A few weeks ago, 
However, as these are light accounts that are essentially owned by the issuing application, that value could be withheld by the application or the earnings they attract split to cover costs of the application.
For example, a user could be given a free account immediately loaded with 50 SP worth of Resource credits and they can start posting. Whatever it earns could be split 50/50 between user/application with the user side going toward the purchase of the account, at which point the user gets a full account wallet with keys and from then on, all earnings are their own. Because the light account is firstly owned by the issuing application, behavior of the account can be somewhat controlled including the learning required to get the most out of account ownership.
There are several ways to do this but, what this could allow is that an application can "recycle" accounts by using some kind of unique identifier that allows one account to be leveraged by many users where they take control of it on login, and lose control on logout. The tracking of the identifier could provide a name that the a future owned account would hold but, it would come with a logo of some kind that says that it is not owned yet, but on hold. There are many technical ways to implement this that the devs can work on but, it means fewer accounts are needed and many fewer will be burned in churn.
What this does is create a differentiation between User and Owner level accounts and this is something that needs to be considered when looking at the value of something. Too cheap, too easy to get and - there is very little personal value in it but once there is a cost involved, thoughts of exclusivity come into play, something I have talked about often enough before.
Steem shouldn't be all inclusive for earnings, but it should always be all inclusive for potential earnings. The reason is that when it comes to an economy, value has to be added in order for value to be extracted, something that Proof-of-Brain (PoB) was meant to address, but so far has done so poorly. The reason it has failed thus far is because the will to extract value trumps the will to add value to the ecosystem. If this was a business, it would have failed long ago as owners who do not build value before taking it kill their business in its infancy.
Many of the early adopters here have spent their time extracting value and discounting the worth of Steem because it was just so easy for them to get. Those who have built their way up in the harder ways and actually bought into Steem, generally have a longer view and because there was a personal cost to participation, value the experience more.
Splitting Free and Premium user and giving perks to premium ownership (like earnings) means that all new users have a zero barrier of entry for participation, but an incentive and are encouraged to own. Because many will work toward ownership rather than spend a few dollars to buy, they may get more connected to the interaction and usage without focusing on the ownership.
However, they will also see the potential of owning on the platform and are more likel to spend a bit to upgrade to premium, a one-time cost. Those that upgrade could also be provided the incentive of having the starting RCs stick with their account for as long as required or over a time period, so they can keep acting open the chain the same even if they only have the few Steem for ownership in their account. Those RCs are a privilege though, not a right and the application will own them (or rent them from the pools).
Speaking of, this also gives a rent basis for Resource Credits as an application could rent the Resource credits they need and instead of paying directly, the 50% they take from light account earnings could be used to pay for the RC rent. this could come in the form of SMTs remember, so delegators of RCs might want to pick and choose to which projects they rent RCs.
While I haven't thought about all the possibilities, the combination of SMTs, Communities and Light accounts opens up a great deal of innovation avenues that can be used to attract and encourage users. Including anyone who wants to participate, but creating differentiation in experience through light and premium means that there can be a great deal more interaction without opening any of the reward pools up to the types of abuse we have seen through Steem delegations.
The goals we need to balance are:
- creating an attractive place for consumers which will come through unique frontends and innovation
- places where contributors have the tools to empower their creativity and build their audience
- a n application-neutral platform environment that makes it easy to develop on and integrate into
- an economics powered ecosystem that makes it an attractive place to invest and earn on
In my view, these things are the pillars of Steem and while hard to find an adequate equilibrium point with the current range of users, distribution of stake, tools available and mindset - the more people we can attract in to participate across the four, the greater the stability becomes.
What I am currently seeing is there is dumb stake looking to maximize themselves (for three years) and smart stake looking to maximize the Steem experience for users at all levels. The argument on what adds value is going to always be present because that is present in every economic system, but we are slowly pivoting into #newsteem through a shifting mindset of what Steem is.
With the coming communities, the different players can separate and focus their attention on what they believe has value and in so doing, become organized but still distributed nodes, all working toward what they consider a better Steem. The funny thing about Steem is that it is these decentralized and differing views that give the blockchain strength and utility for building ownership through developing experience.
Steem is the underlying protocol that enables the experiences above and it is currently like the internet before all of the layers of websites and tools were built upon it. The internet before the now 4-billion users had a place to connect their lives digitally. Steem can be the application layer on the internet that returns ownership to digital life.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]