So who is actually paying the Steemit bill?
(Source: http://www.entrypoint.cz/)
When I started here in early July, I was pretty sceptic. I had not known very much about Dan or BitShares, but the BitUSD pegging mechanism seemed unfeasible to me when I looked into it at the time, so I was negatively biased when I saw he is behind Steemit. In my view, you can't peg something with a market price of its own (USD) to something that has no real use besides pretending to "back" a peg and the "other uses" for BitShares seemed insufficient to me to give them enough value to sustainably back the USD peg (I still consider BitUSD to be a failure, though I've heard claims to the contrary, but that's nothing I care about and as for Dan, I'm a big fan now, after having read his contributions here).
Plus, I am invested in Synereo since ICO and was expecting them to be the first blockchain-based social media project to go live. That turned out to be helpful, because I am convinced, that the concept of "attention economy" I knew through them can be executed in a profitable way. So when I thought that Steemit was going that path, I eventually turned from sceptic to optimist. I actually turned to a full blown Steemit enthusiast, but not for financial reasons, but because I simply love to be able to get crypto-noobs interested in crypto and offer them a risk free way to get some first crypto-experiences. I also love Steemit, because it is no direct competitor to Bitcoin and is thus very inclusive, unlike other projects that "attack" Bitcoin or any other competing Altcoin.
Experienced crypto investors like myself would take the risk and profit later, when Steemit would have reached enough users to attract advertisers to pay for the attention they need. I knew it would not be easy, because (liquid) Steem is highly inflationary and I consider it more of an industrial commodity like copper and not a precious metal/monetary asset like gold or bitcoin. So you really have to need Steem Power to want to buy some Steem, because I was not willing to speculate that many people would just buy Steem to power it up to be able to reward others, as I did it for the tiny german speaking community. But I guessed that people who are used to pay for other peoples' attention (e.g. advertisers) would step up sooner or later and they would not care that Steem is copper and not gold, because they need it for their business.
Fast forward to today. In the past weeks, I had tons of discussions and I grew sceptic again, because in my impression, Steemit so far does not really seem to care about investors. It's all about content creators and about the "fair" distribution of rewards and whether whales are to blame for "dumping" or having "too much power". I could not care less whether whales dump or not, it's the lack of incentives to buy that has me worried, because to be honest, as an investor it started to feel like being the guy who pays the party and I was not really able to find many people willing to listen to my concerns. On the contrary, I had people with no real skin in the game telling me I was a nay-sayer and overly pessimistic or that I did not see how "investors" would come on their own, as soon as such and such amount of users where to be here and I was blind for not seeing that Steemit was the next Facebook. I also talked to a lot of people, who are extremely optimistic about Steemit, but oddly not enough to actually invest and they tended to not like it when I pointed them to that contradiction.
I also read what I could find and listened to Ned and Dan (most recently on the Tatiana Show), but I still don't feel that the problem I see is being addressed. For instance, the promotion field to me is a failure, because again, we seem to care more about people who want everything for free. Free from any financial risks AND free from adverts, so promoted posts are now in that little box noboby seems to watch, but at least the profane promotions are separated from the "valuable" content posts.
So I even headed back to Bitcointalk, a platform I had been so glad to leave because of its toxicity, to get some answers. You can say what you want about BCTalk, but at least it is not only happy talk there.
That's the result so far (I am Macno):
I actually really want this to succeed, so I hope someone is going to prove my scepticism wrong.
Maybe I am missing something or I am too impatient?
PS:
I propose the tag #investorsunite because we are important too :-)
I am having some of the same doubts as you but for different reasons. I couldn't see anything wrong with Steemit in the early days because I was blinded by all the stardust. What I see as the main issue is different from you because I am not an investor of money, but an investor of time. We are similar though because I have invested a lot. I see the central issue is that this is a centralized system, with rewards flowing to those who mostly do not question or critique things concerning steemit. The fact that some of my posts are getting flagged by a number of powerful whales is cause for concern. I see the negative effects of this as follows in our minds: "If I have real concerns, doubts or critical thoughts about Steemit, I will get flagged, most likely., Therefore, if I remain quiet, like a sheep, then I will get rewards. If I am my most honest self, full of insights and critical thoughts, I will not be rewarded."
This type of system is flawed because rewards and influence are not responsible for generating income and rewards. This is not the attention economy, this is a centralized power economy. The divide between haves and have nots is so wide that it creates a hugely imbalanced environment. This is the central issue that needs to be redesigned. Currently, I am among the top 5 as far as follower numbers and have the highest reputation. One of my most critical pieces was flagged to death, from around $500 to $0 by a handful of whales. So, even though I have more followers than the whales who flagged me, I was stripped of rewards by them. This is a bad design. I see this as potentially the most damaging thing that is driving users away from Steemit. This is a negative landscape and even I have felt degraded, upset and also afraid to be myself here. If people feel uncomfortable, they leave. Steemit needs to make people feel good for expressing their true concerns, not bad about their honest feelings. If this warring type atmosphere doesn't change, I don't see good things in the future. It's definitely ruining the party for many, myself included.
PS to the other comment, about what I see as primary and secondary problems:
I'm aware I might have it backwards and you have to please authors and users first and then incentivize investors who give STEEM the price to make the rewards attractive. I just see the latter group's concerns as less visible in discussions so far.
Upvoted because you raise some valid concerns. I too invested in July, and I also get frustrated at the "everything should be free" mentality or the "we need everything equal and fair" line of thinking when they don't even agree on equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome or what "fair" actually means.
My feeling is we should all be more patient. This isn't like other pump and dump currencies. It's currently in a hyper inflationary period and only for investors who see the long-term value. Those who watch the price each day aren't investors, they are day traders. I've been as excited about Steemit when it was at $0.28 (when I first purchased), when it was at $1.00 (when I purchased some more), when it went up to near $5 (and I didn't sell) as I am now.
Is it possible no one will buy in the future? Certainly. To me, the main concern to any investor should be user adoption as that will drive the social media side of the platform which will then drive the demand for the coming marketplace for SBD and the advertiser influence. You may see the Promoted tab as a failure, but I see it as a step in the right direction and, being open source, anyone can make suggestions. If people aren't exponentially signing up, there's very little chance Steemit will put a dent in Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Medium. The network effect is too strong.
That said, $0.01 reward for posting is better than anything anyone gets on the other platforms. I'm thinking long term and I think the Steem Power vested share idea supports those who also think long term.
Thanks! I completely agree with that comment and should have read it first, before I replied to the other one.
"To me, the main concern to any investor should be user adoption as that will drive the social media side of the platform which will then drive the demand for the coming marketplace for SBD and the advertiser influence."
I can imagine that and as I said, I might just be impatient. Maybe Ned and Dan are completely aware of all of this . The challenge is still that you have to make both happy, investors and users, because users are also not very happy if their rewards keep falling.
But I completely agree that 0.01 is better than anything else. I was joking with some Ancap friends that the worst case scenario would be to have some kind of Anarcho-Facebook where we have a censorship free platform and can throw Steem at each other just for fun. So I'm not scared, but I'd like Steemit to be much more than that (and I'd really like if investors where taken as seriously as whales, authors and users...).
The most important statement I have read on Steemit in the last 2 mo. I expressed this concern myself a while back. Hopefully, coming from a guy with more influence than me, someone will hear the bells!
Thank you soooo much! I had missed your article, caught up now, upvoted and added a few comments! So glad that we are at least two to worry. I was starting to doubt my perception...but it looks like it really is the elephant in the room.
Honestly, I mostly recommend people I know from other networks to post their photography and art here, but I usually explicitly recommend to not invest actual money (or a significant amount of time).
Steemit has to grow at least 10-15% a year in order to make up for its dilution and to be interesting for investors. So it's a speculative game, who knows maybe it will become as big as reddit or even bigger, as it also can provide other functionality.
well, in my impression, Ned and/or Dan sometimes doesn't sound very "inclusive" of Bitcoin, quite the opposite.
Same here when it comes to investment recommendations to people with no financial background. I never told anyone to do what I do myself (risk own money). What is more troubling to me, as a financial advisor, that I would not know what to tell a savy investor either. That's bothering me.
As for Ned and Dan and Bitcoin: ok, interesting. I will watch that. I had the impression that they both love BTC and Steemit would not even work without it.
I have been having the same feelings as you of late. I don't invest money, but I do invest time. I am now worried about my friends being flagged and all that, so I am having mixed feelings about sending people in here. I used to think this system was workable through time, but now I am feeling mixed. I was wondering if others were feeling the same way. What is the central problem you see? Is it fixable?
The central problem I currently see is that I can't find any reason to invest in Steem. If my perception is right, the price will keep falling and the authors won't get any rewards anyway besides some depreciating liquid Steem and depreciating Steem Power.
So from that angle, your concerns (also those voiced in the longer comment) seem secondary to me,because if problem 1 does not get fixed, there will soon be no problem 2 to discuss.
I also don't follow the flagging disputes in the english speaking community closely enough to really have an opinion. I am very reluctant to flag people, because to me ignoring is enough and I don't get why it's being used so loosely. I'm mostly active in the tiny german speaking island where we hardly ever flag each other, because we are so few and we do not yet have all the conflicts the english speaking community has. Maybe it's a good thing you hardly earn anything if you write in german, because there's less reason for envy? So unfortunately, I'm not quite sure what I could propose as a constructive solution for your concerns.
But is saddens me to read them, as you are to me one of the shining examples for what Steemit could be and it is frustrating to read, that you are frustrated.
PS:
I invest money and a lot of time and it's not for the financially insignificant (to me) rewards...
What could the developers add/change to provide the missing incentive to invest in Steem?
To me, it is crucial to get people on board who are used to paying to get attention, so advertisers/companies or market researchers (the guys paying just to get an opinion on a product). After the whole discussion here it seems so obvious to me, that I actually have a hard time imagining Ned and Dan not being aware of this and maybe (as I repeatedly said), I'm just impatient.
One thing I would like if I was a company with a marketing budget is the atmosphere here. You could get valuable feedback, because people here are much less inclined to trolling and flaming, but tend to be very constructive. So if I was some beer manufacturer and I had a new brand to introduce, I might buy some power to reward customer feedback. The reality check would be to see if people start just giving positive reviews because they hope for rewards, but the company could steer that rewarding constructive critique.
My impression. They did it backwards..... They want the readers to pay. It makes zero sense to me, rewards should have been skewed more towards reading and making relevant comments. As it stands, a new user can read/love/and vote all day, but unless there is a highly unlikely set of circumstances they will never see $.001 SBD for their efforts.
Why the hell they want only authors? Makes no sense to me.
What do you mean by "paying"? If you don't attract people and give them good reasons to put Dollars or Bitcoin on the line, STEEM is not much more than Reddit Gold. It does not make much difference who gets the most Reddit Gold, does it?
If the "promoted" feature is such a failure, then why are hundreds of dollars per day getting burnt? Wasn't that the whole point of it? To create demand for our (us investors) product?
Imho "hundreds of dollars" is a failure. Do you use it or look into it? I haven't met anyone, but I'd be glad to be wrong. Plus: burning SBD is no incentive to buy Steem or is it? It's not the same as having to have Steem Power to get visibility.
I think the promoted post thing is a failure too. I was dismayed that Dan didn't add the "vote like a whale" feature which would allow regular users to use their own sBD to add money to posts they really like a lot. This feature is a good one, I think. Some days, I do want to vote like a whale....and I'd spend my own money on it too. This is the model that Synereo is using, by Amping certain posts. For Steemit not to consider this option, is well, lacking in understanding how human nature works. This type of feature would empower more people, and make them feel good, I believe. That's what steemit needs: a way to make users feel good. Right now, people are not feeling good. Emotions are what drives us, and creates value. Perception is everything.
Exactly! The first thing I tried was to "promote" a nice article by a german user with 10 SBD and then I realized it got buried in the "promoted" box, as if it was some advertisement. I never promoted anything again.
The problem is imo that the Steem price is too volatile. There are only a few investors who want to buy Steem, power up and wait for 2 years bc Steemit is a really small start-up with a lot of competitors.
I see a pretty stable low vola...downtrend. Of course investors don't buy, but not because of volatility or competition (are you talking about Reddit etc or some Blockain project?), but because there is no investment case to be made, which is why I wrote the article. On what should an investor base his reasoning? Hype? Some metric of marketcap/user compared to Facebook? Well, I know how Facebook rewards their investors. On Facebook users earn nothing but risk nothing. Here it's users who earn and "investors" (it's more like greater fools) who pay - unless I'm missing something.
I see your points and from the beginning I've been mystified as to how Steemit could have any value without people investing money. But my understanding - and I may be wrong here because I'm new and not particularly "investor savvy"- is that there are 2 primary ways to invest in Steemit: time/content and money. I've believed that a large amount of the value of Steemit has to do with the quality of the content because the content will attract users and as soon as there is a critical mass of users, it's a more appealing investment. So by bringing valuable content, this is bringing an investment. Am I seeing things correctly?
I will also say that I've never spent this kind of time on any other social media. I do a lot of supporting of others' posts and commenting and as an author I know I'm not alone in spending many many hours on each post. I put a lot of myself in them so I sure hope they are helping!
The only social media plattform I spent more time on so far is the Bitcointalk-Forum, but it was not about earning anything there.
I also want to point to the funny fact, that people automatically seem to assume I am just putting profane money in this project. No, it's actually much (unpaid) time AND money. So now what?
As to your investment, I see your point. But maybe look at it this way: I myself could sit back and just "Invest my time" (that's actually what is happening, because I'm tired of spending time AND money, if "time" is also a "valuable investment" here). Imagine everyone was doing this? Who's gonna pay for the value you perceive in the content? I get better content elsewhere for free, just because there are some ads on the site I don't really notice and never click on. I neither want to be mean, nor hate, nor spoil anyones party. I just try to be realistic. I already made the cardinal mistake of "falling in love with my investment", because I really like the Steemit and I want it to succeed. I just don't want that love to completely cloud my reasoning and I know what I am talking about, because it keeps happening again and again.
Yes I understand. Financial investment is key here. Without good content there is nothing but without the money to back it, there is nothing either. Makes me wonder if all of us should invest financially even if in small quantity. Thanks for the food for thought!
What about seeing the investment as fixed deposit and the payment from upvotes/comments etc as a interest? But in that case investors need to "work" to get their investment back...
Well, I guess it works if you calculate your profits in STEEM. If I calculate in USD, EUR or BTC, I don't really care wether I get even more tokens or not.
Fabio, Thanks for this blog. I appreciate your thoughts and perceptive insights. I will be following our blog and hope to here more from you on related subjects going forward.
Thank you very much James212! Unfortunately my resumee of the discussion is that "yes, "investors" are paying the party".
Curious to hear what you think about this adding to the mix and potential of Steemit? I am on this team and think this will be a game changer for Steem.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@williambanks/this-is-a-real-game-changer
Wow! Thanks! Upvoted and followed!
Thank you very much for the information provided in this article. I is worthful for me. I am focused not so much in earning money. My primary intention is to post and to find someone who in can adress my opinion to.
Steemit is better than any private blog for this purpose. So I'm very satisfied for this moment. We will see wahat's going on. You never know.
now that the Steem Dollar has replaced Steem Power to promote posts, the incentive to buy Steem might be even less. I'm aware that people buying Steem Dollars also help prop up Steem price. but is it enough?
@ned and @dantheman need to develop incentives for Steem Power to become attractive, cos as you say investors are the fuel of the platform .