Special Edition XX8. A world without Bitclout.com
For this special edition, we’re very pleased to welcome a new face to the @BitsTODAY ecosystem. This beauty was penned by @dylsell — enjoy!
If you haven’t heard, BitClout.com is going away. No, contrary to the misinterpretations, panic, and confusion, this does not mean all of your money, content, and following is going away. However, it does mean that the frontend we know and love is (well, some of us love it at least).
Here’s more from @diamondhands:
I realized I haven’t been public and explicit about this in the past, so putting it on the record: In the long run, we want to shut down bitclout.com and give away the frontend to the community. ASAP, actually. Why? 👇 [Read the full thread]
Okay, so that’s the plan, as per our fearless leader. I for one am drinking this Kool-Aid. This type of decentralization is first of its kind, at least for something as popular as BitClout. Still, there’s speculation about what will come next. Let’s look at what this could actually mean for BitClout.
Tl;dr
BitClout.com won’t vanish into thin air; it can’t. Instead, it’ll likely end up serving as the connective tissue between topical nodes owned and managed by the community. This transition won’t be easy, gaps will need to be filled for the community and for BitClout as a whole to flourish.
A node-first approach
First, I’ll paint the picture of a node-first BitClout using Reddit as an analogy. It’s the most familiar experience to what this world could look like.
At its core, Reddit is a social platform, not too dissimilar from BitClout.com. Reddit helps communities gather around specific topics. Reddit has amassed 52M daily users as of its last public disclosure in December 2020. Based on growth projections, Reddit DAUs are probably closer to 65M 📈. If you’re keeping score, BitClout.com currently has less than .01% of that pie 🥧.
Despite obvious size differences, the Reddit and BitClout communities share potential for overlap in their cult-like audiences. In a world where bitclout.com is “shut down”, Reddit is an interesting candidate to paint a picture of what the BitClout social network could look like in the future.
Reddit.com, when simplified, is a 2 part product:
1️⃣ Part 1 directs users to subreddits that matter most to them. Each of these subreddits is dedicated to discussing specific topics. There is no “global” feed. Your Reddit profile follows you from subreddit to subreddit, but the content you share exists only within each subreddit. On each subreddit, you have admins who control some of the look and feel, features, and most importantly, the rules of the subreddit.
2️⃣ Part 2 is to provide Reddit user profiles. These user profiles are the containers for user data that can be leveraged almost identically on every subreddit. Any action on any subreddit rolls back to a user profile stored and owned by Reddit.com.
In this new world of no more “centralized” bitclout.com, Reddit and BitClout may become eerily similar…
Subreddits = Nodes
Admins = Node operators
Reddit Profiles = BitClout profiles
Look at the Nintendo Switch subreddit as an example:
First off, you see “posts” that are tailored to the Nintendo Switch subreddit. It’s easy to see a world where a nintendoswitch.bitclout.com node exists as a leading community. This visualization is clear, but to be honest, I’m struggling to figure out how users and their content will be tied to nodes. Do their posts exist 1:1 in that node alone, similar to a subreddit? (Illustration A) Or, will users post content from a centralized place (maybe their own profile?) and specifically call out (amongst a list of nodes they belong to? Using hashtags?) which node the post should be shared on? (Illustration B)
This may seem like a small distinction, but I think it will influence every detail of what BitClout looks like years from now. It’s an important one to keep an eye on. 👀👀👀
Deeper in the Nintendo Switch subreddit, admins can control all sorts of things. They can establish their own rules, discord channels, wiki, recurring posts, and help. This is layered on the Reddit social platform and allows an admin to maintain control over the subreddit. If we extend this component of Reddit to BitClout, it could be great considering the level of specialization it provides. BitClout nodes become everything their users want and nothing they don’t. If your use case isn’t in need of “likes” — it won’t have likes. If your platform needs something special, you can bolt it on. I could even see nodes obscuring the monetary exchange side of BitClout. In sum, node operators will be able to create the best possible experience for their users, which is very dissimilar to typical other one size fits all social media products.
The second part of the Reddit product that could provide inspiration for a world without bitclout.com is the user profile. Have a look at a typical user’s Reddit profile, it is mostly identical to a current BitClout profile. It has a feed of all posts, a bio, photo, and most interestingly it has highlights such as the “trophy case”, and “moderator of these communities”.
The obvious hang-up here in a world without bitclout.com is … where will user profiles, wallets, and highlights live? The direction seems to indicate that profile data, including the upcoming launch of pinned posts, could be pulled directly from the BitClout backend by a node operator.
That’s…okay. But will there be no consistency to user profiles…anywhere?
Will users end up as verified OGs on one node and a total egghead on another?
I’m a firm believer that reputation should be carried with a user, just like it is in real life. But, if every node is stapling a different frontend on a user profile, it’s going to be the wild west. We’re seeing that today with verification issues cross-node. It will be an overwhelming barrier to adoption if users need to validate their reputation from scratch on each node they join.
Regardless of the implementation details, it’s pretty straightforward to see the path forward here. A user profile should exist to contain information about a user across each node they participate in.
The pattern is clear, but the details aren’t
At a high level, a node-led BitClout is easy to picture. The devil is in the details though. There are important details to consider if bitclout.com is shut down and the frontend is given away to the community.
For one, accountability comes to mind. Having a centralized “main” keeps Reddit accountable; accountability is important. Zuck and Jack have been made to stand in front of Congress. Not having a central body to turn to is going to be a tough pill to swallow and has been one of the reasons BitCoin has stagnated so much (imo); the folks going to bat for it are just independent, passionate actors. When people have concerns or gripes, they still ask to talk with the core devs. Would the biggest BitClout investors have come aboard without that access? Doubtful.
The second thing that has me sweating is how people are going to find and navigate BitClout without bitclout.com. Where’s the front door? What’s the front door? How do prospective users learn about the product or its potential without it? Are we expecting that they find each node’s site on their own? This could be a significant handcuff to adoption for bitclout.com. A home base gives users an opportunity to understand what the overall product is, how it works, and what they can do with it.
Finally…building businesses democratically is a new, entirely unique challenge. @diamondhands’ post mentions “giving away the frontend to the community”.That’s an interesting choice of words. We’ve seen the Clout Improvement Proposal repo turn into a complete mess after just a few short days. Why? BitClout lacks core product principles and vision. A product vision should clearly articulate what the path and strategy to success is and that vision should help determine what gets built. Even with a clear vision, a community-led product still requires consensus, voting, etc. Before BitClout can be decentralized, we need at least a hint of a unifying idea, a shared myth if you will, of what we all imagine the best BitClout possible to be. Shared myths built the Pyramids of Giza. The best way to resolve a bunch of conflicting opinions about a product is with an opinionated product vision. Right now, that doesn’t exist.
Final thoughts on sunsetting BitClout.com (and this piece).
Despite all of these pitfalls, I’m unabashedly in favor of the direction this is heading. However, the big thing I’m itching to see is what exactly the sunset of bitclout.com means. Of course there are solutions to all of the above — they just need to be agreed upon and subsequently executed.
Maybe we end up with centralized user profiles. Maybe bitclout.com ends up being a discovery feed for nodes. Maybe the team implements a BitClout backend with sufficient direction and vision that frontend debates are minimized. Each of these problems can be solved in a handful of ways; it’ll be most interesting to see just how that happens.
Oh, and as for the domain name…there’s no chance bitclout.com is unparked in our lifetimes, I’ll bet each of you a $CLOUT coin on that.
Cheers!
@dysell