The Joystream Manifesto


Our
Manifesto units out each the problems we consider are associated with
digital media platforms of their present type in addition to our proposed
answer to those issues.

Problem

We
imagine that art, be it as literature, music, movie, video games or
performance, is a important software through which societies set up a
shared understanding of what’s widespread data amongst all members.
These expressions outline values and narratives that end up shaping
culture, religion and even public coverage. It subsequently issues deeply
how it is financed, distributed and paid for.

Digital media has become the first medium via which such expression is
distributed, and digital media platforms have become the key
establishments organizing this activity.

Unfortunately,
as a result of community results, economies of scale, regulations and political
interests, we’re right now left with handful of large institutions
which set the terms for how this happens. They are virtually totally
unaccountable to normal 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 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 developers.

Goal

We
call for an association where media platforms are accountable to the
people they influence, which are primarily their users, be it as
shoppers, creatives, third celebration developer or staff.

It
is the absence of such accountability which is the fundamental supply
of any explicit problem at any particular time.

Thesis

Our
core thesis is that there are two primary challenges which have to be
addressed to realize this objective, and that an acceptable software
of latest distributed techniques know-how, including
blockchains, sensible contracts and tokens, is the proper means to do so.

The
Wedge

First
is the question of the way to create an alternative from scratch within the
face of platform externalities which make any new platform nearly
useless, regardless of any of its inherent characteristics. The
strategy of doing this type of bootstrapping has historically been
principally an art, where success has rarely been reproducible.

We
consider that blockchain tokens, earned by and issued to early
individuals, have been shown to be extraordinarily efficient at
mobilizing, integrating and motivating an international and dynamic
group.

This
has now repeatedly allowed nascent communities, like the Bitcoin
neighborhood, to beat the preliminary community impact hurdle. There is not any
certainty that this shall be sufficient, however we consider this mechanism
is as promising as something which is prone to have a chance in a
long time.

Accountability
at scale

Second
is the question of how to create and maintain accountability in such a
platform when it truly reaches scale.

We
understand there to be two elementary https://www.joystream.org/ ways in which members can
hold institutions of any kind accountable: Voice and exit, in the
custom of Hirschman A. O.

Voice

Voice
is the approach of trying to improve or reform the functioning of
an establishment from inside. The effectiveness of this depends on some
capacity to each share reliable information with different members, and
have some impression on inside governance processes. Current media
platforms present customers no effective way of doing either.

We
believe that blockchains provide an organizational and economic
infrastructure which might tackle both issues. The public,
verifiable and immutable history of financial and administrative
information, provides a superb foundation for customers to grasp the
present and previous state of the platform. This allows anyone to make
incontestable claims about related details and circumstances.

Further,
blockchain tokens permit us to make use and control of a platform
inseparable, giving customers an automated seat on the table in
deliberating over platform level selections.

All
that is required to ascertain, exercise or switch the capability to
participate in such activity, is the ability to signal messages with
identifiable cryptographic keys. Perfectly reliable contracting offers
a big, dynamic and unrestricted set of customers the technique of governing
the platform. This can serve a wide range of functions, similar to
endeavor initiatives, regulating participation in several formally
specified roles, or even updating the institutional rules themselves.
This integration of reliable contracting into the financial rails
offers an organizational infrastructure much more consistent with our
goals of inclusive control than the conventional jurisdictional trust
based mostly infrastructure.

Exit

Exit
is the strategy of totally ending participation in an institution in
favor of either joining or creating an alternate. The effectiveness
of this is determined by costs of leaving, and either becoming a member of or creating
an alternate, all being low compared to the deprivation within the
present establishment. This is currently not the case.

By
constructing platforms primarily based on free open supply software program, open
protocols and open data — as is the case with Blockchain
systems, one dramatically lowers these prices. Since customers management
their very own knowledge, id and property, they’ve a much easier time
joining new platforms, and even taking their friends with them.

Open
protocols and information will make multi homing interfaces ample, where
customers may not even want to modify, however as a substitute use multiple platforms
simultaneously, which encourages platform level competition.

Even
extra dramatically, reliance on open source means that all the
software capital of a platform can simply be reused, and since the
complete organizational state can also be public, complete ecosystems can be
forked to create new various platforms with modified insurance policies and
objectives.