The Joystream Manifesto
Our
Manifesto units out both the problems we believe are related to
digital media platforms of their present type as well as our proposed
solution to those issues.
Problem
We
consider that artwork, be it as literature, music, film, games or
efficiency, is a critical software via which societies establish a
shared understanding of what’s widespread knowledge among all members.
These expressions outline values and narratives that end up shaping
tradition, faith and even public coverage. It due to this fact issues deeply
how it’s financed, distributed and paid for.
Digital media has turn into the first medium through which such expression is
distributed, and digital media platforms have turn into the key
establishments organizing this exercise.
Unfortunately,
due to network results, economies of scale, rules and political
pursuits, we are today left with handful of huge institutions
which set the phrases for a way this happens. They are virtually totally
unaccountable to regular market and political mechanisms.
As
a outcome, our tales, expressions and interactions are managed and
filtered on their phrases. This continues to generate an ever changing
set of problems, be it
rigid
monetization, censorship of controversial speech, inequitable sharing
of positive aspects with creators and audience, low platform innovation or lack
of credibility with third party developers.
Goal
We
call for an arrangement where media platforms are accountable to the
individuals they impact, that are primarily their users, be it as
consumers, creatives, third party developer or staff.
It
is the absence of such accountability which is the elemental supply
of any particular drawback at any particular time.
Thesis
Our
core thesis is that there are two basic challenges which have to be
addressed to achieve this objective, and that an appropriate application
of contemporary distributed methods expertise, together with
blockchains, smart contracts and tokens, is the right means to do so.
The
Wedge
First
is the question of tips on how to create an alternate from scratch within the
face of platform externalities which make any new platform practically
ineffective, no matter any of its inherent traits. The
process of doing this sort of bootstrapping has historically been
largely an artwork, where success has hardly ever been reproducible.
We
imagine that blockchain tokens, earned by and issued to early
participants, have been proven to be extraordinarily efficient at
mobilizing, integrating and motivating a world and dynamic
community.
This
has now repeatedly allowed nascent communities, like the Bitcoin
neighborhood, to beat the preliminary community effect hurdle. There is not any
certainty that this shall be enough, however we believe this mechanism
is as promising as something which is likely to have an opportunity in a
long time.
Accountability
at scale
Second
is the question of tips on how to create and maintain accountability in such a
platform when it really reaches scale.
We
understand there to be two fundamental https://www.joystream.org/ ways in which individuals can
hold establishments of any kind accountable: Voice and exit, within the
custom of Hirschman A. O.
Voice
Voice
is the method of making an attempt to enhance or reform the functioning of
an institution from within. The effectiveness of this is determined by some
capacity to both share reliable information with other members, and
have some impact on inner governance processes. Current media
platforms present users no efficient method of doing either.
We
believe that blockchains provide an organizational and economic
infrastructure which may handle both problems. The public,
verifiable and immutable history of financial and administrative
records, offers an excellent foundation for users to understand the
current and past state of the platform. This allows anybody to make
incontestable claims about related information and circumstances.
Further,
blockchain tokens permit us to make use and control of a platform
inseparable, giving users an computerized seat on the table in
deliberating over platform level choices.
All
that is required to determine, exercise or transfer the capability to
take part in such activity, is the ability to signal messages with
identifiable cryptographic keys. Perfectly dependable contracting gives
a big, dynamic and unrestricted set of users the technique of governing
the platform. This can serve a variety of purposes, similar to
endeavor projects, regulating participation in different formally
specified roles, or even updating the institutional guidelines themselves.
This integration of reliable contracting into the economic rails
provides an organizational infrastructure rather more according to our
objectives of inclusive control than the conventional jurisdictional belief
primarily based infrastructure.
Exit
Exit
is the strategy of completely ending participation in an institution in
favor of either joining or creating an alternative. The effectiveness
of this depends on costs of leaving, and either joining or creating
an alternate, all being low compared to the deprivation in the
present institution. This is currently not the case.
By
building platforms based mostly on free open source software, open
protocols and open information — as is the case with Blockchain
techniques, one dramatically lowers these prices. Since customers management
their own data, identification and property, they have a a lot easier time
joining new platforms, and even taking their friends with them.
Open
protocols and knowledge will make multi homing interfaces ample, the place
customers may not even want to change, but as an alternative use multiple platforms
concurrently, which inspires platform degree competition.
Even
more dramatically, reliance on open source means that all of the
software program capital of a platform can simply be reused, and since the
whole organizational state is also public, whole ecosystems could be
forked to create new alternative platforms with modified insurance policies and
objectives.