Steemit... A word of advice from an experienced businessman

No matter how much those new to business might want to believe, the laws of physics, humanity and the world won't change just because you have this thing called "The Internet". And this seems to be the underpinning of the current failing of Steemit Inc. and in general Steemit.com.

The same could be true of crypto-currencies in general too. The reality is that money is our way of measuring human perception and a vote in confidence for something. Money is measurable and we simply measure it by transactions. If you buy something, you are demonstrating a positive vote for the thing you buy. If you sell it, you are demonstrating a negative vote against the thing you own. It is that simple. It might be you have wonderful memories of something, but you still sell it. Those that distort nostalgia as an emotion with money are doomed to lose money. Period.

Should you be spending your valuable time & money in Steemit.com?

This seems to be the running question right now. I've spoken with so many people who have demonstrated what I can only call a naive and emotional blurring of reality with Steem applications, particularly Steemit. I have spent a lot of time writing here, although I would argue that I would have written on a website blog, Reddit or some other platform anyway - openly sharing my opinions on things is what I do.

I was slow to adopt Steemit. I heard about Steemit from Jeff Berwick (https://www.dollarvigilante.com) who I respect for his outspoken anarcho-capitalist positions on things that are just plain wrong with the western world, and at least he offered some alternatives to those faults. He was bullish on Steemit from the very start. He cited that posts he had made netted him $20k+ in the early days. This seems to be unrealistic. And the truth is that if something isn't real, it generally doesn't last very long. This is the law of nature on planet earth.

When I looked at this platform, I saw immutability as its strongest attribute. The fact that a post here could not be censored, is extremely appealing. I've been on this planet for over 50 years, and I've seen censorship distort reality way too much. One thing that typically changes society through government is activism and this, coupled with democratic voting, can radically change society for the better. If you attempt to censor activism, you dilute the value of duly elected policies and politicians. Maybe that is a good thing for some, but for the majority it typically never is. Steemit represented a way that viewpoints could be shared and could be made available to the greater Internet, and consequently the world.

This is a gift. This is something we have not had for years. Even if you are a successful blogger, the fact is that unless you have some massive SEO or Google-fu capability, your voice and words are push so far to the back of the Internet that you basically don't exist. We use terms these days such as "shadow banning" to talk to this, but it has been going on since the very first search engine. If someone wanted to search for an opinion on something, they had to first get recognized by Google and appear on a search engine and this took massive amount of luck, work and human effort. Something most journalists were not willing to do.

Google control the distribution of media. They are the newspaper of the 21st century. And Steemit managed to get Google support. This meant that I can post an article and it will appear in search engine results. I can post a link to it on Twitter and other social media platforms and it wasn't squashed. I could see the photo of the Steemit post there on Twitter as I could see it on the platform itself. Finally we had some true democratization of journalism so you didn't need to get a Press Pass to post something.

This permeated through almost all forms of digital media. Just as YouTube could censor or ban an opinion (which they routinely have because the platform is funded by advertising and ultimately they will do what supports advertisers the most - at the expense of openness), d.Tube could not. Just as SoundCloud could ban a controversial Podcast, dsound.audio could not. Just as Facebook could ban a person from posting, Steemit could not. The community would "vote" on the articles based on up or down voting. And that reflected in money.

Money (again) was the simplification of a numerical vote for support for a post. It wasn't about the money in this case, though. It was about popularity. But this is also where the entire paradigm was flawed from the start. And why I have advocated for change here for a long time. But to no avail.

Up and Down Voting is NOT a solution on Steemit

If you are going to give someone your support, then that support should cost you something. This is the fundamental reason why I don't believe Steemit can survive. The problem right now is that anyone can up or down vote something for basically no cost. That means their vote has no efficacy. They have no real power other than "Steem Power" which is a stupid concept to begin with. It isn't because they have more respect or experience or wealth. It is because they got in early, or they invested money into their account, or they managed to game the system by posting pointless and worthless content repetitively. We were told, "Post every day". Well that suggests that you actually have something of value to say everyday.

Reality check: Few people do. Those that have to post everyday, have to spend human labor to do it. And although much of that can be simplified through automation, the message of what is being posted had no actual importance. Sure, I can take a photo of a beach somewhere. And I post it, and get upvotes. Big deal. This is not sustainable because who really cares? And when people spoke out against this, they were shunned because (god forbid) they might break the flawed paradigm that "community matters". A community of zombie followers of pointless drivel is NOT a community. It is a zombie horde hell bent on simply making money and getting upvotes.

Don't get me wrong - this has been a very valuable experiment for me. I have seen just how the market has responded to a flawed product. That shows me just what is needed to fix it. Is it fixable? I don't know if I can answer that. But I can tell you what is needed for this to actually work...

What is the solution? What really is required?

First, there has to be a cost associated with casting a vote. This means you can't just upvote something because your level of commitment is to move the mouse cursor over an up arrow icon and press a button with your index finger on your right hand. There needs to be a real cost. This means you have to give something to someone that has some value to you. This is the basis of medium of exchange, which has under powered society since the dawn of humanity.

If you had to purchase a vote, for example, then giving it to someone is a true vote in their favor. They have to produce quality content. They have to make effort. They have to truly have something to say. Without cost, there is no value.

It would also remove the enormous amount of posting "spam" from Steem platforms. The number of stupid videos taken with a cheap cell phone of someone in a third world country that has free access to the Internet is just ruining the quality of media content on d.Tube. I've been so critical of this over my time in Steemit and I still am. If you can't find quality content because 99% of the crap on d.Tube is such a waste, then you won't use it. You have alternatives. YouTube is one. Why is YouTube more viable? Because there is a "cost" to post there. The quality level must be so high and bad quality content is marked low and doesn't appear on recommended videos, so it naturally falls to the bottom and is forgotten. Google & YouTube have algorithms that do this, and that is the special sauce that is Google and why it is worth so much money.

So two basic things have to change - Votes have to cost something so they are important when given to someone, and content spamming needs to end. Sorry, but if you have been posting daily your "Vlog" on d.Tube, then you are part of the problem. Unless you actually have something to say, stop saying it. You are diluting the quality for everyone else. You may not agree with this, but it now is measured in the business failure that is Steemit Inc.

Hot air lifts things. But it also dissipates quickly leaving nothing but crashing uplifted things in its wake.

Disasters unveil great opportunities

What is left? Something incredibly valuable. We have uncovered the core requirement that must be fulfilled by burning down all the dead growth with the bushfire.

We need a platform that is immutable. We need a way that quality content can rise to the top, and that bots and spamming is curtailed. We need a way that people can vote with something that actually cost them something to acquire, so that its value is real.

If you know of something that meets this criteria, I'm all ears. I don't believe Steemit is that thing. It existed purely on mass speculation of crypto-currency valuations. They are coming down for the very same reasons I've stated here. Hot air can't last forever, and true value has to come from those that vote for something with something that cost them to acquire it. I'm also dubious that any dApp that is based on Steem is able to meet the same requirements. Since the value of Steem is "mined" by upvoting, the Steem currency is flawed. If it was mined by something that actually cost money or effort to make, then I would give its value more credence.

I'm also starting to be more skeptical on Bitcoin. For one core reason - the cost of mining is so high, and the value of BTC is going down, so that at some point the mining companies will go broke. This is the same in mining precious metals. If it costs more to dig something out of the ground than it is worth, then you won't invest in digging it. Will that mean a BTC is worth more? Only if you believe that BTC based simply on its property of being a store of value is worth something. But we have those assets already. Gold. silver, diamonds, etc. already provide that. Why do we need another? If you are storing it, then moving it over the Internet has little point.

As BTC values drop, so do all crypto-currency assets it would seem. Why is that the case? Because this is complex stuff and institutional investors that backed these things don't necessarily have the time to understand what they are investing in. They understand the nature of speculation and how to play that game. They have been doing that for hundreds of years. If BTC is just another asset class, then they play it like any other asset class.

True value of these things will eventually be revealed. I don't know what they are. I do know that true value comes down to one's perception of the cost of acquiring and holding it.

And for that reason, Steem is not something that I have a lot of faith in. I know many will not agree with my opinions here, and that is ok. That is the wonderful thing about the world is that we can all share our opinions. And if you are sharing something you truly believe in, then you actually have something worthy of posting today.