I am sure that the community will be able to sort out any issues along the way through voting.
Note: Keep up all the good work to all those making this happen. EOS + Blockone, BP candidates, Dapp producers, Youtubers ecc. Can't wait for the launch. GO EOS :)
Tell me your thoughts on the topic. Do you agree, disagree, have a different idea on how this should work?