"The Steaming Pile of Shit Called Steemit" Brian Sovryn
All Steem Dollars generated from this post will be transferred to 'the lovely and hyper-intelligent Dr. Stephanie Murphy' if and when she chooses to join Steemit. :p
In the latest episode of Sovryn Tech, Voluntaryist Brian Sovryn critiqued Steemit.
Now I respect Brian. I have listened to about half of his 187 episodes of his weekly podcast. I find Sovryn Tech both informative and entertaining. Sometimes he is right about things... and sometimes he is wrong. But he is certainly not shy about putting his ass on the line.
In a nutshell, this is the stuff Brian said during his rant about Steemit. Some is paraphrased, most is verbatim. (My responses are in brackets.)
Here is the link to the show so you can listen for yourself: https://soundcloud.com/sovryntech/svtep0187
"Dan's ideas depend on people being virtuous."
(Most people are naturally good, and will act good in a free society. Steemit is a free society.)
"Having a blockchain on steemit is just for marketing."
(No, the Steem blockchain is there so shit's on record. Even if Steemit is forced to censor content, that content is still on the blockchain.)
"It is not a ponzi scheme but it is damn close."
(Value is subjective. I once thought Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme. I refused to buy it at 5$. I refused to buy it at 10$. I finally bought it at 30$ lol. But as @dan says... All of the arguments critical of Steem can be made against Bitcoin.)
"I can't wait for this to crash."
(Brian records two hour shows in one take with little or zero notes. Sometimes he says unfortunate things. This was not out of envy, this was probably just wanting to be right. But we Steemer's want to be right, right? We want Steem to go to the Moon!)
"People are going to get Bangladeshi specials."
(Here Brian means getting fake votes. But he does not know that it takes Steem Power and also a good reputation to make posts rise.)
"White paper is complicated. It feels like central planning."
(I gotta admit that the same thought; 'central planning' popped into my head when I read the white paper. But I guess it was planned, planned in the same way that a game designer plans out his game's economy. I obviously liked the plan enough to join the experiment.)
"I don’t want to pump something that people are not going to be able to cash out on."
(this is a very ethical statement actually. I urge my fellow Steemers to be careful how you promote Steemit to others. I think that my friend @piedpiper does a most excellent job of educating people on this opportunity in an honest and non-slimy way.)
"The guy who posted one picture and 3 paragraphs and made $10,000."
(I think he is referring to Jeff Berwick. But Jeff got paid out that much only because the whales voted it up because they know Jeff will attract thousands of his followers. On Steemit you get paid for the value that you bring. )
"The website says 'rewards' not money. They are just covering their asses because when it crashes there will be no money."
(Correct, everyone could leave Steemit tomorrow and the value of Steem would go to zero. Everyone could leave Facebook tomorrow and the market cap of facebook could drop to zero. But people are, right now adding value to steemit and taking out dollar bills.)
"The early people made the money. Fuck em."
(I think that Brian thinks that the early investors are doing a classic pump and dump. Well, it's a slow motion dump because we all know that the power down takes 104 weeks, so... no. Also, the early people made the money in facebook, twitter, and... Bitcoin! Anyways... (a) it's still early, and (b) it's not just about money... it's about freedom.)
Thanks for producing Sovryn Tech every week Brian. I hope to see both yourself and your wonderful girlfriend Stephanie Murphy here on Steemit.
Fellow Steemians, please upvote!
Thanks for the hat-tip! I do my best :)
lol!
Yes you do: https://steemit.com/@piedpiper
To think I once hired him to help market bitshares only to have him quit after the public announcement.
One day he will come around, he has been stuck in the Bitcoin maximalist echo chamber too long.
Don't worry...They will ALL come around very soon! This is a platform that not only will be available to famous celebrities, but also third world nations. It will create income for people who have had no voice in their oppressed countries...A great time to be alive!!! Thank you:)
yes its a true and wonderful point you make, lets hope that it goes down this path, as this world or certainly parts of it have been kept out for far too long !! Give the people a voice, give them Steem to power up their dreams and communities !! ; - )
The issue with a lot of third world nations is the ability to convert into their own currency I believe. I could be wrong, but right now you have to convert to bitcoins then into a currency such as USD, but not all countries currencies are available to convert, or am I wrong on this? Although at least they would have the ability to build up a good amount of SP then later convert once the ability comes available.
Yes I agree. But Rome definitely wasn't built In one day! Lol Building the biggest Social Media Revolution will definitely take time. Being In the crypto space requires ALOT of patience! But, if we focus our efforts to help the founders get the word out, this adoption will fuel itself:) Great point though!
lots of maximalists will be opening their eyes in the coming months. i was one myself until Steem opened my eyes https://www.getrevue.co/profile/control/issues/control-issue-5-20293
Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the read. I think there may be one mistake in the article. The way I understand it, the your reputation the more you can effect a Flag (or down vote). However, it is only with higher investment in Steem Power that one gets a stronger upvoting influence.
... and i just learned something. Thanks @james212
One Brian quote that I left out was that"Steemit was founded by nice guys." He does not dislike you, just Steemit. Once he fully grasps it.... he might produce another episode with a different conclusion.
Yet another point of his that i left out is that "Steemit has only abiut 1000 followers on Twitter... ...so how viral can it be?!"
My response to this is that once new people join up... Steemit IS the social media platform they switch to. I only use the others to... promote Steemit now.
One last point that voluntaryist creators must come to terms with; your market is migrating over here on Steemit. We won't notice you near as much or at all on Twitter or Facebook or Reddit. We love Steemit. We OWN Steem. Thank you @dantheman.
Re twitter: 1752 followers of @ steemit on the bird page - lets grow this if only just for the cred.
"Dan's ideas depend on people being virtuous."
Thank you for believing in us.
Great article! I was turned on to Steemit by my fellow Anarchist Sterlin Luxan. I've been looking for something like this in a platform for years! Steem may rise or fall but at least it's here. I think about the tons of material I posted & commented to Facebook just to make Zuckerberg money. Think about this, the government makes money using mils of a cent. At least Steemit pays out more! (By the way I upvoted your comments, you have to donate to the kitty to reap rewards.)
Let me know if he wants to tangle :)
Lol maybe a google hangout discussion.
I'm always down for those.
Everything can be classified as a ponzi scheme. Your goverment is a ponzi. The company you work. The monopoly copy-machine money of your FIAT currency.
At least with Steemit I can make write what I always write about and get paid. If that doesn't happen it won't bother me. I wasn't getting paid in other social media but at least I have a chance here.
WHAT @kyriacos said
The big question is legitimate profit. Most online blogs make it from advertising.
your face is a ponzi... nah joking ur nice.
His main statement is that there will not be enough demand for Steem to hold its price from plummeting to zero one day. Here is my proposal to increase demand of Steem.
Interesting, but I have a hunch that the founders will want to just cruise on growth and the demand for Steem that speculators have for quite some time before doing something like this. Didn't FB have like a billion users before it even opened up advertising? We are at 50,000 users (possibly only 25,000 due to dual accounts) And Steem is at 2$ which is fine. Steem might drop to 50 cents, it's all good. Alls that matters for now is that the community keeps growing. This said @everythink, I scanned your article and your idea does have merit. My response in short is... t's too soon.
This is a great article, thank you for writing it.
@freedomengineer Well I dunno about the moon. But we're definitely in a rocket ship. Here's hoping the rocket wasn't made in North Korea...
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/north-korea-missile-crashes-moments-launch-160428072902328.html
None of the cryptocurrencies have real value unless people buy into them in some way. With steem it's about getting people involved. It's inevitable that early adopters will do well, but I understand there's a few measures in place to prevent people cashing out early or speculating. A lot of these currencies don't seem to be used for anything apart from trading. That's not what I'm interested in. Interested to see where the technology goes
Thanks for showing this side of the conversation. Yes this might tank and only the ones that got in early will make money but we don't know yet.
If Steem is only worth 10 cents but but Steemit becomes a thriving social network filled with Voluntaryists on blockchain. That's a win for me.