The Joystream Manifesto
Our
Manifesto units out each the issues we consider are associated with
digital media platforms in their present type in addition to our proposed
solution to those issues.
Problem
We
believe that art, be it as literature, music, film, games or
performance, is a important device via which societies establish a
shared understanding of what is frequent information among all members.
These expressions define values and narratives that find yourself shaping
tradition, religion and even public policy. It therefore issues deeply
how it’s financed, distributed and paid for.
Digital media has turn into the primary medium by way of which such expression is
distributed, and digital media platforms have turn into the key
establishments organizing this exercise.
Unfortunately,
as a result of community effects, economies of scale, rules and political
interests, we are right now left with handful of huge institutions
which set the phrases for how this happens. They are nearly entirely
unaccountable to normal market and political mechanisms.
As
a result, our stories, expressions and interactions are managed and
filtered on their phrases. This continues to generate an ever altering
set of problems, be it
inflexible
monetization, censorship of controversial speech, inequitable sharing
of features with creators and audience, low platform innovation or lack
of credibility with third get together builders.
Goal
We
call for an arrangement where media platforms are accountable to the
individuals they influence, which are primarily their users, be it as
customers, creatives, third get together developer or staff.
It
is the absence of such accountability which is the basic supply
of any specific drawback at any particular time.
Thesis
Our
core thesis is that there are two primary challenges which should be
addressed to realize this aim, and that an applicable software
of up to date distributed techniques technology, including
blockchains, good contracts and tokens, is the proper means to do so.
The
Wedge
First
is the question of the way to create an alternate from scratch within the
face of platform externalities which make any new platform nearly
ineffective, regardless of any of its inherent traits. The
process of doing this type of bootstrapping has traditionally been
principally an art, where success has not often been reproducible.
We
believe that blockchain tokens, earned by and issued to early
members, have been shown to be extremely effective at
mobilizing, integrating and motivating a world and dynamic
community.
This
has now repeatedly allowed nascent communities, just like the Bitcoin
group, to beat the preliminary network impact hurdle. There is no
certainty that this will be adequate, but 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 query of how to create and maintain accountability in such a
platform when it really reaches scale.
We
perceive there to be two fundamental ways in which members can
hold institutions of any sort 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 inside. The effectiveness of this is determined by some
capability to each share dependable information with different members, and
have some impact on inside governance processes. Current media
platforms present customers no efficient means of doing both.
We
consider that blockchains present an organizational and economic
infrastructure which might handle each problems. The public,
verifiable and immutable history of financial and administrative
information, offers a superb foundation for customers to understand the
present and previous state of the platform. This allows anybody to make
incontestable claims about related information and circumstances.
Further,
blockchain tokens allow us to make use and control of a platform
inseparable, giving customers an automated seat on the desk in
deliberating over platform degree decisions.
All
that’s required to establish, train or switch the capability to
take part in such activity, is the power to signal messages with
identifiable cryptographic keys. Perfectly dependable contracting gives
a large, dynamic and unrestricted set of customers the means of governing
the platform. This can serve a variety of functions, similar to
undertaking tasks, regulating participation in several formally
specified roles, or even updating the institutional guidelines themselves.
This integration of dependable contracting into the financial rails
supplies an organizational infrastructure far more in line with our
aims of inclusive control than the conventional jurisdictional belief
based mostly infrastructure.
Exit
Exit
is the method of completely ending participation in an institution in
favor of either becoming a member of or creating an alternative. The effectiveness
of this depends on prices of leaving, and either joining or creating
an alternate, all being low in comparison with the deprivation in the
current institution. This is currently not the case.
By
constructing platforms primarily based on free open source https://www.joystream.org/ software, open
protocols and open knowledge — as is the case with Blockchain
systems, one dramatically lowers these costs. Since users management
their very own data, id and assets, they have a a lot simpler time
becoming a member of new platforms, and even taking their friends with them.
Open
protocols and information will make multi homing interfaces ample, where
users could not even need to switch, but as a substitute use a number of platforms
simultaneously, which encourages platform degree competition.
Even
more dramatically, reliance on open source implies that all the
software capital of a platform can easily be reused, and since the
entire organizational state is also public, entire ecosystems could be
forked to create new alternative platforms with modified insurance policies and
objectives.