The car analogy is great. I would say it's more like you have a working vehicle. You're unhappy with it. It has problems that need to be addressed as soon as possible. Grand Solution: lets pull over, put it in park, leave the engine running, unbuckle, and get out of the vehicle. And that's it. That's the entire plan. Done. I guess we'll walk from now on. But you know the engine is running, so everything is ok.
Even if one believed your view that the Steemit team is irreplaceable ...
I didn't say that. I even said, "Would [the replacements] get up to speed eventually? Sure, I don't see why not." It's almost like you're saying that there can only ever be one or zero development teams. I don't get that at all.
A community-based open development model, while perhaps chaotic and uncertain, is also far more robust to the mistakes or mishaps of a handful of individuals operating under a single hierarchy (with an atrociously bad track record).
What model? Oh, you mean the one that gets hired after the problems are discovered. Got it. So that team, the one that doesn't exist until after the previous team is fired, is robust because why?
I do get that one development team is easier to deal with. Add an independent team and complexity mushrooms. But that should be our goal, not planned abandonment, then hope for the best.
I also get that maybe you witnesses aren't cut out for this idea. Maybe all you should do is decide which hardfork from which team should be implemented and that's it. Maybe we expect too much from all'y'all.
You seem to expect some sort of model with two independent teams.
First of all your comment about "complexity mushrooms" ought to doom the idea right there. Added complexity = risk and often leads directly to failure (particularly when one anticipates "mushrooming", especially when it comes to blockchains and even software in general.
Second is the fact that there is no viable funding for the idea. You are expecting other stakeholders on the blockchain to not only accept that Steemit is extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars per month from the blockchain and giving little back (save for one blockchain resuscitation four months ago) and then, at the same time, pay even more for a second team which would likely not actually be able to do anything because the first team would refuse to work with it (as it has largely refused cooperation with other outside development efforts, has specifically expressed a desire to keep all of the work in house, and has threatened witnesses supporting unauthorized work with being voted out).
Third, there is no viable path given historical experience with Steemit's largely-closed development process for such a second team to integrate or even particularly interact in any manner (even if, hypothetically, the mushroomed complexity of doing so could be managed, a tall order).
A precondition to any sort of second team getting off the ground is to get the first, obstructionist team, out of the way or convince it to significantly alter its methods to be far more open to shared, collaborative development. The latter has been requested numerous times (including, but not only, by me), only to be repeatedly rejected.
In short, your envisioned "safer" model, just makes no sense at all, and to the extent it involves "mushrooming complexity", most likely isn't even any safer. I still can't decide if you are this unrealistic or are just trying to obstruct any change to the status quo.
Yep, I pretty much agree with the particulars of what you just wrote. Either two parallel teams (hard) or one team basically replacing another (less hard). Or something even more clever.
In fact, what you outlined above is not a bad set of criteria for the kinds of goals and opportunities I hope can be explored, moving forward. They're not all insurmountable obstacles, after all.
Something other than, "Hire people when we get in trouble."
On the other hand, if the entire plan is "Phase 1: Stop powering down and selling 800k STEEM per month," that amounts to, "Phase 1: Collect Underpants."
Please read carefully. I did not say that was the entire plan. I said that plan alone would be a significant improvement to the status quo.
For the umpteenth time there have been numerous plans which involve various forms of community governance and that, in turn, clearly involves more than "hire people when we get into trouble" although that too could be part of what happens under such a model. In particular, it involves attracting, building, and supporting a team (how tightly or loosly coupled that team might be is TBD, though both can certainly work) as quickly as possible which, unlike the current one, will actually be accountable to stakeholders (or, indeed, to anyone at all).
One can not entirely rule out an "orderly" path from here to there via radical reform of the processes and policies if the incumbent team, but experience gives reason only to be hopeful, not optimistic. Failing that, the precondition to building a replacement team is ejecting the current one, which has been both obstructionist and ineffective. Yes, that may involve disruption, as an unavoidable cost. I do not seek such disruption but I also do not seek to avoid the unavoidable.
(emphasis yours)
Well then I misunderstood the part where you said:
(emphasis mine)
"That alone" implies a portion of a larger whole.
Example:
Note that in this example, as with Steem, one could stop with the initial item and accomplish something of value. That does not imply that one must or would do so.
I think you're still missing the point @inertia .
There will be a standby team always , not one that will be organized when a problem is found.
Basically a community of devs, -whether part of them be witnesses or not- , that are always at the ready, checking the blockchain , making sure things are good.
What happens when steemit inc sells off all their steem?
Do they move on?
800k steem, now increased to whatever their full powerdown is worth, is a death sentence tocthe steem price.
More so if traders get wind of whats happening .no one will invest in it, no one will buy it.