Viewpoint | What is the experience of the Internet development process for the popularization of blockchain?

This article attempts to answer the question "How to promote the popularity of blockchains", mainly in EOS (and EOSIO), but can also be applied to many other distributed ledger technology (DLT) ecosystems.

The views in the article are veterans with 20 years of experience in the Web industry, as well as those who have worked in the cryptocurrency field for the past four years. I think DLT is similar to what we see from the development track of the network. I hope we can use some prior knowledge to help accelerate the popularity of this emerging industry.

The popularity of the Internet is driven by the invention of the Web.

In the early to mid 1990s, the average person did not use the Internet. This is not because of the lack of hope for the Internet, but because people are basically unable to use the Internet. It is also a product used by a few people.

Until the creation of the web and web browser, ordinary people have the willingness to use the Internet, because the combination of these technological developments makes it easy for them to access a huge network of various content.

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At this stage of the Internet, Web 1.0 is still only used by a small percentage of people. It was not until the next decade, the so-called Web 2.0, that it was truly used on a large scale. After years of research and development, a lot of failures and successful experiments, as well as the exploration of new methods and standards, have finally made the Internet something that ordinary people want to use in their daily lives.

Today, we see a very similar adoption model presented in a system developed based on DLT (Distributed Accounting).

Learning from history

The history of the Web may help to understand the future of DLT, especially if you think they will be an integral part of the Internet, just like the Web itself. DLT is very similar to the Web and may have to go through the same development challenges to achieve the same level of popularity.

Fortunately for DLTs (such as EOS), the challenges faced by the two are similar, and it is likely that lessons learned from years of Web development can be used to help DLT overcome these obstacles more quickly.

This article will delve into three main things related to Internet / Web history, and how DLT can improve its popularity by continuously improving the following:

• User guidance
• Open standard
• education

User guidance

"User boot" is the process of bringing new users into an existing system and setting everything up for them to use. Both the web and DLT user boot process begins with account creation. In the early days of the Internet, ISPs were one of the main forces guiding new Internet users.

The ISP took on this responsibility, paid upfront costs, and then resold it to new users. The subscription fee for the new business model motivates them to promote the use of the Internet.

EOS does not have the same incentive/business model because the chain connection is open and the data is free, but it still needs to take upfront costs to create an account to use it. Today, few companies are willing to offer account creation services, and many organizations are unable to do so due to regulations involving DLT-based tokens.

This is especially true for EOS, in part because it uses the "account model" rather than the basic "key pair model" (such as Bitcoin). New users must pre-fund funds for the account that created their key pair to have an identity on the network and then perform various actions. Each account is created with resources (RAM for EOS) that must be purchased through an existing account on the network.

In many places, this process ultimately involves the transfer of property (EOS / RAM) between two entities and may be subject to laws involving the transfer of funds. Because of regulatory barriers and without changing the way EOS works, the most beneficial people who now assume this key role are the custodians (such as exchanges), which are subject to local regulations because of the nature of their business.

We need a host to start providing this boot process, which is a bit like the role of an early Internet ISP. Some non-hosts can actually help achieve this by investing in software development – but ultimately, it depends on the host's willingness to provide the software to customers. To illustrate how this collaboration can work, let's look at something similar:

• In order for the host (such as the node that launched the exchange) to advance the guided user process, they should focus on the first step in bringing the new account holder to the EOS network. They should create a simple and straightforward way for users to go through the entire process of creating an account on the EOS network.
• In order for non-managed parties (such as nodes like Greymass) to contribute to guiding users, they should focus on standardizing the processes of all hosters, creating usage specifications for the host, creating SDKs and software libraries for the host, and Each new token holder creates a user interface when transferring money between different platforms.

What's important is that these two types of organizations must work together to standardize this process so that no matter which host has new users, no matter which chain's user interface they choose to use, they will provide a similar experience. A welcome user experience to demonstrate the potential of EOS.

This kind of experience is one of the main obstacles we face today when it comes to driving users. The solution to this requires precise execution. If not handled properly, EOS may end up in a situation where each hosting platform needs to use a different operating interface, and the user experience will be the same as that experienced by AOL users in the early days of the Internet.

As a representative of the unmanaged party, Greymass, their contributions in this regard are:

• Anchor (desktop wallet): Allows users without accounts to securely generate key pairs and find available account names.
• Setupaccount: A free smart contract that, when combined with a special format memo, can be created with a simple EOS token transfer.
• EEP-7 Signature Protocol: A protocol used for wallet/(D)app communication that an exchange can use to help users perform transaction operations related to deposits, withdrawals, and account creation.

Open standard

In the early days of the network, nothing was working properly. Only websites with specific browsers can be used. Incompatible script engines cause crashes and unusable pages, and some of the widely adopted software that is pushed to users does not work at all (such as Internet Explorer). More and more plugins exacerbate this chaotic state, security vulnerabilities… In most cases, the Internet experience is very bad.

Sounds like the DLT project you tried to use? It's all happening to them, including EOS.

This situation is common at the beginning of new technologies and is finally resolved as technology developers begin to standardize this.

Standardization is one of the main factors driving large-scale adoption of networks because they enable the development of richer, well-functioning applications, regardless of what software is used to access it. The standard creates an ecosystem in which:

Devices connected to the Internet can provide a similar online experience.

Developers no longer need to specifically modify the code to support a subset of users.

The end user of the system can no longer worry about how to use an application and start using it.

These types of improvements are exactly what DLT-based applications require, and the standardization process must start today. EOS has the opportunity to take the lead in this area, and this will depend on the technology-conscious organization in the ecosystem. This takes time and effort because the standard takes a long time to iterate.

We need to establish standards around all the technical components that make up the system, including: API, wallet, contract, UI, communication protocol, resource browser and DLT level technology itself.

In the past year, Block.one has been a champion in standards, as they have been continually trying and releasing code to provide developers with better solutions than before. This is something that all technically conscious organizations in the field should have. Development methods can not only solve problems for themselves, but also others for future problems.

Many technology-conscious organizations (such as Greymass) are already adopting this approach and publicly providing available specifications to the community. When Greymass designed the new system and prototype, we tried to take the time to consider "how others would use it" before embarking on development. So far, we have explored the following aspects:

• Light History API: Provides a cost-effective way to provide local historical API access.
• EEP-7 Signature Protocol: Provides a device-agnostic standard for signer/(D)app communications.
• Wallet/Key Backup Format: We are beginning to establish a standard and interoperable way so that users can securely back up/restore keys between wallet providers.
• Account Creation Request Code: Define these codes and standardize them across wallets to make it easier for users to create accounts for each other, regardless of what wallet they use.
• Offline Transaction File: A format that allows an unsigned transaction to be created, which can then be loaded onto another device for signing.

Resolving these issues in a standardized way will help developers to develop more effectively and reduce the confusion caused by products in the ecosystem that don't work well together, and ultimately can invest more time to develop the popularization of (D) apps. The function, which in turn drives the growth of the entire system.

education

At the beginning of the Internet, most people did not know the actual meaning of the word Internet. This requires a universal education of key concepts for users.

People who interact with the web need to understand new things like links, website addresses, email addresses, and how to manage passwords securely. For end users and developers entering the field, this process is no different when it comes to DLT and its pre-production. We must assume that the account number, Richard contract and key pair are everyone's understanding at a basic level.

These complexities need to be abstracted out of the end user as much as possible, but until they become a reality, this aspect of education is critical to all early adopters. Those who can make this content easy to understand can truly teach others.

It is necessary to participate in the various organizations of EOS to make this possible, and ultimately we can make students become teachers. This requires teamwork to make it easier for ordinary people to understand and reduce their cognitive burden. Write blog posts, create videos, chat one-on-one through social media or develop easy-to-understand software.

to sum up

This article is due to the EOS agent madeofstarks in the Telegram question "What is the best way to improve EOS usage?"

The streamlining of the above answers is:

The best way to improve EOS usage is to make the process of guiding users simpler, standardize the best application practices to make developers easy to develop, and educate the community through a simple set of knowledge and techniques to help them use this. Products that use emerging technologies.

I hope that all of us can contribute to adoption in our own way and will eventually achieve incredible achievements. However, this requires assembling stakeholders, nodes, exchanges, critics and other organizations. Everyone must do their part, and our support can make this a reality.

So if you are:

• Stakeholders, you need to support the block producers (BPs) that drive these developments and interact with the companies that drive adoption.
• For block producers, you need to use some of the rewards to promote adoption based on the proficiency of your organization.
• Hosting, you need help getting into the ecosystem, which will ultimately help drive adoption and serve your customers.
• Developers, you need to help develop software and standards that not only solve your own problems, but also solve problems for future generations.
• For content creators, you need to write articles explaining some of the basics to help ordinary people understand how this emerging technology works.

-END-

Author: jesta.x

Translator: Chuan

Disclaimer: This article is the author's independent point of view, does not represent the position of the Blockchain Institute (Public Number), and does not constitute any investment advice or suggestion, the image source network.

Link: https://decentium.org/jesta.x/driving-adopd

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