What feels like a million years ago, I joined Steem with zero understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and while I had heard of Bitcoin and even considered buying some back in about 2012 or so, the hurdle that stopped me was, I had no idea what I was doing. Funny isn't it? In a comment today, 
He has come here, earned crypto and traded crypto for fiat, something that less than 1% of the world has done and for me, I still haven't traded anything into fiat myself, another thing to learn... perhaps. While
One of the things I recognized very early in my time on Steem is the massive advantage it has in training people for crypto usage and it becomes a natural progression that is forced by the design. While anyone can join up on Steem and earn crypto, it quickly pushes the learning needed to use it for various purposes either on platform or off and, it has a great deal of support both through posts and members of the community in comments or chats.
This very low barrier of entry to earn crypto and the comparitively soft start with little risk into the world of trading, is going to be a huge competitive advantage as the normies come into the cryptosphere. The more Steem is able to simplify the process of not only onboarding onto Steem but facilitating the steps between, the faster Steem will spread as one of the main issues with most of the projects out there is complication.
Considering that the social interaction of Steem is going to be a major drawcard that brings in people outside of the tech circles, lowering the technical barriers to using the currency will get them up to speed and will also teach them the basics like security and protection, something that most on the centralized platforms don't spend much time thinking about.
What people tend to forget here is that anyone who has earned some Steem has done what most people in this world don't even know is possible. Once they do realise it is happening though, there will be an increasing flow of people in and the projects that are able to reduce the technical barriers of entry and offer support along the path are the ones that are going to be most successful at attracting and retaining users.
So far, most of the development is around the technical application and even the development aimed at simplification is still quite complicated for the average user coming in from platforms that do it all for them.While not all simplification is possible, the more applications and Steem infrastructure can handle various aspects of the process without each user having to run to a dozen different applications, the better the user experience becomes.
While it is great that there is the chance to take responsibility for the self and control back of various aspects of life, the reality is that going full decentralized for most average people is going to set up hurdles that they just won't choose to overcome. Mainstreaming requires setting up systems for the masses and if they have to learn too much, the masses will go or stay elsewhere.
What I think could happen is that while the soft start can be achieved, once in, people will slowly spiral their learning up to include more and more decentralized thinking which will mean they will increasingly push toward autonomy of action. Many will learn about security, recovery and of course, the best ways and places to trade without having to risk Googling it and hoping they aren't getting scammed.
This is anther benefit of having a community in Steem. Even though crypto and blockchain is about trustless transactions, humans still like to have human interaction and Steem offers that in various ways and still has a word of mouth trust system and, the way people interact with each other still drives a reputation position, even if the numerical number on the platform is broken.
What developers and applications should be aiming for is to continually lower the learning curve required in getting up and running and nudging users toward behaviors that will benefit them as the easier and more beneficial the ecosystem becomes, the faster uptake and distribution happens. We have a long way to go in this area but we can see that it is slowly happening as there is more and more collaboration between the technical and the social designers. This way, the UI can be powered by the infrastructure to offer a compelling and enjoyable user experience.
It all takes time to get the various formulas right of course but, we are getting there, block by block. All of us here now are well ahead of the learning curve and, the vast majority of the pack don't even know they are lagging behind us yet, most don't even know we exist.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
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