Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
nytimes.com
Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
1–10 of 102 posts
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#2This is the only application I've seen for a blockchain that isn't totally brain-dead. I'm certainly skeptical, but skepticism is better than certainty it will fail.
I'll be watching it with interest.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#3Now I am no expert on blockchain and business administration but... Since these CVL tokens could be tradeable, and they grant "a say concerning the projects hosted by Civil"...
Uhm...
Doesn't this all look like, basically, company shares? Doesn't this mean that the problem has just been shifted but potentially not solved ?
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#4> People who purchase the CVL token, a form of cryptocurrency, will have a say concerning the projects hosted by Civil — meaning that they can vote on whether one of its websites violates the company’s journalism standards, which are outlined in the Civil Constitution
This features the worst elements of public (e.g. the BBC), private (e.g. the Wall Street Journal) and patronage (e.g. the Washington Post) media.
Letting token owners “vote on whether...websites violate the company’s journalism standards” explicitly removes editorial independence. Worse, it ties editorial control to tokens/votes which are bought with money. Worse still, since ownership is pseudonymous, there is no way to detect someone (e.g. a wealthy individual, company or foreign government) amassing control across disparate wallets. Pseudonymity also makes shaming owners for bad behaviour difficult or impossible.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#5Like Steemit, this cannot incentivize production long term unless it has more efficient means of monetization, which it doesn’t. Steem subsidizes content through inflation of a token during a speculative mania. To put it mildly, this is not sustainable. Though the founders did astonishingly well on their exit.
Putting a newspaper on a blockchain, to the extent the idea is even coherent, does not exempt it from the economics that makes journalism unremunerative.
This is not to say that we cannot use crypto currencies to perform activities that were traditionally performed by journalists. However, this will look more like anonymous information bounty markets or prediction markets.
But even prediction markets need someone to subsidize them, willfully taking a loss to provide liquidity. I think there is a good case to be made for using demurrage to do this. But for this to work there has to be actual long term economic value on the blockchain, which most lack.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#6> People who purchase the CVL token, a form of cryptocurrency, will have a say concerning the projects hosted by Civil — meaning that they can vote on whether one of its websites violates the company’s journalism standards, which are outlined in the Civil Constitution This features the worst elements of public ( e.g. the BBC ), private ( e.g. the Wall Street Journal ) and patronage ( e.g. the Washington Post ) media.…
If the votes and results are made public, though, they at least reveal the instances in which stories/projects have been explicitly downvoted/killed. Even without knowing who voted for yes/no, that's still insight to what might be covered up.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#7Now I am no expert on blockchain and business administration but... Since these CVL tokens could be tradeable, and they grant "a say concerning the projects hosted by Civil"... Uhm... Doesn't this all look like, basically, company shares? Doesn't this mean that the problem has just been shifted but potentially not solved ?
Stockholders, especially retail investors, don't typically have privileged access or ability to give input to a newsroom.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#8This is the only application I've seen for a blockchain that isn't totally brain-dead. I'm certainly skeptical, but skepticism is better than certainty it will fail. I'll be watching it with interest.
Can you explain what you see as the benefit here?
It looks like the tokens basically give some level of editorial control; therefore, wealthy individuals/organizations would be able to assert control over what gets published. And because of the anonymity, it wouldn't even be clear who is asserting this control.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#9This is the only application I've seen for a blockchain that isn't totally brain-dead. I'm certainly skeptical, but skepticism is better than certainty it will fail. I'll be watching it with interest.
Even after reading the previous comments in this thread? I'm really not seeing any benefit, just a shifting of company shares and maybe the benefit of all transactions publicly available on the blockchain, but some anonymity would make that seemingly useless.
Re: Goodbye, Denver Post. Hello, Blockchain
#10This is the only application I've seen for a blockchain that isn't totally brain-dead. I'm certainly skeptical, but skepticism is better than certainty it will fail. I'll be watching it with interest.
While not completely brain-dead, a blockchain still is not necessary to solve this use case.