Everyone is calling HF20 pay to play, and nothing could be farther from the truth. Granted, most of the outrage and apocalyptic gloom and doom has settled now that the cost of comments has been brought to a reasonable level, but wasn't that obviously going to be the case?
The heinous HF20 transition really brought out the worst in people. It is yet another reminder that we've been conditioned to have a tempter tantrum if we fail to receive instant gratification. Have you ever heard the expression "watching the grass grow"? Those days are dead. If the grass doesn't grow in the next five minutes I'm not interested.
Pay To Play
The concept of pay to play is simple. You are paying someone to use their service. Even if the service is technically free many users who want more are forced to pay. This tactic is known as Pay To Win, and it's not hard to see why Steemians would make the mistake of assuming that HF20 is a big step forward in the Pay To Win direction.
There's only one problem: Resource Credits are still free. Could you imagine playing a game, paying for a resource, spending it, but still having a more valuable commodity left in your possession afterwards? Steem coins are this commodity. How can it possibly be pay to play if you haven't lost any money?
How much are we willing to spend on a video game anyway? Like $60. Anyone who spends that much on Steem right now will have more than enough RCs to interact. More importantly, those coins belong to them for as long as they choose.
Cost of decentralization.
Why do we assume that posting information to the blockchain (FOREVER) should be free in the first place? Because that's how traditional social media operates? That stance implies you'd rather let a corporation monetize your identity than pay a little bit to own your data. It is ironically a mindset born from both entitlement and scarcity at the same time.
Why would you sell your online identity to a corporation for less than it's worth? Because you don't have the means to monetize it like they can. It was worthless to you, so you gave it away for a free profile. Well, my friend, those days are coming to an end. Crypto allows us to own ourselves. Soon™.
Decentralization is highly inefficient. Expecting to pay nothing for a service that uses a lot of resources shows a complete lack of understanding concerning what this sphere is all about. Every node in the network has to validate the blockchain to ensure that it is kept immutable and abides the rules at all times.
The only reasons this inefficiency is even possible are due to the exponential gains we see in technology combined with the fact that only simple text is stored on the blockchain. Text is Cheap. Imagine how much Youtube would cost to run if they had 100 copies running all at once.
Resource Pools
I read that the lead developer at Steemit Inc wants to create an object called a resource pool. So, not only will we be allowed to delegate RCs separately from SP, we can also delegate it to a pool that multiple users can draw from. I'm not even a dolphin and I still have enough stake to let like 30 people post as much as they want to at these prices.
Here's how it would work:
I could create a resource pool with 1000 mana in it and let 10 users in. If i gave each user 10% access to the pool this would be the same as delegating them all 100 mana separately. However, I could give them all 50% or even 100% access to the pool. This would allow all of them to post as much as they wanted until the entire pool was depleted.
It is with this new pooling model that we see the whole pay to play argument completely disappear. Instead, everyone with stake gets to pick and choose who they think will bring the platform the most value, and act accordingly. If someone is abusing your pool you can limit their access or completely remove them altogether.
This is a proof-of brain mechanic that will reduce spam, allow us to scale, and prevent waste. We clearly have the resources to onboard millions of users for free. Once those users acquire some stake we can onboard millions more all over again.
Conclusion
HF20 is primed to become a huge blessing in disguise for this platform. Out of thin air, an entirely new proof-of-brain resource has been created, and we all receive it for "free". There is no reason to complain about this new system. It will only benefit us in the long run. The botched implementation was a very small price to pay for this gift.