RE: HF21: What Makes Steem Valuable?
I'm totally with you on the need to focus on value. The question I always like to ask is: "If you take away speculation, why would someone want to buy STEEM?"
My issue with the EIP (and the whole concept of rewarding content just for the sake of it) is that even if it works out perfectly - i.e. the highest quality posts always end up with the most rewards or however you define the perfect "proof of brain" system - I still don't see how there is value to owning STEEM or why I would want to buy any.
Maybe I'm a great curator and can earn a ton of curation rewards, but being able to earn more STEEM is not a reason to buy STEEM in itself. That presumes STEEM has some value to begin with which would make you want to earn more of it. Again, if you remove speculation which gives it its value right now, what is the reason to buy STEEM?
That's what I think all of our efforts should be focusing on - giving STEEM some actual value that doesn't just come from being able to earn more of it.
The reason i am buying Steem is cuz of its consistant passive income.
When the price rises the income would be greater as well.
I am not a writer so the curation rewards are a big thing for me and for the most people that arent writers.
I think i am the only one who thinks that a 50/50 reward distribution is a great thing.
I could explain how 10 measly content producers could generate enough demand for consumers to buy 2.5 million STEEM. The problem I have with explaining it is the fact I've tried what feels like a million different ways of saying it. Maybe it's my wording? I don't know. I have these two recent posts:
https://steemit.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/curators-hello-where-the-hell-are-you
https://steemit.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/how-much-have-you-spent-on-entertainment-in-your-lifetime
I left a good comment somewhere else where I actually break down how 10 content producers could create so much demand. I don't know what to say anymore and I'd have to hunt for that comment, and I'm so tired. Writing it out again just seems like a waste.
*Edit: Found the second time I used that comment I speak of under this post
https://www.palnet.io/palnet/@midlet/on-50-50-for-steem-you-ll-never-beleive-what-the-real-problem-is
Combine the wisdom from everything I've said within these links, plus I can find more links, just read my entire blog and every comment; you'll eventually find some answers.
So I just skimmed through your posts linked above (sorry I didn't have time right now to fully read them) but I really think you're on to something there. I would love to see an SP holding based subscription model for content.
Off the top of my head I'm thinking there could be a front-end where content creators can choose a subscription level, for example 100 SP, to have access to their content. So that means if I want access to that content I have to have at least 100 SP in my account and then when i click some button to access a particular piece of content it will "unlock" it by submitting an upvote from my account.
I think that would be really cool and, if done correctly, could actually incentivize a significant number of people to invest in Steem Power.
Patreon 2.0?
It's more about selling the idea to consumers. It's already happening all around us, people just don't realize it.
Every time an "established" content producer shows up, what happens? People cheer because they have a large following. The established content producer then starts churning out content, but their following doesn't come with them, and the ones who do, don't buy STEEM. The established content producer forgot to secure their place here by explaining to their followers the benefits of purchasing STEEM and upvoting over the long term. They still ask for "donations". That money is thrown away and the consumer or follower must then donate again, and again, and again. That's silly, when we have a platform like this. Instead of donating, invest. Then if that content producer isn't performing up to the consumers standards, they can have their money back, or go support someone else, without ever needing to throw money away in the form of donations, ever again. Because these established producers fail to secure their future here, they often leave after only a few months, and the "benefit" of them simply showing up is nil.
You guys already get it. If someone plays Splinterlands, and gets bored, they get their money back. Aggroed said something along the lines of what I'm saying while promoting Splinterlands at a recent conference. The consumer can have their money back, plus more, if they decide they're no longer interested in playing. Games are part of the entertainment industry I speak of, so it's not hard to shift some of those billions over to your product. It's already working. People just don't realize it.
I'm not talking about a paywall, but I've written posts about what you're saying.
The whole point is to make the consumer realize the benefits of investing in content rather than buying it, or donating to content producers. Offer incentives like the 50/50 rewards split to encourage more consumers to consume. There should be far more consumers than content producers here, like in the entertainment industry, because that's how this works.
The fact is, people already spend the money. STEEM can offer them a better deal, with any form of entertainment consumption.
This is about educating content producers as well. There's a reason why you can't find content from an established producer describing to their following the things I'm trying to point out. They didn't know, but if they did, everyone benefits.
Thank you for explaining this well here. @starkerz and @oracle-d have been working with a model like this for companies and governments as well, encouraging them to invest in Steem Power to pay people involved via the rewards pool. It may work, or it may get downvoted. The key is still education, helping people understand how ti works. Now with Steem Engine tokens, communities with their own tokenomics rules can experiment with different approaches.
You're welcome.
Yeah, a delegation economy. I mentioned that idea in a post I wrote a while back. Think I called it "Steem Is Not Facebook, Steem Is LinkedIn" or something. The value I saw in Steem was its potential to create a delegation economy where you don't have to give money, just vote authority.
That said, the haters of self-voting ruin that entire aspect of Steem, because without the 100% value of the upvote given to the company I don't think the numbers work.
Maybe what people need to see is an example of it actually working, not just talk about it. There's been a lot of talk over the last three years. Not many success story examples.
There's also the downvote UI issue I mentioned in my post. Any serious content producer wouldn't touch this place at all if they thought one person could come along and hide the content they worked so hard on.
What are your thoughts about that being a big part of the problem why serious content producers don't waste time with Steem?
Did you even read that stuff? Skim? Couldn't grasp it? Can't see how it already works? Plenty of examples. I used music in one, to be able to tap into a few billion. Blog posts/magazines what's the difference? So there's a few more billion. The fact is people spend money on entertainment. It's fact. What examples are you missing? Just look outside.
So the other day, sometime this week, another top twenty witness insulted me. Do you realize what you just said? Since I reacted poorly to the insults earlier in the week, I've learned my lesson and will not snap.
Again. Luke. I want to stress the fact that I can respect you. I have no issue with you as man, at all.
For nearly three years, I've been watching so many witnesses in top positions put their disconnect on display. Do you truly know what goes on here?
What makes you think I'm not a serious content producer? Do you even realize you just insulted me?
I'm looking for examples on Steem. That's what really matters. If your premise is correct. show me examples of where it has worked with Steem. Just saying it can work doesn't accomplish anything. Yes, we know many things can work, but what is working?
I ran a business for ten years. Ideas are cheap. Implementation is everything. Pointing to other industries and saying "We can do that here also. Millions and billions!" is not reality. Real examples here on Steem is reality. Make that happen, and I'll better understand what you are saying. Until it does, it's just more opinions and ideas with no implementation leading to actual results.
I have no intention of insulting you, but if your premise is correct, shouldn't you be a working example of how the price of STEEM is increasing because you are here adding value? By serious content producer, I was referring to your examples of the millions and billions of dollars available in the media and entertainment industries. These industries involve millions of people and their millions of dollars. No cryptocurrency project has been able to do that, let alone Steem.
To me, your ideas and the reality of what Steem actually is today is equally disconnected.
I think most of us see the potential. It's why I invested ~9 BTC into Steem when it was around $3/$4 years ago. I saw this as a technology which would take over the world and become a global phenomenon used by every media outlet on the planet. It didn't happen.
Luke. Be quiet.
This isn't what you say to someone who wants to invent the car. "Well maybe if someone else invents the car, and I see it running, then I'll believe you."
Luke. You've frustrated me beyond words today. Blah. That's all I got.
In your interactions with me, you seem to describe your frustration and how no one seems to understand what you are saying over and over again.
Henry Ford didn't talk about inventing a car for mass adoption.
He went and did it.
I'm simply saying go and do it and then maybe people like me will understand what it is you're trying to communicate, and you won't be frustrated all the time at our lack of understanding.
Luke. Be quiet.
You come to my blog leaving your comments on my post and then tell me to be quiet. Ugh.
There's simply too much to get into to be able to explain, current issues with the platform that need to be resolved, a playing field that needs turf. Many of these things require a community effort. You've insulted me, shot me down, doubled down on those insults, already proven you're unwillingly to listen. There's no LUKE in team. Therefore, there's no point in having a discussion. You've been disrespectful and that's why you should just be quiet, so it stops, because I don't want to hear it. If you can't respect that, it's because you're disrespectful.
I'm not a disrespectful person. Those who actually know me, know this. Admittedly, I sometimes say things the wrong way and offend people unintentionally, but I just re-read our dialogue here, and I really don't see what was so justifiably offensive to you. You misunderstood my meaning of "serious content producers" and took it as personally offensive.
Disagreeing with someone's points and not preferring their delivery isn't an insult or "shooting them down" IMO. I agree with your premise that the Steem ecosystem would benefit from more content consumers being entertained by valuable content they want to reward in order to see more. That's not a new idea and was mentioned in the original white paper along with how important it is that this can be obtained with an upvote and no loss aversion associated with having to pay for content. This has been said again and again since the very beginning. I read your content and didn't see anything new to me which is what you implied was there.
Maybe we just have completely different personality and communication styles. If you come to my blog and leave comments on my posts telling me I'm disconnected, I will respond in kind. If my approach offends you, please be open to chalking it up as a different style of communication. I mean no offense. No one is entitled to respect. Not preferring someone's approach is also not the same thing as disrespecting them, IMO.
If I see your writing style or your art and am told I should read it and think, "I don't prefer that" is that disrespect? I don't think so. It would be different if I was just passing by, looking at your blog posts. To comment there uninvited and share my personal opinions could be considered disrespectful, but it's also just the result of putting your art on display. Taking that personally doesn't make sense, IMO. For you to come here and say read these posts, the wisdom they contain, and the answers within is a different story. From my perspective, I'm simply disagreeing that something new is being said and you're choosing to take personal offense at that.
I started out my post linking to this for a reason.
If you do care to get to know and understand me, telling me to be quiet in the comments of my own blog is not a way to earn my respect.
Yes.
And here's my response to this strange little troll underneath me.
https://steemit.com/life/@nonameslefttouse/why
LOL you are way off here!
Dude, leave. Social media on a blockchain is about free speech, so don't tell people to be quiet or anything like that. Respect free speech or go back to Twitter.
According to your logic, it's perfectly fine for me to say, "Be quiet."
I believe you have a right to speak, yes, but you clearly indicate that you are the type of person that tries to silence others. That can be done on Twitter, after all, that company loves that kind of stuff. Steem is suppose to be a rejection of that mentality, the mentality I see from your comments.
I respect your right to free speech, you should start respecting the free speech of others.
Are you implying that Steem has no value? Advertising makes it clear that people's eyeballs have value. Bringing people's eyeballs to Steem has value.
People would buy Steem to increase their influence on people eyeballs and mind which are all very valuable to even the biggest corporations and governments.
The original whitepaper states:
https://www.docdroid.net/0TuBFv2/steem-whitepaper.pdf
Eyeballs are largely a property of a web (or non-web) application, not a blockchain. The white paper and in many ways the whole Steem community both confuse the two in very significant ways. There are many logical leaps in these assumed models that are poorly supported if at all.
The only thing a blockchain can really ever do is pay people money (or tokens) according to a variety of rules. Apart from that, it is impotent to interact with the world in any way, eyeballs or otherwise.
I'm not convinced that people influence people's eyeballs by buying Steem, or at least the model by which they can do so has not been clearly explained in the white paper or otherwise. They can influence who gets paid, but that isn't the same thing at all.
Why do you think 'eyeballs' wouldn't play a (big) role on a blockchain application like STEEM(it)?
Imagine for example I am writing an article about Steem Monsters (or any other business built on STEEM). Then I think it does matter if 50 people are reading it or 5000, if I assume that a certain percentage of the readers gets interested in Steem Monsters and decides to buy Steem Monsters cards with ... STEEM! :)
Apart from that, as many well informed poeple (including you) are so eager to test the planned HF changes, I would say "Yes, lets try it now, don't lose more precious time (apart from testing) and just see what happens!"
Then at least we cannot say we hadn't tried it out ... and then I really hope my scepticism proved to be wrong.
Well the simple fact is you can't, as a typical user, "look" at a blockchain in and of itself. You are always going to be using some sort of application and the application is effectively a gatekeeper on eyeballs.
For example, steemit.com has started showing "featured posts" which have nothing to do with the blockchain, that is just whatever their company management decides users should look at, and those posts I believe get far more eyeballs as a result.
Yes, of course the programmers of the different apps have quite some influence, but apart from that, if there are more users altogether on a blockchain, business owners (investors) have a bigger pool of potential customers (my example was Steem Monsters). If the products of the businesses are paid with the currency of the blockchain (for example STEEM) that should originate in more demand and thus a higher price of the currency (at least that would seem to be logical in my eyes).
Sure more usage can correlate with higher value. That's not at all the same thing as 'eyeballs' though.
I meant we should care about getting/retaining as much as possible users which means more 'eyeballs' as well (English is not my mother tongue but I translate 'eyeballs' here with people who view content, advertisements, articles about Steem Monsters etc. - tell me if I am wrong) which should lead to more usage as well.
Yes, if someone is buying STEEM that doesn't influence people's eyeballs, but if there are more eyeballs (= more users) there is a bigger chance of more people buying STEEM. Therefore I think the formula more users = more value still should work even on a blockchain based platform.
And that's why we should care about the effect every change has on (potential) new users.
That's the premise being claimed above which I am questioning. In a lot of ways we seem to agree.
Passive users and active users alike increase the value of Steem.
Why do you think Steem has value if it ain't what I highlighted?
Well almost every single cryptocurrency has some value even the most nearly-defunct ones with abandoned development, semi-broken blockchains, etc. They almost never lose all value.
As far as why it has specifically the value that it has I don't think its much different from any other cryptocurrency. People speculate that it may have greater demand in the future for a variety of reasons, or that it may have less. The process results in a price.
But I'm not sold on it having anything to do with influencing eyeballs.
For the reasons you mention here, I think my STEEM is not Steemit post may have been one of the more important contributions I've made here. It seems the community (and investors/speculators trying to evaluate STEEM) are still stuck in this discussion without a resolution. The utility of STEEM (unlike most other cryptocurrency projects) is no longer based on wild speculative dreams. It's being demonstrated right now, and some don't like that.
Utility of steem is a joke at this point because most users used centralized bullshit. Developers have to build real technology first.
Without smart contract technology, building truely decentralized applications is difficult (though not impossible).
Curious, do you run your own front end to the Steem chain locally? If so, what do you use?
We run our own front ends. We ran into many problems following the herd per say , from centralized front end development. (i've gotten more people to deploy front ends, but it isn't a solution to have them only on the VPS servers) Web apps seem to be an extremely locked down ecosystem that isn't very p2p friendly.
Next logical step is running the chain locally with a front end/webui talking to localhost , and that is what myself, powerpoint45, techcoderx, and vaultec have been working together with.
Only times I use the full stack locally (more people should have this access and would run steem blockchain on their hardware) is when i'm logged into the witness node on smoke and need to broadcast a transaction per CLI. This is why we need Witness GUI for DPOS as well as front ends for posting data into the chain.
https://github.com/dtubenetwork
https://github.com/techcoderx/ipfsVideoUploader
https://gitlab.com/vaultec/dtubepermanente
https://github.com/powerpoint45/dtube-mobile-unofficial
At no point is this Steem blockchain's fault. It's front end and backend developers who missed the point/access of what BTC core wallet (full nodes) achieved, as bitcoin has over 10,000 live copies online. Steem only has 125.
This comes from lazy development , not pushing hard enough , (even to the brink of failure) innovation.
I often wonder what it would look like if people built integrated hardware solutions. Something like a raspberry pi complete with the full blockchain ready to go, you just plug it in and you have a full node available to you locally. Maybe @anyx's api could be used as well.
I don't think Steem has really demonstrated much clear utility. It has properties which can be useful as you described quite clearly in your "STEEM is not Steemit" post, but its user base has stagnated so it isn't really demonstrating that such utility has much appeal.
I think a better narrative than speculators "fearing" utility is something like earnings reports on stocks. Sometimes the demonstrated utility falls short of expectations and this causes the story to adjust downward and the price falls, but sometimes it exceeds expectations (or points to even greater possibilities), and the price increases. Unfortunately Steem has not really demonstrated the latter.
Obviously, when there is a excess of hype and expectations are 'to the moon', it is more likely that 'earnings' (or demonstrations of utility in the case of blockchains/tokens) will fail to meet them, but the opposite does sometimes happen too.
I was more thinking along the lines of "We're going to build project X that will do Y!" where X doesn't exist in reality yet and Y is just a set of features (not a promise of future economic returns). If X does get built and it does functionally accomplish Y, then it's no longer speculation. Then it's more along the lines of what you describe in terms of evaluating it as a real project with expectations of profitability and utility value.
I'd say Steem is built, and it does functionally exist as a social media application on the blockchain which rewards people with tokens of value. Many other blockchain projects still haven't been built out to do the thing they claim they are going to do. Many more are today than in 2017, but I still think there's a disconnect between pure speculation in the space and evaluating a cryptocurrency project against other competitors in that market vertical.
Ultimately, I agree, the value hasn't yet been demonstrated, or we'd see more people buying Steem and powering up.
In practice, it's still speculation for a very long time. The speculation is over how much it will grow. Building a blockchain to do Y may demonstrate it can do Y, but from a value perspective, that is little more than a proof of concept until it demonstrates that it can grow large and attract a large amount users and economic value. It's barely one step forward from pure hype, and if the proof of concept demonstrates some problems with the concept or growth potential, that's a negative not a positive. It's not a given that such a proof-of-concept will be a negative in this way, but in practice many are, for various reasons, some totally legitimate (like most high risk experimental ventures fail, but that doesn't mean trying them was a bad idea) and some not (naked hype and fraud).
Steem curation can be displayed as a reflection of the most valuable content according to the shareholders.
This has value for the community, aspiring authors and curators.
There are clear incentives for the community to have a window on what are the best-paid posts and the more Steem someone has, the greater their influence on the platform/pay.
https://www.docdroid.net/0TuBFv2/steem-whitepaper.pd
Maybe. For those who are personally involved with dedicated curation of reward payouts, very likely yes. For major investors, maybe (depending on their own views on how important it is what particular payouts are made, some will care and some won't).
For many users, they may be happier looking at whatever Steemit thinks are the best posts to 'feature' or content that meshes with their own personal interests regardless of payout (possibly by app-level targeted curating, or just the user's own decisions of what to look at), or they may not even have a choice if their preferred UI (for whatever reasons) takes a different approach to showing content or doesn't even show 'content' at all (as with some of the games now reasonably popular on the blockchain).
I don't know how much demand there is for influencing the eyeballs of power curators, who are the only ones who can actually be counted on to have their eyeballs directed as a result of on-chain curation. There might be a bit more demand to influence the eyeballs of major investors (since that is a relatively valuable demographic to advertisers), but it still depends whether the investors care about payouts for their eyeballs to be focused on that content.
Saying 'curation' generally isn't specific enough, because Steemit does their own curation when they decide what posts to feature and what advertisements to place on the pages and where to place them. This curation exists alongside the curation of payouts and the former is more directly in line of users' eyeballs.
For users of UIs and apps that have their own policies on what content to feature, or none at all, those looking to reach those eyeballs will simply buy advertising from the app or UI operator, as with Facebook or non-blockchain games. Having a blockchain behind the UI doesn't change anything here.
The best way to capture people's attention is to let them express what they value. This is done through curation. Displaying the results of curation refines the process and create virtuous cycles.
People's attention has value. Capturing people's attention has value. We can account for irrational behavior but it can't be predicted.
See my other reply. I really believe that the biggest problem is simply that we have elevated this whole content and curation mechanism into something that it supposed to be a big deal on its own, when in reality it isn't.
It isn't that it has no value on its own but it really needs to be just a small piece that starts the ball rolling on building a larger community with its own vibrant economy that does much more (which makes the costs of paying content an acceptable means to an end). When it becomes too much of the focus and only a small part of the story for where Steem is going then, the fundamentally unfavorable economics of it all become dominant and value just bleeds away.
The attention economy was never a good story here. Attention has value but it has financial value that can be monetized only to the extent it can be tolled off, as sites like Facebook do. That's not a good fit for a blockchain economy which is built around permissionless access.
It's true that eyeballs are not property of a blockchain, but what if we make it one?
We can easily solve this problem in a centralized way.
Step 1: Steemit, Inc stop using ads for personal profit.
Step 2: They start selling the ad spots by auction to the advertiser who is willing to burn the most STEEM. (They can even take a small cut if they are that greedy).
Step 3: Bidbots are obligated to burn at least 20% of the profit they make, if they don't, then steemit, Inc downvotes them to death. This will create a good sink for STEEM. Centralized, yes, but effective.
Step 4: Price of STEEM obviously falls less than it is now, and rises higher if helped by speculation. Steemit, Inc which holds millions of STEEM is now happy because they made more through increase in price than by selling stupid google adsense ads.
Step 5: Encourage Dapps like Dtube etc to use ad spots and sell them by auction to the highest bidding advertiser (again burn most of the steem). Those apps will help the price of steem, which will benefit them, benefit users, benefit Steemit, Inc. THIS IS THE STRONGEST NETWORK EFFECT EVER.
Step 6: Dapps that help steem in absolutely no way are also downvoted to death. Centralized but effective, again.
With the exception of (6) none of these can actually be enforced in any plausible way. (6) should probably happen but even without any access to the reward pool, dapps can still build business models (for example around selling ads, services, etc.) which don't contribute much if at all to the value of Steem
Can’t be enforced but it’s possible to go in this direction through discussions. You are more influential than me so getting to you is one of the best things I can do.
Posted using Partiko iOS
When I say not enforced I'm really saying that I don't think they will work out because without some form of enforcement, people and companies will find ways to cheat, although they will usually dress it up in less negative terms than that.
A couple of years ago Ned was talking about the attention economy and some concept (never fully defined) of how ad revenue would be shared with the content creator, the reader, and/or with Steem as a whole through burning.
But when the rubber hit the road and they started selling ads, they just decided to keep all the money in the name of 'sustainability', and there isn't a damn thing anyone else can do about it.
Another reason our coin has devalued so much is because the original whitepaper is such a piece of trash. Maybe we should re-write it with #freedom values developed by steemians not Dan, who btw powered down his steem already and fucked off.
The whitepaper has already been re-written.
But with who's values? Maybe Steem should re-write it every year since we evolve unlike ANY other chain! A decentralized vote is possible with the amazing data chain that steem is!
If content is actually valued in a way that is perceived as fair/valuable, that is a big deal. It means that the inflation being printed isn't just dumb dilution and there is genuine value being generated and rewarded appropriately. It means that others will seek to come in and participate in the exchange of value for whatever it is that they are creating on this platform. Others can come and participate in continuing to contribute to rewarding value, and be rewarded in the process (the motivation to buy-- influence within a fair system of value generation). A positive feedback loop.
And even if we aren't thinking along those lines, good content and engagement attracts users, and the platform's total networking power is what is valuable. If the system is perceived as fair then more people have reason to participate. Going the mass adoption route legitimizes the platform as a currency system in its own right.
I think there's a few holes in my argument / avenues for exploration here, but I can't quite figure it out right now.
This is very abstract. I'm looking for a clear reason why a person/business/organization/etc would want to buy STEEM for something that isn't speculation or "because I can earn more STEEM".
For some examples, someone might say:
I bought steem because I want to have more influence in the core social game (whose incentives have now been addressed to make things more fun)
May not be the motivation for everyone, but it's there. And the usual benefits of steem vs others but who is really using those as reasons.
I'd argue the Bitcoin reason is also highly speculative.
No one buys bitcoin for reasons like that. Everyone buys bitcoin because it may go up in value and make them money.
This isn't rocket science.
The tokenomics of any project is the magic part. When it works, no one can really say why. When it doesn't work, everyone has an opinion why it failed. Ultimately, all financial value is a form of speculation on story telling. I think Steem as a blockchain and a cryptocurrency could tell some really compelling stories which investors and speculators will value. I think it's had this opportunity for quite some time. I hope that story develops. This post here is the primary reason I was so excited about Steem: Steemit's Evil Plan for Cryptocurrency World Domination.
I still think it's possible.
I agree with this, I just think the value is not in the "proof of brain" concept itself but rather in Steem being the platform to power other applications which may or may not use "proof of brain".
You say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity, and that's how I see this EIP. We can mess with reward curves, percentages and voting pools all we want, but the end result will be the same. There is no magic formula that will change everyone's behavior and prevent automated systems from being able to "game the system" in a more optimal way than a human can.
Let the different apps deal with that and set up their reward systems how they think is best and we should focus on how building on the Steem blockchain can let them do that more quickly and easily than anywhere else. That's a story I know first hand that investors will value.
Funny, I was leaving this comment at the same time you posted yours. I agree with you. SMTs and the work you're doing with Steem Engine may have been an important piece of this system's success from the beginning. Without it, there's no experimentation or growth. That's certainly one of the stories we were sold early on. The downside of that story is it may mean the STEEM token itself has no real value other than serving as one example among many of what may not actually work well economically compared to other cryptocurrencies.
Maybe cryptocurrencies, like healthy life, need to reproduce. I explored that a bit in this Twitter thread.
That doesn't meant that STEEM has no real value! STEEM is the token that powers the platform. It was so much easier to build Steem Monsters on the Steem platform than any other blockchain platform I know of, and to be able to do that we need to have a significant amount of SP available to make sure all of our players have enough RC to play. SP is our fee for building on the platform and the bigger we grow, the more we will need.
Appics wants to create their "proof of brain" content platform - they can do it on Steem where (in theory) it will be just filling out a form and hitting submit or they can do it on a general purpose platform where they have to build the whole thing from scratch. Many will choose Steem, and they will all need enough SP to allow their userbase to use the platform and receive their rewards.
We already see there is demand for this type of product (appics, VIT, scorum, etc). This is how STEEM can be big. This will sell to investors and speculators.
Thanks Matt. That's a really helpful bit of optimism and encouragement. :)
If we had more successful examples like Steemmonsters, I'd fully share your enthusiasm about the great potential here. I've championed it for three years now (as of today, my accounts is three years old) and unfortunately feel like I was selling an idea which never materialized. Yours is one of the few examples. Appics was stuck waiting for SMTs and hasn't been able to move forward much (prior to Steem Engine), VIT has it's own troubles and forked the code anyway, so that won't help the STEEM token. (I didn't realize they had pivoted their whole company away from adult content). I'm not a big fan of sports anymore (even though I was a college athlete), but I do see a lot of potential there for sure. I just don't see how that will necessarily help the STEEM price if it becomes easier for people to just spin up their own chain as DTube just announced.
That is true, when the cost outweighs the convenience of building on a blockchain, whether that is Ethereum or Steem, building a sovereign blockchain becomes the natural choice.
A lot of blockchains are indirectly gunning for Steem's job. Ethereum is soon getting Akasha, but right now it already has Loom which created DelegateCall as a sample site to display the capability to build Steem on Loom. Then Cosmos is another way to do it effectively, and some social sites are already being built on it.
Ethereum keeps getting abandoned for sovereign blockchain roadmaps and if Steem was expensive for businesses to build on, why not fork?
There is a clear issue here, which is that blockchains and their participants have conflicting interests. Coins/tokens need to have a utility, but at the same time it seems in crypto that coins and tokens can become more expensive than the value they provide to the user, so the user starts fresh.
I see STEEM or mainly Steem Power as a way to be able to engage actively in one or more communities on the STEEM blockchain. Also yes that gives you more weight on rewards as well, but in general you are earning by helping build the blockchain and communities.
@yabapmatt I hope you read y reply because the answer to your question is very simple.
Basically what you are looking for is to give STEEM a sink. A strong sink that makes it scarce and valuable.
USE EYEBALLS.
Content (written, audio, visual, etc...) and games bring users. People pay to get ads in front of those people. On the steem network, they pay bidbots to do that.
USE BIDBOTS TO BURN STEEM.
You are the father of bidbots. You obviously thought of this. Delegators to bidbots wouldn't mind cutting their APR by 2% if it meant that the steem was burned instead. And people who promote their posts to get them on rending wouldn't mind getting a bit less in upvote value from bidbots.
BURN 20% of all bidbot profits. This is the best sink steem can get. You have the influence to convince the whole steem ecosystem to follow this rule. If a bidbot doesn't burn, then mark him as unhelpful to STEEM on steembottracker.com.
I'm not going to entirely disagree as I've been making this exact same argument since 2016 as many are well aware, especially regulars on the old steemit.chat #price channel.
However, I do want to make a counterargument which is that EIP and better voting generally may allow stakeholders to coordinate to pay out not necessarily the 'highest quality' content (which is a poorly defined concept in any case) but on content which brings value to Steem. This can happen in many different ways including:
There are probably others.
I don't know whether EIP will actually do this and if so I doubt it will do it right away, but it is possible that a stronger voting system will eventually allow more of the reward pool to be directed to these sorts of specifically value-adding content and not just content for its own sake or even just 'quality' content.
I love the idea of rewarding highly shared content referenced in news outlets. I'd even support using SPS funds to do it, if we had to. If someone writes something that goes viral on the Internet and is highly linked to which brings more people to a Steem frontend interface, I think that's something we should reward and encourage more of.
Do that with upvotes and lack of downvotes. Start upvoting based on actual value to Steem (external exposure is one great example but not the only one) and not just content that looks pretty but does little to nothing to help us (we could use 'likes' or some such to express recognition apart from pay) and downvote where value to Steem is absent but people upvoted it anyway.
In a few cases it might happen too late (after 7 days), in which case I would agree with the SPS idea of an exposure bonus fund or such.
Adding a "I like it, but it didn't increase the value of my STEEM" button would be interesting, but again, confusing to explain all the details and the differences. The more complexity added, the less people will understand and the more they will complain.
It's more like "I like it but I don't think it should get money" which is something that has already been discussed numerous times. We have somewhat of a version of that already with payment-declined posts, but of course those are based on the poster saying not to give them money which is not quite the same thing.
Alternately it could be more specific reactions than "like" such as "funny" "interesting" etc. which also don't necessarily imply that you think it should get money.
I agree there some obstacles but if somehow voters don't start directing rewards toward meaingfully value-contributing activities then @yabamatt's point about investors not seeing the value in buying into something that is going to be inflated away to pay for content for its own sake are going to turn out to be correct, and demand will continue to evaporate.
Why not, though? Let's say it's 2016 again, there are no bidbots, and the only way to earn STEEM is through upvotes on steemit.com. Let's say there's a culture on the site where users who buy and power up are rewarded. Why wouldn't this culture encourage buying?