HF20 Still Looking Good

It seems things are going better already on the steemit platform. A lot of the initial panic has subsided and despite some declaring this hardfork to be a total disaster, we're still here, posting as usual and seeing the actual VP and RC cost getting back to normal.

It was a minor shock, it has to be admitted, to see the Resource Credits drop to nearly 0% after making only 1 post after the hardfork a couple of days ago. If it weren't for the information I gained by listening to the discussions on Discord, and the witnesses active there constantly explaining what's happening, I think I would have stayed worried a lot longer. As it was, it was made clear very fast to me that this was all part of the transfer to a better way to calculate costs of interaction on the blockchain, and that the system would be re-balancing while VP and RC regenerate.

But it must be said that communication could have been done better: the impact this temporary halt on many users' ability to post, vote or even transact had on a majority of steemians is testament to that. And as a result of "the public" not being informed as well as they could have been, a lot of FUD has apparently been spread. As much as I don't like that, I can understand it very well. I realize also that it's easy for me to talk, but I know there's a lot of fellow steemians who are not so fortunate and depend on the small income they're able to generate on our beloved platform.

Also I've witnessed a strong sense of community during these past few days, and I want to stress that a lot of your witnesses are doing very good work, even if this hardfork could have been implemented so much better. In the Hive account@helpie Discord channel Hive account@meno and Hive account@crimsonclad were constantly giving extensive updates and repeated the same answers again and again as they kept coming in, and today our meeting was all about the hardfork. As far as the negative aspects are concerned, there was pretty much consensus on two major faults.

First point of criticism was that this hardfork tried to do too much at once. It's easy to judge with hindsight of course, but Hive account@meno explained very clearly why software development normally takes small steps, because any bugs can be fixed soon and easy that way; rather take multiple small steps than one large step. Second point was worded eloquently by Hive account@ancientknowled3, as he made clear that the lack of communication and the resulting unrest and FUD could very well have damaged the image of the platform. It is good to have these discussions as no one can claim that the implementation of this hardfork was a success.

From where I'm sitting though, things are looking good for the immediate to mid-term future. First let me show you the result of the latest patch as pointed out to me by Hive account@themarkymark. I made a screenshot on steemd.com before and after upvoting and commenting on a post:

As you can see, costs for interaction have dropped drastically already it seems. Now, this could go up and down a little still, as the blockchain is performing price-discovery while adjusting to people starting to use the platform in a more normal way again. That would be my advice also; start picking up your normal routine again, while keeping an eye on those two bars for the time being. But with RC costs as seen in the screenshot, even making small corrections to posts should be fairly painless again shortly :-) The main thing to realize is that in essence nothing major has changed, as there have always been costs attached to posting, commenting, voting and transacting on the blockchain, they were only named differently: "bandwidth" has been replaced by RC and many steemians have misinterpreted these Resource Credits as something new. It's not, it's just bandwidth calculated differently.

An important thing to understand is that it's necessary to make posts and comments costly to a degree: the blockchain would be bloated with spam, shit-posts and shit-comments, by bots and people coming for a quick profit, in no time if there weren't costs attached to it. No normal human being, as Hive account@helpie's Hive account@meno said during our meeting tonight, will complain if he or she isn't able to make 1000 comments per day. Bots would complain. Now it's just a matter of finding a balance, let real usage by steemians and re-balancing of the blockchain determine what's a reasonable amount of comments to make in what time frame, so we can combat the bots and spam-commenters without constraining humans in their ability to post and comment.

Another positive thing to remember is that when we've endured this little storm, we've also made the first steps to eventually implement SMT's in the first half of next year. The steem blockchain will then become the backbone upon which many DApps will run, comparable to what EOS is trying to do. The difference here is that steem has already proven to be able to handle that, with Steemit, DTube and Steem Monsters being a couple of examples. With DApps having their own tokens, running on the steem blockchain, price discovery will be more targeted and focused on specific content-types. Many of the current changes and the coming hardforks (yes, there will be more soon), are to make this possible.

It was sad for me to learn today how much unrest this hardfork has caused, and also surprised to be honest. I knew there would be some discontent aired, but not so much; I was lucky enough to be surrounded by knowledgeable people and hard working witnesses I guess. And I hope the screenshots can take away the worse of any concerns that may remain. I'm not saying everything will be smooth running from now on; I can't predict what'll happen. But I do say that the steemit community has once again showed it's resilience and flexibility. A lot has been learned by the way this hardfork went down, at least that's the feeling I get when listening to the witnesses in Discord. Some of them are really in it with their hearts and souls and do so much work to make the platform a better place for everyone.

If you haven't yet, I would like to invite you to vote for some of the witnesses you trust. A much overlooked feature is the possibility to let another steemian you trust do the voting for you. If you go to the witness voting page, all the way at the bottom, you can set a proxy; insert the username of a fellow steemian and you'll copy his or her witness-votes. If you're fairly new and / or don't know any witnesses yourself, this can be a good way to do your part to make sure we keep enough committed people working on the blockchain's future and growth.

Whatever you do though, make sure Hive account@helpie gets your vote! ;-) Also Hive account@themarkymark and Hive account@followbtcnews (Hive account@crimsonclad) were literally everywhere answering everyone's questions about the changes, and deserve every vote they get.

I thank you for your endurance and your visit to my blog :-) I will be back tomorrow and hope you will be too. Until then, keep steeming!