Blockchain technology is extremely capable of lowering barriers to entry for a variety of individuals, but the requirement for an email/phone number as well as the length of the account creation process pose serious barriers to entry for many individuals.
The need to have to provide additional information and wait on the account creation process poses a serious threat to the adoption of Steemit and its ability to increase its user base. While there are many individuals who still go through the process to register an account, but many potential users have likely been deterred by the need for information and the length of the process. There are 3rd party registration services such as AnonSteen, which provide a great resource for new and existing users within the Steemit community. While this service makes instant registration possible and anonymous, it comes with a fee that is currently between 10-30 USD depending on payment method. I commend and support Anonsteem for providing a valuable resource that people require, but I believe that the costs associated decrease the probability that a new user would register an account using the service. That is not to say that new users aren't utilizing the service because I'm sure they are, but the costs associated definitely act as a deterring factor for many new individuals. There are changes to the account creation process that being discussed for the next hard fork, but the account creation difficulties still pose serious potential hurtles in the meantime.
I love the idea of third parties creating services to provide a needed and desired service, but charging a price for this service would increase the barriers to entry by nature. The account creation process requires the 'registrar' to fund the new account with the required amount of SteemPower, which is why these third party services need to charge for account creation. I will say again that I absolutely support third party services taking advantage of this opportunity by providing a valuable service, but the costs associated still take away from the fundamental advantages of Graphene based blockchains. One of the biggest advantages of Graphene based networks is that a user doesn't need to 'pay' for interacting with the network, but rather must posses a sufficient amount of stake in the platform in order to utilize platform resources. Having done a bit of thinking and research into potential alternatives for lowering the barrier to entry before changes are implemented in the next hardfork, I think a realistic solution could be implemented that could prove to be beneficial for new users and stakeholders alike.
Instead of charging new users upon account creation, what if a faucet could simply ask for a donation once the user earns on the platform?
While users who are already on the platform and are simply looking to acquire numerous accounts could likely pay the donation when they get the account, having the ability to not need to charge new users upon initial signup could prove to be a very big bonus. A service like this could be implemented in a way in which it would be able to offer incentives to stakeholders and individuals who would be interested in funding the account creation 'fund.' Let's say that the account wanted to have the initial balance of 1000 Steem for account creation. The funds could be 'invested' by stakeholders, and they would receive a portion of the total donations based upon the amount of the Steem they sent the account. If an individual sent 100 Steem to the account creation funding account, then they would be entitled to 10% of the total donations that the service receives from the initial account balance. This type of service really seems like it could be realistic, and could really be a huge service to the platform as a whole.
Increased numbers of users has a very positive benefit on the Steemit platform, and therefore should be in the interests of all stakeholders and users of the platform. This could not only prove to be a method of decreasing the barriers to joining the Steemit platform, but could also be a lucrative chance for stakeholders to benefit the platform as well as have the potential to receive return on their investments. From what I have been able to find so far the account creation process seems very achievable from a technical perspective, and seems like it would actually be practical to implement. While one of the major concerns originally would surround the number of users that actually donated, I feel as though enough new users would if they continued to use the platform, and many of the users registering a secondary account would likely pay at the time of creation. The donation amount would be higher than the account creation fee because it's not realistic to assume that all users would donate, and individuals who invested their stake into the account creation fund should have some faith that they will receive their original investment back.
All stakeholders and users should have the desire to increase Steemit's adoption, and this could prove to be a valuable opportunity to handle a major problem facing the platform.
The idea of crowd sourcing the account creation pool from the community would likely bring more attention and interest to the service, and give investors a method to invest their Steem in avenues other than SteemPower. The ability for new users to be able to easily and quickly register a new account is vital to Steemit's ability to gain more users, and the barriers to entry for the account creation process are likely having a very large impact over the rate of new users on the platform. While the platform will be implementing changes to the account creation process in the future, the current situation could prove to have a large impact over the adoption and growth of Steemit into the future. This is not to say anything negative about the platform because I truly believe the Steemit platform has so much room to grow and will become 'mainstream' in the future, but the current registration process is undoubtedly holding Steemit back.
While the need for an email address/ phone number may be highly undesirable to many users, it does give less sophisticated or confident users the ability to use their email as a means of account recovery. Establishing an account through a faucet would have no means of account recovery, which would obviously be emphasized during the process. Account recovery may be important for some users, but I assume that the vast majority of users have confidence in their ability to save their passwords and keys accordingly. The account permissions of the funding account would be distributed over a number of trusted users, in order to ensure that the community trusts the service. I believe that the community as a whole could incentive individuals to donate once they have adequate funds, because not donating would likely prove that the user shouldn't necessarily be trusted. I really think that if the requested donation was 2-3 times more than the costs off account creation, the project would be able to receive more than adequate donations in return.
While asking for donations does still pose a barrier to account creation, the ease and simplicity of signing up would be made much easier and more cost effective. The costs of account creation could likely prove to be very much worth the extra value that additional users generate in the long term. All stakeholders and users should do everything that they can and desire to promote the long term adoption of Steemit, and I think that this could prove to be a realistic and achievable method for many members of the community to come together to help to achieve. Like I said, right now this is simply an idea, but the concept will become more concrete over the following days and weeks. I would really appreciate any feedback or views that anyone may have on this type of faucet.
I hope that you enjoyed this post, and I urge you to leave any opinions, views, comments, questions, ect. below! Thanks for reading!