Feeling Blue

There are lots of interesting posts at the moment in regards to price. Some are saying to hold, some lamenting not selling and some are saying that it is your own fault if you didn't sell. It is a funny thing to say really for the ones that held essentially kept the price up for the ones to sell. If the holders decided to sell first, the price would have collapsed earlier. In some ways, it is a game of reverse chicken with each trying to sell before the next.

But, more so than this, there are a lot of posts about the feelings about the price and how people are dealing with it. There are the keep your chin up types and the sky is falling types. For the most part though, the holders are the ones with a more positive attitude than the sellers. This makes sense because the holders are obviously in a position that they want the price to go back up but the sellers want it to go down so perhaps they can buy back in or say, "lucky I sold". I wonder how many of the sellers still have some fiat or BTC to buy back in and how many improved their life but are essentially in the same position they were before coming to Steem.

The hope for most people here is that Steem is going to improve their lives somehow, whether it be financially, socially or perhaps for skill development. The financial side likely is the majority position though. The problem is that there is the immediate financial gains and the long term financial gains and these two positions are generally in some conflict with each other, as to have one is to forgo the other to some degree. Many will take a balanced approach to this and take a percentage for now and keep a percentage for later but there are also many who take all or, save all. Sell or Hold.

I read a post from a long time user and seller yesterday that was talking about past circle jerks and manual curation and how they have been consistently involved in the platform but haven't got the support of others. This is also probably why they feel disenfranchised enough to sell, I don't know though. What is interesting is that when looking at the numbers, there is a clear reason why in my opinion.

Besides engagement levels being low in this case, having SP to actually upvote and add value has its own effects. Obviously, people who are looking to grow and have a better financial position in some way are going to be attracted to SP which means the accounts with SP are likely to get targeted more than those without. But, more importantly perhaps is that those with SP feel a much stronger bond to the platform in general as they have more to lose if the platform fails. This doesn't require SP of course but, it helps.

For me personally, it is kind of frustrating that people who say they care about the platform, complain about bidbots and lack of value being given to their posts, are also the ones who had an opportunity to keep some Steem powered up and actually manually curate and distribute to other users. If they see this as important, why didn't they go 50/50 and keep half the Steem they earned on the platform to help reward users like themselves?

But, these people are also the ones who are often the most concerned about the current prices which means that even though they sold at highs while others held, they didn't necessarily invest it well enough to cover their lives past that point. Maybe they assumed that the SP would keep rolling in regardless of how they behaved. Hard to say.

But, this is a game of sorts and people talk about game theory. If we assume that everyone is personally incentivized to do what is right for them, there is likely to be a conflict between the holders and the sellers and those who are sellers who want to keep earning.

For example, if a holder wants the price to go up, they are likely going to support the content and people who they feel are going to help that happen. They are going to encourage more holding and, content that is going to encourage more people behaving in ways that they feel will increase price. If they see someone who has powered everything down now complaining about lack of support, they are less likely to support that person because, they don't necessarily see it as in their best interest to do so.

If for example one believes that a healthy Steem ecosystem requires a decently sized middle class of manual curators, then that is what they are likely going to try to build. From this position, why would one support an account who could have been in able to be in that middle class but, chose to sell virtually everything they earned? Why would they support someone who spreads sky is falling information that encourages selling when they want the opposite? There is a track record effect here that says, this person is only here to earn and sell.

Yesterday I earned 6 SP from curation. Not a great deal by any measure but one that is possible because of the SP in my wallet and some from a paid delegation. In order to do this, in the last week I have delivered 500+ votes on posts and comments. The majority of my votes goes on comments on my own posts as I see it as a good way to encourage and reward quality comments and distribute some Steem for doing so. The cost to me to get that 6 Steem is holding.

Let's say that instead I sold 10,000 Steem in December at 6 dollars for 60,000 dollars and then bought back today at 80 cents.... Silly me. But, in that time between, I have still been earning something and hopefully building the community a little along the way. If I had sold and held for 8 months, would people be visiting my account? Would those who think long term trust I was going to buy back? There doesn't seem to be much buying back on Steem at the moment from those who sold otherwise the price would be increasing, not sliding further. I haven't earned anywhere near what I would have been able to buy if I had sold and held but, I have been here.

As said, this is a game and this is part of the game. From a personal financial perspective I played poorly but, from a community financial perspective I may have played well. At least, some people other than myself have benefited from my wallet somewhat too. There are many way to play this game and I play the way I do in the hope that one day, my wallet will be worth something a lot more than currently and, those around me have wallets worth something also so they can improve their lives to a greater degree than those who go hand to mouth.

I have trouble understanding all aspects of this game though as it is quite complicated but, I do my best to try and build a view of the game world that helps me achieve my goals and as I see it, for me to achieve those goals, I have to help others achieve theirs to some degree which requires some reciprocity. Producing good content isn't enough, nor is only pointing out the problems of a broken system, even if correct. Because of the way the game works, SP is generally required to make a difference, not just words. I haven't been here from the start but I am pretty sure that from the start it was pretty clearly stated that Steem Power is your influence.

These are two excerpts from the white paper on Steem Power:

There is significant value to having long-term commitment, because it enables communities to make long term plans. Long-term commitment of stakeholders also causes them to vote for long-term growth rather than short-term pumps.

When users vote on content, their influence over the distribution of the rewards pool is directly proportional to the amount of SP that they have. Users with more SP have more influence on the distribution of rewards. This means that SP is an access token that grants its holders exclusive powers within the Steem platform.

I haven't read most of the white paper to be honest but, there is a lot in there. What I like from the first paragraph is:

having long-term commitment, because it enables communities to make long term plans.

This is the long view, one where it is possible to build an ecosystem that is potentially healthy and diverse enough to be able to support a large amount of people across a wide range of content groups. If this happens, the price of Steem will raise significantly.

From the second paragraph:

this means that SP is an access token that grants its holders exclusive powers within the Steem platform.

Exclusive powers means having more opportunity than those with less. Is this fair? Some say yes, some say no but with all things remaining equal, lets say there are two accounts of me. One acts the way I do, the other has sold everything and hold s virtually zero Steem Power. Both have taken an opportunity cost position that comes with risk. The holder me takes the long view risking immediate satisfaction for a potential future position, the seller me instant gratifies and risks the price going up in the future and not having Steem.

But, it is not so simple as there are many other forces at play including the sentiment of other players in the market and how each is likely to view holder or seller me. On top of this, there is the way the system works with vested interest having more pull on the rewards pool meaning, holder me has access to more than seller me which means holder me can use that draw to reward as he sees fit. Seller me has no such capacity and to earn must rely on people like holder me to see value in each of their posts. As the system develops, holder me gets spread ever more thinly since there aren't many similar and, support to individual posts will drop but, support of individuals or projects may increase.

No matter how you look at it or what people say, everyone here has an agenda to satisfy their personal needs to some degree at least. There are vast differences in needs however and even more variation in the ways people go about satisfying them. This is a very big game of Monopoly with a great deal more complexity as it not only includes real world lives, it is made up of a diverse set of people with a massive variety of backgrounds, skills and perspectives on how to play the game.

Each does their best with what they know in the moment, some look to learn more, some look longingly to the past, some wish they had sold, some wish they had bought, some shitpost, some write tomes, some buy votes others sell, some have a great deal of SP and some none, some get it given to them for free, some pay for it. There are many positions taken and each affects other positions in some way and in many cases, it doesn't feel fair but, this is the game, we each work with what resources we have and while some build so they have more resources, others sell so they have fewer chips to play with.

The Steem itself doesn't care how it is used though, it is just a dumb tool. What matters is how users utilize it to satisfy their needs and unfortunately, some use it better than others, some have regrets about how they have used theirs and, some are happy so far but may be complaining tomorrow. At the end of the day, the use your stake as you see fit is a core part of the game and just like no decision is a decision, selling stake is too. If one feels that selling is the best use for their stake, that is their decision to make but with each decision, there is a set of consequences that must be lived with, even though they may be unforeseen, unintended and unwanted.

We all only have one direction to go in this life though and, it isn't backwards. The way we currently feel doesn't have to be the way we always feel and the way we act, doesn't have to be the way we always act. The system is continually changing, evolving and growing and, the game is always on.

I don't write these pieces for an audience even though some people might find value in it somewhere. It is for me to build a better picture of the system that works for me. It is so I can evaluate positions and think about how I might change my position to better meet my goals and adjust my behavior to become a better player in the future. Each time I look at it though and from each perspective, in the long term view, the community is at the core and it is full of individuals all wanting something different. For them to be able to have access to what they want requires people to build it and, support it. On this platform, that generally requires a bit of Steem. A cost of selling can mean not having any bricks left to build with.

Anyway, time to get on with the day.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]