Social Media Race for Decentralization

Steemit

In 2016 the world's first decentralized blockchain-based social network was launched. Now Steemit is considered one of the most important blockchain projects.

Roughly speaking, this resource is in some ways similar to the Reddit, with the only difference is that users can get real profit in the Steem cryptocurrency for creating interesting content. And the entry barrier is minimal: it's enough just to create an account and start making money.

Golos

Due to the geographical limitations of Steemit in Eastern Europe, the platform forked creating the Golos project. Its main difference of Golos is that it is designed specifically for Russian-speaking users: the platform’s developers believe that users who do not speak English have very few chances to participate in the daily distribution of awards for Steemit. The economic model of Golos is at the moment the same as in Steemit.

Akasha

It would be strange if there was no project of a decentralized Ethereum-based social network.

The social network Akasha has similar functionality and capabilities with Steemit, at least at the stage of the alpha release - it allows users to publish their articles, vote for the articles they liked, post comments and, in the long run, get paid for it. But, unlike Steemit, transactions in Akasha are quite expensive, because they use gas, as in any other Ethereum-based application. And this is the main drawback of the Akasha platform.

E-Chat

At the development stage, the project looks quite attractive to ordinary users. It includes possibilities of social networks, such as Instagram, as well as instant messengers, it has a Steemit earnings model, but payments for likes are paid in the two most popular cryptocurrencies: BTC and ETH.

Users can feel confident using the app, knowing their data is protected through the blockchain, which stores all of the information in a decentralized network.

As a digital transformation leader, e-Chat builds distributed platforms and next-gen capabilities like machine learning, IoT, and speech/image recognition. Our unique blend of user-design, data disciplines, and understanding of the customer journey delivers a richer user experience, easier consumption, and powerful emotional insights.

As a result, we can say that decentralized social networks are only in their initial stage of getting attention. The abovementioned services are likely to be one of the first major blockchain applications. Maybe they will be able go as far as changing traditional media and how they work.

Yes, right now these platforms are small, slow, and expensive. But once viable strategies are identified, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can begin to worry about their future.