The Joystream Manifesto

Our
Manifesto sets out both the issues we consider are related to
digital media platforms in their present type in addition to our proposed
answer to these considerations.

Problem

We
believe that art, be it as literature, music, movie, video games or
efficiency, is a important tool via which societies establish a
shared understanding of what is common information amongst all members.
These expressions define values and narratives that end up shaping
tradition, religion and even public policy. It due to this fact matters deeply
how it is financed, distributed and paid for.

Digital media has become the primary medium through which such expression is
distributed, and digital media platforms have turn out to be the important thing
establishments organizing this exercise.

Unfortunately,
as a result of community results, economies of scale, regulations and political
interests, we’re today left with handful of huge institutions
which set the phrases for the way this happens. They are almost completely
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

rigid
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 the place media platforms are accountable to the
folks they impression, that are primarily their users, be it as
consumers, creatives, third party developer or employees.

It
is the absence of such accountability which is the elemental source
of any specific drawback at any particular time.

Thesis

Our
core thesis is that there are two primary challenges which have to be
addressed to realize this aim, and that an applicable application
of up to date distributed systems know-how, including
blockchains, sensible contracts and tokens, is the best means to take action.

The
Wedge

First
is the query of tips on how to create another from scratch within the
face of platform externalities which make any new platform nearly
ineffective, no matter any of its inherent traits. The
means of doing this type of bootstrapping has historically been
principally an artwork, where success has not often been reproducible.

We
imagine that blockchain tokens, earned by and issued to early
participants, have been shown to be extraordinarily effective at
mobilizing, integrating and motivating a global and dynamic
neighborhood.

This
has now repeatedly allowed nascent communities, just like the Bitcoin
group, to beat the preliminary network effect hurdle. There isn’t any
certainty that this might be adequate, but we imagine this mechanism
is as promising as anything which is more likely to have a chance in a
very long time.

Accountability
at scale

Second
is the query of tips on how to create and maintain accountability in such a
platform when it really reaches scale.

We
perceive there to be two fundamental https://www.joystream.org/ ways in which individuals can
maintain institutions of any kind accountable: Voice and exit, within the
custom of Hirschman A. O.

Voice

Voice
is the approach of making an attempt to enhance or reform the functioning of
an establishment from within. The effectiveness of this is determined by some
capability to both share dependable information with other members, and
have some influence on inner governance processes. Current media
platforms present users no efficient means of doing both.

We
consider that blockchains present an organizational and economic
infrastructure which can handle both issues. The public,
verifiable and immutable history of financial and administrative
information, supplies an excellent basis for users to grasp the
current and previous state of the platform. This allows anybody to make
incontestable claims about relevant facts and circumstances.

Further,
blockchain tokens enable us to make use and control of a platform
inseparable, giving customers an automatic seat at the desk in
deliberating over platform level selections.

All
that’s required to determine, exercise or transfer the capability to
take part in such activity, is the flexibility to sign messages with
identifiable cryptographic keys. Perfectly reliable contracting gives
a large, dynamic and unrestricted set of customers the technique of governing
the platform. This can serve a wide range of functions, corresponding to
endeavor projects, regulating participation in several formally
specified roles, and even updating the institutional rules themselves.
This integration of dependable contracting into the economic rails
provides an organizational infrastructure much more according to our
aims of inclusive control than the normal jurisdictional belief
primarily based infrastructure.

Exit

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

By
constructing platforms 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 control
their very own information, identification and assets, they have a a lot easier time
joining new platforms, and even taking their friends with them.

Open
protocols and data will make multi homing interfaces ample, where
users may not even need to modify, however as an alternative use a number of platforms
simultaneously, which inspires platform degree competition.

Even
more dramatically, reliance on open source implies that all of the
software program capital of a platform can simply be reused, and for the reason that
entire organizational state can be public, entire ecosystems could be
forked to create new various platforms with modified policies and
goals.