I owe the basis of my entrepreneurial career to the knowledge Gary shared with me.
I hope that this article will help accelerate Gary towards his goals in the same way I was by HIS content. Below details what I believe a 23-year-old Gary Vaynerchuk would be doing right now.
Facebook, Twitter, and Google are all under fire for the influence their platforms hold over the thoughts and minds of the world. Many were taken to court for the misuse of their censorship abilities and users' data; it's time for an evolution in this sector.
As the world continues to turn their eyes from Television programming to independently produced internet content on social media, the leaders in this space are under increasing pressure. While traditionally looked at as only forums, social media platforms are now taking on responsibility for everything that is said on their platform and how it is displayed.
Facebook removed almost 800 accounts in October, and Twitter has recently been called in front of Congress for their shadow banning of political accounts. Alex Jones' "Info Wars" was the most prominent example of digital platform's new role as the jury, judge, and executioner of acceptable content on the internet. Even online payment platforms like Paypal and Patreon were pressured to join in on completely banning the media publisher.
Clearly, having to be held accountable for all the actions of their users, as well as their data, is a massive weakness of the current social media and digital payment giants.
This of-course represents a massive liability regarding their revenue model, which relays on advertisers. The revenue from these not only fund the platforms (although many are still barely profitable) but incentivizes their content producers as well. If the content is not being carefully watched, advertisers might have their ads displayed on inappropriate and hateful videos, which would reflect poorly on them.
As platforms like Facebook start holding more and more personal information, failures to protect that data carries increasing liability that may result in court cases and legal fees.
To review: the main weaknesses of the current social media/content/payment platforms include:
Responsibility for user activity, requiring expenses of curators.
Legal and political repercussions from curation/censorship processes and inherent biases
Need for advertisers for revenue and content creator incentives
Liability for all user data collected and stored
What is at the core of all of these problems?
Centralization.
Having an online global ecosystem, where a few companies and therefore, a very few entities control every user's data, their payment methods, and the curation of the information and advertisements they produce and consume is extremely dangerous, not to mention extremely expensive to the platforms.
So what could possibly replace this current model?
Decentralization.
A platform not owned by any corporation, community created and curated
A platform that does not require advertisers to create revenue and entice content creators
A platform that encrypts all user data and stores it in a distributed infrastructure
A platform where the value is directly transferred from the users to the content creators, based on the value they produce.
A platform that does not have a central point of failure.
Enter Steem.
On March 24th, 2016, Dan Larimer's groundbreaking blockchain based cryptocurrency platform launched.
You may know Dan best from the project he founded immediately after Steem, EOS, which raised $4 Billion in its ICO.
Steem has gone on to be the most used blockchain, having processed more transactions than any other chain to date.
In 2 years it has gained over a million users and consistently ranks within the top 3000 visited websites in the United States.
So what is Steem? Long story short, it is a platform which is run by 20 community elected "witnesses." This is probably the most established blockchain based democracies in existence. These 20 witnesses decide what direction they want the platform to go, and what updates to make to the open source code. If any witness does not seem to be pulling his weight or contributing to the platform, he will be quickly replaced by one of the hundred competitors jockeying for his spot, and Steem blockchain provided a salary of witness block rewards.
Instead of relying on advertisements to provide revenue, Steem produces it's own value directly through the attention the content posted on the platform generates.
How does it do this? Through a system known as delegated proof of stake (DPOS).
While Bitcoin's value is created through proof of work (POW), which rewards based on hardware computing power (or work) contributed by a "miner", Steem rewards market participants based on the delegated value of other's stake in the system (how much Steem they hold, how much they help curate the system, and how much valuable content they produce, and therefore the stake they have in the community).
By providing a digital asset that can be traded on the open market, Steem essentially skips the need for a traditional IPO (initial public offering), and immediately allowed the free market to decide the value that the platform creates.
Steem is also unique as it offers a particular type of insurance that content creators will be rewarded. It does this by providing an additional token to STEEM, SMD (Steem backed dollars). This token makes up 50% of the rewards a poster receives for its content and can be traded back to the Steem blockchain itself for a dollar's worth of STEEM. These rewards are earned exclusively through user upvotes on the material. Each user's upvote value is based on the amount of STEEM they have "powered up" or staked. These upvotes are not a direct transfer of money from the upvoter to the creator as it is with Patreon, Paypal, or Youtube super chat donations, instead it is merely the user delegating where the new Steem created by the blockchain every day is distributed.
The delegated proof of stake method also allows a much more productive way of turning capital into influence, where traditional platforms have brands pay for "promoted" content, Steem has brands invest in the platform itself. By investing in and staking Steem, brands acquire a tremendous amount of influence on the platform, as their investment is reflected in the ability to upvote and therefore provide monetary value to the community that it interacts with it.\nIf a brand has the ability to give 5 dollars to the best 100 comments on every post, best believe there will be a considerable incentive to interact with their content (as they can upvote their comments).
What all of this back-end functionality creates is a social media platform with 0 traditional ads, funded 100% by the value it creates and the user attention it attracts. Free from censorship (thanks to the immutability of the blockchain), with all user data stored in an encrypted and distributed nature, making it extremely difficult to hack and misuse. A platform where content creators are rewarded directly by the value they create for their users, based on their audience's judgment. A platform where brands can attract eyeballs through direct investment in the platform and can incentivize users to interact with their content directly with monetary value.
Ok, so if this platform is so superior to the traditional model for online social media platforms, why hasn't it taken off yet?
Well, mainly a combination of the public's crypto learning curve, and the main Steemit.com blog-centric interface.
The upcoming SMT (smart media token) protocol update will solve both of those problems, and lead to a powerful economic incentive for the adoption of the platform.
While Steemit.com focuses on providing blog posts, the most popular platforms today focus on richer content sharing.
Pictures, video, and full user profiles and interest groups are the bread and butter of the current juggernauts.
Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube provide these services, does Steem offer any direct competition? Yes actually, and with SMT's they will be allowed to raise millions for their development and truly take dominance.
Existing Steem blockchain based platforms that have been created without the capital injections of their own token offerings include Steepshot, Somee, and Dtube.
Steepshot: Instagram 2.0
Steepshot is pretty self-explanatory, it is an Instagram clone. A clone with no ads, no Facebook goons selling your data, and direct monetization of your images via likes.
Imagine the kind of disruption of the influencer economy when a girl with 100,000 followers doesn't need to constantly shill fit tea and other trinkets to make a living. All of those thousands of likes will all hold a small monetary value, allowing insta-models an insanely lucrative way to be rewarded for the attention they attract. No more Zuckerberg middleman taking in all the ad revenue created from those oogling eyeballs, no, finally content creators will be directly paid for the value they create.
SoMee: Facebook for 2019
Again, I think the concept is pretty easy to grasp here. Anyone who has a company Facebook page, or has tried their hand at any kind of advertising on the platform knows that monetizing a community is much harder than it used to be. Even accounts with thousands of members do not have direct access to their audience, with most posts not even directly showing up on member's feeds. You have to pay to advertise to the people you have already gotten to follow your page.
Imagine those same groups, not only with direct access to their members but with direct monetization on each of their posts. Then calculate the fact that due to the nature of the blockchain, the rampant censorship, shadow banning and account deletion of the centralized Facebook team will not be possible. These disenfranchised FB groups will have somewhere to congregate.
DTube: Youtube's Worst Nightmare
So yeah, like the rest, Dtube is ad-free, censorship-free, and direct monetization rich. One of Youtube's biggest stars, Logan Paul met with much blowback recently after he filmed an offensive episode in Japan. Regardless of what you think about that event, I think we can all agree a young man should be allowed to make a few mistakes. Youtube, however, doesn't seem to agree, as they only pay him around 500 dollars per one MILLION views. Youtube is happy to take in the ad revenue generated by his work but is free to give him fractions of pennies on the dollar. This situation has been repeated with many other popular accounts ranging from edgy comedy to independent news channels.
Imagine if Logan was getting direct value from his 18 Million Youtube subscribers. The incentive for him to join the platform is clear, and if a few other disenfranchised influencers join him, the shift in power in the online media space would be intense.
The table has been set.
The kindling has been laid.
The time for the next digital revolution is upon us. I was inspired to write this post while sitting in Gary V's NYC office a few months ago while thinking about how he knew to invest in Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
I think the answer is depth of vision; you need to be able to see things not for what they are, but for what they are becoming. Gary was bold enough to call the coming of Internet 2.0; it is my hope that he will read this article and consider the case I've laid for Internet 3.0.
Thanks for everything Gary, your content changed my mindset, and your eBay flip challenge got me to earn the money for my first two Bitcoin in March of last year. That investment enabled me to quit my desk job and travel the country working on my blockchain projects. I hope this article leads to at least equal value created for you and your audience.
I know your hustler audience would benefit massively from the Steem platform Gary, I hope you will consider trying it out.
Peace, Love, Anarchy,
