Recently I've been trying out a new social media site of sorts. They tell me it's "decentralized." At least, that's the buzzword they used to draw me in. I'm not going to tell you which one it is. It doesn't matter. They're all the same. Every. Single. One.
"But, but, but...they're not," you protest. "My 'decentralized social media of choice is different than all the rest!"
No it's not. And I'll tell you why.
They are all not only prone to abuse, but they all inevitably attract the worst behavior possible from our fellow beings (along with plenty of good, I'm not denying the positive aspects). As if even traditional non-monetized social media behavior is known for the stellar behavior of its users. Ha!
Most of us are well aware of the phenomenon known as "online disinhibition effect," that rears its ugly head on social media sites all day, every day. Barring server interruptions, social media never closes. And neither does the stupid that comes along with it. You can post your flat earth propaganda and ad hominems all day long, and at worst you'll get thirty days in Facebook jail. It's the gift that keeps on giving. And now with the miracle of blockchain technology, not even server interruptions can bring the inanity to a halt. "Try new blockchain based social media. Now with even more inanity than the traditional variety!"
Now take that same phenomenon that already incentivizes people to bring the best jackass version of themselves they can muster to the table, and introduce...i don't know, say....money into the equation! What could possibly go wrong?
Now I know what so many of you are thinking. "But, *community.* That won't happen on my platform of choice cause we have the best community!"
This has got to be the single best argument for why these platforms are unlikely to succeed long term. If you're relying on a sense of community as the basis for success, then please think more deeply on the matter. In this world? In the online world? Good luck with that, and may I suggest you delve a bit deeper into the meaning of the word naivete while you're at it.
"Tribes" would be far more accurate. Cause that's what you'll invariably end up with. You will start off with a community, and eventually--nay--quickly, you will have tribes. Tribes that collude. Tribes that spam and scheme. Tribes that devise, snark, and bristle at the slightest hint their motives aren't pure as the driven snow. And all for their own self interest.
If there is a demerit function, aka 'downvote,' they will abuse it. If there is an upvote function--no matter the exact model your platform of choice has employed--they will find a way to exploit it for their own gain--even if the 'gain' for them that day is simply taking their bad mood out on someone who said something they sorta kinda didn't like that one time three months ago.
Believe me, I've been there. When I first started trying out so called 'decentralized' (I keep putting that in quotes because when a few users have undue influence via being an 'early adopter' or large stakeholder, that itself becomes a kind of centralized authority) social media, my heart was all aglow. My skin tingling with the euphoria of this BRAVE new world. We were in it together! Together we will take down the monolithic corporate driven legacy platforms that mine more data from us than BP mines oil out of the depths of the ocean. All while showing us no love and would be all too willing to toss us under the first bus that comes along if it suited them. We will take back our data and our power. We will get those suckers who've been using us and our content to enrich themselves all these years! Rah rah, yeah...let's get em boys!
It ain't happening folks. You can't count on "community" to counter this kind of abuse. It's insidious. It's persistent. It's stronger than you are. There's more of them out there than on any development team, lying in wait, ready to outwit your every anti-abuse measure and subvert all your good intentions.
Wherever there is community, there will also be tribes. And unless you or your development team has the 'decentralized' world's most brilliant idea for the most ingenious anti-abuse, spam proof AI bot Accelerator 2500, it's not going away any time soon. Or probably ever.
I hate to burst your bubble. I hate to rain on your parade and crash the party, but somebody had to say it. People suck. And online, they often suck more than usual. And when money comes into the picture, they definitely suck more than usual.
You will get abused. I assure you that you won't be one of the lucky ones who gets out unscathed. There are no lucky ones when it comes to this game. You quite simply aren't allowed to have an opinion on anything whatsoever, ever-- without inviting the abuse of the ever-offended, their minions and their lust after ill-gotten gains.
Sooner or later these platforms all become unenjoyable to use and people flock back to the legacy platforms which have had a ten year or longer head start in getting you hooked. In getting you to build up a base of friends and groups with whom you're already deeply familar. The allure is strong. And besides, they have the best memes there.
But not to fear. The Zuck and his buddies out in the Valley have our backs. They are working on ways to give value back to the people who give value to their platforms.....ah shit, nevermind. That was just a dream I had last night.
As you were...!
PostScript
I will conclude by saying that--while after two and a half years of experimenting with a dozen or more such platforms, these are very much my sentiments--I'm open to, and would love nothing more than to be proven wrong!
One of the reasons I keep using PUBLISH0X is because it has possibly the least abusable monetized blogging platform model around (the only way I'm currently aware it can be abused is by people getting together to tip all of each others' content, and yes I have seen people discussing exactly this and know it does go on). The potential incentives aren't as high, but fortunately, neither is the abuse potential.
It seems to me the simplest model to remedy the chronic rampant abuse problem is to use what I call a "tip or move on" model. That is to say...Content gets posted. Viewers can either tip the content or not (move on). This is still subject to the abuse of colluders upvoting each others' content, but completely eliminates the "de-merit" abuse aspect.
