The Future of Steem, Community Participation and The "Mythical" Investor

To many people's minds, Peter Lynch was (and is) one of the greatest investment managers in the history of the planet. Between 1977 and 1990, he guided Fidelity Investments' giant Magellan Fund to almost 30% annual returns, more than doubling the stock market averages of the day.

Of course, in these days of cryptocurrencies, we tend to look at 30% as "small potatoes" because many of us operate under the assumption delusion that doubling or tripling our money in a few months fits within some spectrum of "normal."

A spiny issue...

Well, it really doesn't.

Of course, these days a lot of people are crying in their soup because Steem has declined from an all-time high in excess of $7.00 to less than 20 cents, last time I checked.

Still, many are hanging on in the hopes that the crypto rollercoaster will take off again.

Common Sense...

Getting back to Peter Lynch for a moment, part of what made his such an unusual figure in the investing world was that he didn't have huge volumes of charts and proprietary technical analyses that allowed him to time entry and exit points into an asset perfectly.

In fact, he used something that's extraordinarily rare in this day and age: Common Sense.

Yellow rhododendrons...

Where many would pore over volumes of reports and computer simulations... he would go out and observe the world, and look at how real people were using and interacting with goods and services.

"Will it work? Does it make sense? Do the users like it? Are the company employees happy and proud of what they are doing?"

Something might be a great idea and have bleeding edge technology, but can we easily describe what it will DO? A "brilliant idea" is not enough... as a metaphor, what good is it that you've built the greatest airplane engine ever... if everyone is afraid of flying? Get my point?

So what does this all have to do with Steem, and this community?

The "Mythical" Investor to the Rescue!?!?

Putting on my investor hat for a moment, it seems like I have heard — at least a few hundred times — that we "Need Investors!"

Allright, I'll bite. That does sound like a good idea... but what exactly does that mean?

The PROBLEM I keep seeing with that is that the pitch people tend to make is that folks should invest in Steem and... "get all this income from bid bots, SMT projects and... and... and...."

Veins in a leaf... like rivers

Nice Idea... but WRONG! But thank you for playing.

The fundamental problem with presenting Steem to the world as a current income generation tool rather than an opportunity to buy and HOLD for long term appreciation, that the the moment you promise people INCOME, they are going to want "cash money."

How is that a problem?

Think about it. It's called "market forces." If you keep expecting to take something (an "asset") OUT of an infrastructure, you set up a dynamic in which there will always be tremendous selling pressure. And when there is selling pressure — meaning there are more sellers than buyers — you end up where we are, right now... with 19-cent Steem.

And it could get worse.

California poppies...

The Wrong Sales Pitch...

If everyone would just STOP focusing so much on income and instead look at the actual investment side from a long term capital gains perspective... that is the only way this "mythical investor" has any chance whatsoever of reversing the current downward trend.

"Yeah, but who's going to put a bunch of money into something they are not getting INCOME from?"

If that's what you're thinking I'm going to gently invite you to consider that maybe YOU are part of the problem, here!

Every year TRILLIONS of dollars are invested in projects that pay zero current income and in which the investors will not see a single cent for 3, 5, 10 or even 20 years or more. The vast majority of common stock in newer companies pay ZERO dividends... all you are hoping for is appreciation in value. And there's no guarantee, there.

The good news is that the Steem blockchain is a very viable and strong underlying project, once you remove the many layers of personal bullshit swirling around here.

What will be the fruits of YOUR labors?

It Begins With US: Investing in OURSELVES!

Many naysayers will probably come along and say that it's an "impossible sell" to get someone to plunk down a million dollars of their hard earned fiat money on a slightly dodgy blockchain token... and maybe you're right. At least in the beginning.

And that's why I am saying "it begins with US."

Instead of just cashing out all the time like this is all just a giant ATM, consider instead powering up all your rewards and instead changing your perspective to treating the extended Steem social content family's various rewards systems as pennies gradually trickling into a long term savings account.

Think of it a bit like the Acorns investment program... it invests no more than the change from every transaction you make... and yet, those bits of change slowly add up. Don't believe me? Friend of ours recently funded her vacation purely through Acorn... and she never put aside more than ONE DOLLAR at any given time!!!

And that's what I mean, when I say "We Invest in Ourselves."

The way things have gone around here, this is no longer a place that generates an actual viable "income" for more than maybe 1/10th of one percent of the active users. Maybe I get $2 a post, maybe less than a dollar... in a month, that won't even pay my electric bill, or my phone bill! So why keep pretending — living in a fantasy, basically — that this is an "INCOME" opportunity?

Instead, treat it as a SAVINGS opportunity... and dare I say it? An INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY!

Thanks for reading!

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(One in a series of Investment themed articles created for the #steemleo tribe)

What do YOU think? Is it time to stop "draining the rewards pool," and instead becoming those investors we have been "looking for?" Can we turn around the decline in the price of Steem? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 190811 16:35 PDT
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