Scaling up: Permissionless networks don't get a choice.
What do I mean by this?
Imagine a developer came in to Hive and built a very successful porn app. Imagine this porn app was so profitable and so popular that essentially the app bent Hive to its will; perhaps bent Hive over is a better term in this context.
What happens then?
The app takes 99% of Hive's bandwidth. Most people do not realize that Hive has a max blocksize of 65KB. That's 65KB... every three seconds... for the ENTIRE network (~22KB/sec). That's basically running the entire network on 56k modem speeds, and we call this "scalable". Pretty funny.
Literally anyone who makes a popular app on Hive is going to bring this network to its knees (another accidental porn reference?). 65KB is nothing, and if you think we can just "increase the blocksize" then you don't understand what that actually means. Splinterlands adoption has already torn API nodes a new asshole once or twice and the blocks aren't even filled up yet. Spoiler alert: an API node bottleneck has absolutely nothing to do with on-chain bandwidth or resource credits. We need a totally separate scaling solution for bottlenecks like that.
So back to the porn example.
This app becomes very profitable and it starts choking the rest of the network as resources become scarce. The founder of the app realizes the importance of powering up Hive so he uses profits from the app to do so. He also convinces his users to power up Hive, delegating their RCs to the porn app's pool, further choking the supply of RCs. He incentivizes this behavior by creating a native token for the porn app and distributing that token to those delegating RCs to the pool. This app is very profitable and he needs all the bandwidth he can possibly get to offer new users free services and gain more traction.
Now that the porn operator is issuing a native token for RCs, all the whales on Hive that have been wasting their RCs this entire time realize they can delegate to the porn app and just get free money on top of all the other gains they've made. This, in turn, hyperinflates RCs even more, skyrocketing the price of posting data to the chain. RCs themselves begin to acquire value, which skyrockets the price of Hive even further as we are one of the few networks that actually yield-farm on-chain bandwidth.
At this point all the other users on Hive are basically going to be shit out of luck. You can't really blog on Hive anymore, because it's just more profitable to give your RCs to the porn app. It's also more profitable to upvote the "content" on the porn app with Hive because the mechanics of the app reward you with the native token for doing so. Wow, this developer really knows what he's doing, eh?
Now Hive is a porn network.
Who could have ever seen this coming? What a twist! And there's really nothing we can do about it short of forking the network and removing the stake of the porn developer. If you thought the Steem Hostile Takeover was contentious, just wait until someone suggests that we should steal money from an entity that followed all the rules of the network and brought legitimate demand to Hive. Never gonna happen. Let's be real: The Hive fork barely happened and Steemit Inc was an blatantly obvious enemy to all.
Game-theory doesn't decide how technology is used in practice.
Game-theory thinks it knows what's going to happen, but never really fully does. Something always gets in the way. It might be small things that are largely inconsequential, or it might be huge things that change the entire game. There's no way to know until we actually try.
All blockchains are simulators.
If the free-market decides that Hive is a porn network, then guess what? Hive is a porn network now. It's really as simple as that, and when we look at P2P porn sites like OnlyFans, Chatterbate and whatnot we can see that there is a huge chasm of demand waiting to be filled (I can't turn it off).
Up until now, these P2P WEB2 sites have siphoned all the value from the service into their own pockets. They control everything unilaterally and users do not own their data. Should someone realize that WEB3 is the way to go in order to build value, we could easily see Hive "devolve" into a network that is pretty much exclusively used for WEB3 P2P porn. Which, lets be honest, would be pretty damn disappointing for most users around here, but at the same time would be extremely profitable. This value could then be transferred to another network or a second layer solution as those who did not agree with this direction decided to exit.
Conclusion
All those people who think Hive is a blogging platform are in for a rude awakening one of these days. Whether it be gaming, porn, gambling, or whatever else, it is almost guaranteed that one day the market will pivot and lead this chain into a new direction. Some users will embrace this change, and some will exit.
Scaling is a constant struggle of two steps forward and one step back. If we're being honest Hive is a network that rarely has to deal with scaling issues, but that's guaranteed to change sooner or later. Our max blocksize is very small and the Internet is very large.
When it really comes down to it, Hive could never ever scale as large as a centralized service. How could it? Twenty separate entities running 20 copies of the same code are somehow going to scale to the volume of a centralized solution? It's not possible, and it doesn't need to be.
It doesn't need to be because centralized services can connect to Hive with a thin thread, using Hive only for account security and value transfer. This is also another possible fate of Hive (only used to move money around and create tokens/NFTs). It all depends on what kind of scaling problems we face and when solutions to those problems come into play. No matter how it happens, this process is fated to be a chaotic mess. Such is the war of scaling technology up to acceptable levels of demand.
This is the price we pay for being permissionless networks. We have no emperor. We have no leader or CEO. The network will do whatever the network will do. This is the ultimate form of Chaos Theory hard at work. I'm here for it. Let's see where we end up.
Had a sabotage dapp idea just after the fork which incorporated both the bandwidth and porn aspects of your example. Decided in the end to not waist my time with it. The idea was if the bandwidth didn't kill 'em then illegal child porn would scare off most witnesses. Consider the idea Open Source if anyone cares to pick up the ball.
https://hive.blog/base64/@novacadian/base64-encryption-explained
woof
interested to destroy the chain, no cp however.
this porn talk got me thinking of condoms, a sort of 2nd layer. Could condoms be the Layer 2 solution Hive needs in order to not to get HIV ?
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😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
My heart 😆😆😆😆😆
This comment is super funny. Gosh.... Did you really have to burst my brains with this? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Good analysis I fully agree with it, that's the advantage of a decentralized blockchain and also one of it's vectors of attack.
I think that scaling issues need to be addressed the better we can, obviously we won't have an ideal solution that solves problems with nodes forever but we may find useful to be prevented of the blockchains weakest points.
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Isn't that true of all human activity? Someone or something could find a way to bend an entity to its will, and that entity's members are suddenly enslaved, no longer free. It's a chance we take getting involved in almost anything. We can fool ourselves that Hive is immune, but of course it is not. All the behavior modification efforts have been evaded or used to advantage by someone. I'm all for no behavior modification efforts, especially downvoting. Just look at the mess that has made of freedom on this chain - Although I am no spammer, nor plagiarizer, and I know my work is of quality, I am hesitant to use both my downvote and my true voice regarding the covid con, for fear of downvote reprisal. As it is, I suspect curating accounts that used to support me have stopped doing so, perhaps because of comments like this one.
Hive/crypto is a bit different.
We already saw what happens when someone tries to control it.
We actually profit from the attack.
I did not profit from that attack (assuming you are referring to JS) as far as I can tell. I am still teensy, despite regular high quality posting for three years. How did we profit? I'm curious, not complaining.
Well, Steem was at .12 when the announcement was made. If you had 100 Steem, they soon shot up to .50 and you also now had 100 Hive... Which in the early days topped at $.96
Now Hive is holding steady near .80 and Steem is in the .60 USD range, so if you held ANY.. stake you likely more than doubled it.
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Yes I understand all that. I had very little at the time, so I then had twice very little - still not much. With the upvote curve, it was very difficult for me to earn after that small bump up (I can't remember which came first). If you were swimming among the dolphins or larger, you made out very well. If you were plankton, it became even more difficult to get anywhere. But again, I am not complaining. I have always had loyal readers, and that's what I am here for, although it does irk me a bit to see persons who churn out the same old same old day after day, with no readers at all, being regularly supported by buildawhale type accounts. What is the point of that? Does this benefit us all somehow? We boast about all our efforts to improve quality. Are we improving quality?
Do you think the split is the reason both tokens went up? Perhaps publicity helped. Maybe people like a good battle. I don't know.
Creative writing is my thing, especially poetry. I don't expect to make $100 a post.
I can't speak to why others vote for what they vote for, personally, I am not a fan of the "Quality" pitch, other social networks don't focus on quality. I like engaging, relevant, interesting, funny... but I guess it is subjective to every single stakeholder who votes.
As to are we improving Quality? I've always thought that was the wrong measuring stick. Are we improving community, do we have more members, are some holding.. all more important to me. But YOU are the target audience, someone who just wants to come and enjoy the site.
Yes the split made the price of both go up, because it got a lot of coverage and media and during that time everyone was aware of Hive and Steem. Usually, with no marketing and little hype, it's difficult to get that level of attention.
I remember trying to find a Poetry community for another user.. @tezmel and being really surprised how little curation there is in poetry, maybe we need a poetry community, with a Poet token to help bring some on. That would be cool!
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Before I pass out due to excitement, let me first say everything you have stated in the first two paragraphs is something people like me want to see happening. A place where a post is good enough to start a conversation is in the comments section. Having highly voted posts with zero interactions seems odd for a community looking for engagement. No?
I am living for this. That would help so many of us integrate with the world of finance. Oh, and the token idea is just so inclusive in a world where prose feels alienated. I have this awesome app on my gadgets and I doubt every "finance-related" post I have tried to leave on my feed.
Anyway... A lost soul can hope too :)
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hey love. I see you are earning more these days, deservedly! Do you think Leo Finance is why? Are you getting more readers, or just more earnings (which I know does not suck)?
Hey you... I am indeed but I have been getting a single vote from a certain generous soul if I put out a post almost daily. It feels good to be finally seen. 💚
It has been long before my interest in Leo Finance. BUT. Today's post got a whole lot of support from this community so I am overly grateful.
I am not sure about the readers but I intend to 'sell myself' on the comments section as I am tired of scavenging while spammers sit on gold mines.
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Wonderful points! Hive offers something for everyone. If you want to make money curating, you can do that. If you want to make money churning out the same old same old, you can do that. If you want to write for readers, you can do that (it's hard though!) As I said, I am happy with what I have built here. But now and then it is difficult to not be envious of posts that make $100 for lousy content, while my brilliant genius unusual posts make $6. It's easy to see that as my upvote value goes up, so do my rewards. As in the rest of the world, it's easier to make money on Hive if you have money on Hive.
There have been communities for poetry. the ink well started out supporting poetry, and I wrote one of the best pieces I have ever written for that community. It earned what was for me at the time an awful lot. This poem took me a solid two weeks to write, in response to a challenge by @raj808. I posted nothing else for those two weeks because I was obsessed with this poem. I'm glad I wrote it - I am very proud of it and love having it in my repertoire because it is very unlike most of my other work - but one can't produce work like that for Hive an expect to earn anything.
The ink well stopped encouraging poetry some time after that, I believe because they were attracting so much bad poetry. It's easy to write bad poetry.
@tezmel is one of my faves here!!!! When it comes to poetry, I try to find the poets myself and support them with my tiny upvote. The upvote curve really harmed poets!!! I am so happy that is gone.
I wonder if it is a supply demand issue.
Not being a poet or a very artsy person, I wonder what the demand for consuming poetry is, I imagine there is a lot of interest among fellow poets, but maybe we don't have enough of them, as.. crypto and poetry are possibly different types.
It could grow over time! :) You are early! I bet I could put out some stunningly BAD poetry. lol
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really bad poems
are very easy to write
and no one reads them
There's a bad haiku for you.
And I thought I was good at writing with puns, both intended and unintended, I guess I have to rise my game, harden it and give it a polish.
Well HIVE was already working on optimization on the chain before things became an issue but I do think there could be scaling problems in the future. If this happens does this mean the amount of RCs we get from our HP will drop? Like it adjusts itself and forces the users to stake more HP in order to use the network.
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I think we have to increase the capacity of the network as there are more users now comparing to the past
Splinterlands make a lot of people join hive recently
Potentially, my wife will be able to retire early because I got involved in something that morphed into a porn site. That will be fun explaining to potential grandkids.
I mean this is a very extreme example.
At the core Hive is just a blockchain that yield farms bandwidth. It can be used for anything. In the above example many whales would likely reject this direction and not delegate RCs to it even though it was the most profitable thing to do. Then there is the possibility that competing apps pop up, and second-layer scaling solutions that make the entire problem transitory; eventually disappearing.
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I think dpos is pretty fair, if you want to buy enough or build something good enough to run the chain, then you run the chain. Those who don't like the changes can use the bug out bag of a fork, to move forward with their own project.
It just boils down to.. is what you are doing interesting enough that someone wants to put money in.. just like any other investment.
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Ultimately what I'm going for here is to make people realize that resources on blockchain networks are extremely limited and just because they are abundant now because there is little demand doesn't mean we won't have to make some pretty tough decisions and compromises in the future.
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https://twitter.com/KennyCrane/status/1456790377302794243
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If that DApp would consume 99% of capacity, then it would need to be that successful, that Hive went to lets say 10$. Well, I could live with that! Less posting, but more cashing out :)
This network has already gotten to $8 on nothing but speculation.
I'm thinking more like $100-$1000
But yeah, same outcome.
Hard to complain about exponential gains.
Even if the source is "unsavory".
Pecunia non olet!
Is it possible to delegate resource credits now or that's not working on hive yet ? Or maybe it's planned to work for the next hard fork ?
Highly unlikely, but I guess anything is possible, pron and gambling are the tech pioneers
I guess I would say the likelihood of this particular scenario is largely irrelevant because the likelihood of Hive running out of RCs and blocks filling up is all but guaranteed. This example is just one possible branch of that guaranteed inevitability.
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Consensus is an interesting beast, and when a blockchain is truly tested... it will find a way forward. When st**m forked into Hive is one of the best examples. If this blockchain gets overrun by porn and Hive users do not like it, we will find a way to get back to where we want to be (and make bank in the process).
agree
We all know how well the porn industry has been able to scale. The gaming industry too - just look at play to earn. Gambling industry finds ways to get around the constraints. The investing industry has more rules to shake a stick at - this becomes a perfect battleground to slide away from the rules.
Feels like game on for dApps developers - get in on the game and keep the porn industry or any other likely winner subdued.
Game on
To some degree this happens as we speak, except the porn part. Splinterlands is hyper-dominant. I saw an article, I think it was on dapp-radar, and Splinterlands accounted for almost 100% of gaming activity on Hive. Compared to other chains, that's ultra-domination in the gaming niche. Not sure what this represents at the entire chain activity level, but I believe it's crushing as well. And that after most of the gameplay activity has been taken off Hive and onto Splinterlands servers.
Splinterlands crew helped the chain however, instead of choking it. Others might do the opposite, intentional or not knowing any better.