Steem vs. Hive - A Quest for New Governance Approaches? (Research Project - Call for Participation)
Blockchain-based social media platforms emerged as a push for decentralized governance, in response to growing skepticism towards centralized social media corporations.
Steem, a leading blockchain-based social media platform, has recently been taken over in an attempt to centralize control. The disempowered witnesses responded promptly with a hard fork - Hive - in an attempt to re-establish the previous governance model.
We, a group of researchers interested in how social media can be governed, want to find out what is really going on in this quest for new governance approaches. We want to hear both sides, Steemers and Hivers. We want to find out:
• Steemers: What was the motivation for taking over Steem's witness nodes?
• Hivers: What was the motivation for the Hive hard fork?
• Everyone: How exactly was the takeover / the hard fork carried out? Why was this possible to occur in the first place? Could this happen again in the future? How do you think will the situation evolve?
• Witnesses on both sides: What is your vision for the governance of Steem / Hive? How do you intend to achieve this vision?
• Users on both sides: Which platform do you intend to use onwards (Steem, Hive, or both), and why?
The aim of this research is to identify new governance approaches for social media and aggregate them into a comprehensive framework. The results of this research will be published in reports and academic publications and made available to everyone. We hope that this will inspire further research and development on social media governance in general and blockchain-based social media platforms in particular. Examples of our already published research on Steem can be here and here.
You can support this research by sharing your view on "Steem vs Hive" in two ways:
- Sign up for a one-hour interview with us. First, select a time slot via this Doodle form: Interview Timeslots. Second, let us know how to contact you via this Google form: Contact Information. All responses will be kept anonymously.
OR - Respond to the above questions in written, either via the comment section below or (anonymously) via this Google form: Written Responses.
We want to seek out a broad sample of different views on this issue, so everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion in the comment section. For the interviews, being more time-consuming, we are especially interested in talking to members who are actively involved in co-shaping the evolution of the governance approach on both sides.
#steem #hive #steemvshive #hiveisalive #governance #research
(apologies for cross-posting this on Steem and Hive)
It's fine to cross post it here, nobody is reading Steem lol. Also, half of those so called Steem Witnesses are sock puppet accounts.
Thanks for your reply and your helpful comments on Discord :)
The list of users in this post should just be ignored by anyone replying. We all know from the first glance it's wrong.
For community disclosure, I'm answering these questions to the best of my ability on Discord.
Thank you for your feedback and the insightful comments provided @guiltyparties
I edited out the list of users, since it was not central to the points anyway and just seemed to distract some readers.
Basically, our aim is to hear the arguments of both sides on this contested issue, in order to come up with our own synthesis of what is going on.
I have answered this on Steem as that's where twitter sent me.
Here are my responses:
It was in part a response because the Steem witnesses made a move to prevent such a takeover by temporarily stopping certain accounts from making transactions. There is speculation, fueled by public statements made by the new owning entity, that the entity had intentions to assimilate Steem with another cryptocurrency.
It solved the immediate problem of being under control of a single entity. It also solved the problem of the Genisis stake which was promised to never be used in governance. Essentially decreasing the threat of a centrally managed governance.
You seem to ask this question from the standpoint of someone who doesn't quite understand the Steem/Hive blockchain, so I have answered it as such. I mean know offense if you know all of this already.
I think to answer this question you first have to understand the so called "ninja mined" or "Genesis" stake. I attempted to explain it in the following:
A:I made a coin which is governed by those who own the coins.
B:Who owns the coins?
A:I do. Wanna buy some?
B:I can't buy enough to govern
A:I promise that if you buy, I won't use my coins for governance.
B:OK, give me 5%
A:agreed.
A: I sold myself to C
A: I govern your coins
Basically, the creators of Steem mined a large portion of the Steem before anybody knew what it was. This stake was owned under the corporation of Steemit inc. The way the system is set up, each token has the some influence on governance. Therefore having such a large stake essentially gives you control or at least great influence into the code which supports the token. There is a twist though. In order to use your tokens to influence governance, you have to agree to lock it up for 13 weeks. This is called powering up.
Now, the actual takeover happened because Steemit Inc. (with their tokens frozen) was able to convince 3 exchanges to power up their customers funds and put them in power. They did not seem to know that this would lock up their customers funds for 13 weeks. Their customers were not involved in this decision.
This could theoretically happen again on either chain, but Hive has mitigated it by requiring that funds be powered up for 30 days before they can be used for voting. Also, since the Genisis stake is now dedicated towards development, any new "threat" would have to be purchased on the open market.
Not a witness, but I would like to see more of a push towards decentralization and mitigations for some of the privileges of stake, especially on the social side of the things. Right now, investors with little desire to interact with the social media side of the blockchain are more or less forced to do so in order to gain a share of the reward pool. This leads to actions which are sometimes contrary to the content platform which many people regard these blockchains to be.
For me, it's both with a greater focus on Hive. Hive because I like the vibe and feel that there is a greater chance for decentralization which enables me to have greater influence (albeit still miniscule) over the governance of the chain.
Steem because a lot of my friends are still here and I still want to support them. There is also a nostalgic pull as I have "grown up" there in a sense.
Thank you so much for your helpful comments, @moeknows! I appreciate your support for this study.
I read your replies carefully and would love to hear more about that. Below are a couple of follow-up questions. You can also reply to those in Discord (username: raci#0278) if you were more comfortable doing that.
Which public statements are you referencing here? Can you provide the source?
What do you think will be the long-term implication of this? How will this affect governance (who owns and controls resources on the platform)? How will this affect user behavior (how content is created and curated)?
Isn't there is still a considerable risk of collusion inherent to the DPOS mechanism when stakeholders with a disproportionate stake collusion? Especially given the skewed wealth distribution on Steem (and hence, Hive)?
What could be some potential downsides of decentralization? From your perspective, is more decentralization always better, or is there a valid case to be made for more centralization on the platform?
So, it seems that users will have to choose between greater decentralization (and hence, participation in the governance) in Hive and social and emotional capital they have already built up on Steem. Which of the two do you think will matter more to you (and for users in general) in the long term?
Also, how would your choice be impacted if one of the two platforms (or both) turned out to not be economically sustainable?
Thank you again for your help so far, and any further help would be greatly appreciated. :)
There were several tweets and articles. They have all been deleted as far as I know. This post does a great job of documenting some of the statements like "Your Steem token will turn into nothing" if you don't do a token swap in time. There were also other circumstances such as the Tron Genesis voting issue which indicated that they had the will to make use of any new found power regardless of past promises.
I think it is a very interesting situation. One thing I forgot to mention is that it will also fund Hive's proposal system. In this system, proposals for projects on Hive are submitted and voted on by members on the blockchain I would suspect that this would lead to greater incentives for developers to want to focus on Hive. It will also allow users to have more influence on what projects and changes get put into new hardforks. I hope that it eventually results changes that the user and content creator community wants to see.
Yes. There is. However, it is to the ultimate benefit of holders if we were able to onboard and retain more people. The more folks that have Hive, the more likely it is to be used in commerce. Therefore, i think there will be considerable pressure on witnesses to implement ideas which are voted on by the community. Of course, the high stake holders can also use their own influence to vote on their own proposals as well.
Well, sometimes bringing about change in a decentralized can be slower than a centralized platform. There is also no central authority to serve as the judge and arbitrator.
The best way to answer this is that freedom holds some certain value in and of itself. Perhaps I can use the metaphor of free speech to illustrate. While at times I may feel that media coverage on a certain subject like mass shootings does more harm than good, I cannot justify taking away the freedom of the media write as they wish. The freedom to report the truth outweighs the harm that may be done by exercising that freedom.
It is important to also remember that all our history was also carried over to Hive. The Steem legacy is also Hive's legacy. Hive is just the next evolution of Steem. Like many, I have made the choice to stay on both chains with a focus on Hive. So I wouldn't necessarily say that I must make a definitive choice between the two. More so, I would say that certain dapps which haven't or won't switch over or build a mirrored service on hive would do more to keep me coming back...that is until a competing service is created over here.
I think in the long term, user experience will win out in the end. From that standpoint, it is always good to have competition. I think Hive will attract more Dapps to be built and hopefully lead to better user experience.
I mean, currently the earnings from either for myself are pretty insignificant yet still worth thousands of times whatever I post on Facebook for free. So my choice would probably not be impacted all that much as along as the community is here to support and as long as there are witness nodes keeping the database alive.
Hi @moeknows thank you so much for your interesting reflections and apologies for responding a bit slow.
Your point on the inherent value of freedom got me thinking whether decentralization, in your view, equals freedom? Social media has an inherent conflict between enabling free speech (often also referred to as the democratization of journalism) and filtering abusive usage (to counter issues such as fake news, manipulation, hate speech, cyberbulling etc.). Steem has traditionally focused on enabling free speech via its censorship resistance while at the same time making it impossible to filter abusive use (at least on the blockchain level, not necessarily on the interface level).
Where do you think do Steem and Hive stand on either side of this spectrum, respectively?
Also, you mentioned the point that the entire history of Steem was carried over to Hive. How do you feel about all your past content still being on a platform you no longer want to be part of?
On a technical level, it wasn’t without flaw. The lack of unique chain_id + use of existing RPC nodes meant that some apps left Steem without realizing it.
I don’t know to what extent this was intentional. But there were justifiable reasons to do this having to do with ease of transition and cost.
And since witnesses / node operators can run whatever software they want, the only reason to raise an eyebrow is the speed that they switched.
If they took more time to allow apps to be informed, it might not have had any adoption impact. But delays would have also opened a vector of attack against the hivefork.
This was not the first time a community split was attempted. But it was the first time a significant number of the community and devs followed.
To some extent, the previous softfork made this possible. Without the turmoil caused by the witnesses who froze 20% of the supply, the exchanges would have never entered the story.
That response was considered but deemed unlikely, by the witnesses who froze the assets.
It created an environment where a viable hivefork would eventually become accepted.
Without the turmoil of the softfork, I don’t see how. To some, the “dev fund” was the linchpin.
I think both chains have viability. Steem might be able to attract people who are not interested in the ideology. Hive has already gotten the attention of people who were frustrated with Steem. I think this dynamic is not a one-time thing. I think Hive can continue to attract people from Steem, on an ongoing basis, even if Steem’s actual account numbers grow faster (e.g. if Tron manages to market “free money”).
Meaning, when one gets frustrated with a chain, they can try the other. That can work in both directions.
Hi there @inertia! Thank you so much for your insightful reflections. Your help is very valuable for the study.
I am intrigued by these points and would love to ask you a couple of follow-up questions, if that's okay. Your response would be greatly appreciated. I would also be gladly available for a chat on Discord, if you prefer.
In retrospect, do you think the communication was appropriate about the fork taking place? How could it have been better communicated to the stakeholders affected, other than delaying it?
That's interesting, can you tell me more about that? Why would a delay of the hardfork have caused a threat?
Is there a trail of evidence of prior forking attempts? I would love to have a look at these.
In retrospect, do you think the softfork was appropriate? And was it appropriate for the counterparty at Steemit Inc to react in the way they did?
Did those witnesses take any precautions to prepare for such a response, or did they simply take the risk? Also, are there publically available sources of their considerations?
So, the Hive witnesses were in a sense united against a common enemy (which was Steemit Inc)?
This sounds like the softfork was the initial cause of the dispute, whereas others have argued that it was a reaction to the dispute. Do you think the intention to centralize control came before the softfork, or after?
Do you think both (or potentially even more) platforms are economically sustainable?
Thank you again for your help and I look forward to hearing from you :)
It could have been better. But I accept that time was of the essence. I think they weighed the risks, as they knew them, and it is what it is.
Just to be clear, I'm referring to the delay between announcing the hardfork and deploying it. I believe they could have remained in the stand-off and delayed announcement for weeks, perhaps months. I don't believe the folks behind the hivefork thought they had weeks or months. And once announced, there we other risks.
Once announced, a greater deployment delay could have allowed the opposition an opportunity to attempt a hardfork of their own, just before the hivefork, which would have muddied the waters. The folks behind the hivefork anticipated this by stating they would fork no matter what the state of consensus was leading to the designated time.
I'm impressed that they took the risk because their other option was a secret (hive) hardfork, which would have looked very bad.
I don't know if they considered just staying in the stand-off and delaying the announcement.
Setting aside the prior attempt(s) at forcing Steemit, Inc. to do one thing or another, there have been several projects that split off to do their own thing (golos, whaleshares, smoke.io, bearshares, viz.world, vox.community, weki, dpays, norestlabs, et. al).
That's what I'm referring to. The community didn't really follow, much less any devs, and no apps that I'm aware of. They all failed to get the kind of attention Hive is getting.
I always through the softfork was inappropriate. But I accept that witnesses can run any software they want on their node. The exact problem I have is when they say they'll run one thing but instead run another. And for a few blocks, they at least ran code without disclosing, until it was announced that they switched.
I understand the nuance that they thought there was an eminent risk. I just don't understand how a 20% stake represented such a risk. It's possible that if they announced their intent, the exchanges would not have entered the story the way they did and a dialog would have opened up. This would have possibly still allowed the Hive team up to 9 additional days of development while these talks were happening.
Steemit, Inc.'s response was also inappropriate. I believe there was a technical response that could have side-stepped the witness-initiated-softfork. Basically, an on-chain solution without needing the exchanges to get involved. Instead, they got the exchanges involved and alienated their own developers who quit in protest.
Not sure. I'm just going by what was said after the fact.
From a staking perspective, yes. And once the exchanges entered, I think it's possible to claim there was even more unity. It also gave them confirmation (bias?) that the softfork was justified.
No, the softfork was a response to a) the sudden transfer of stake from Ned to Justin, b) mentions of a "token swap" which the witnesses perceive as an eminent hardfork by Tron, c) Justin's behavior on the Tron network, where he demonstrated willingness to use Tron founder stake to remove opposition, and d) no dialog from Tron for 9 days, causing the witnesses imagination to run wild.
As for centralized control, if someone has the keys, they have control. The fact that there's so much stake on exchanges is the problem. When there was 100% annual inflation and a two year power-down (where VESTS are protected from that inflation), that alone was a disincentive to keep STEEM on exchanges. What I'm saying is that in a sense, changing the inflation (HF16) unintentionally put the platform at risk.
In the short term, I think both chains will be fine. In the long term, Hive has a fundamentally better economic outlook because the "dev fund" has been locked up. The long term for Steem is a little more uncertain, but no more than it was before the acquisition, in my opinion.
Thank you again so much for these clarifications @inertia! Your detailed reflections are tremendously helpful to paint a detailed picture of the situation.
Could I just ask you to help me out with the following:
Do you by any chance have sources for these statements (e.g. blogposts on Steem or similar)? That would help us a lot to validate these claims with the original references.
Thank you in advance, and best wishes.
b)
The original statement that got everybody nervous about "token swaps" was:
https://support.poloniex.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043406513-Coming-Soon-STEEM-Token-Swap
later retracted
As seen on 2020-02-16
It should be noted that once "token swap" was retracted, there was about a week prior to the softfork where Tron would pivot to the term "atomic swaps."
The retractions were an attempt by Tron to deescalate. But at no time did Tron acknowledge the specific claim that there was a lack of disclosure involving the transfer of the "dev fund" which was the bigger issue to the witnesses who froze the accounts.
c)
Regarding the use of Tron founder stake to remove three super representatives (SR):
https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1230215220884201472
I'm not convinces that Tron fully explained the security issue around this action. I suspect these SRs were routing (stealing) fees from malformed contracts. But I've never gotten any confirmation of this. The reason I think this is so is due to certain TIPS (Tron Improvement Proposals) that coincided with the
java-tronreleases blocked by these SRs (specifically, TIP-37 and TIP-54). Again, all speculation on my part.Apologies for my late response, but a big delayed thank you for your help @inertia!