Bringing Steem sexy back - by snail.

Well, email isn't snail mail, but many people might feel that Steemit Inc sending a newsletter out to registered signup emails is a little bit 2005, but I believe it is a good move. While not everyone will appreciate it, I think that many people who have been dormant the last two years could be pushed to check back in and see what is happening.

@andrarchy - I know you miss me, you know where to find me.

Opening gateways into the Steem blockchain is something that pretty much everyone will have to get better at, whether it be steemit Inc promotion, applications marketing themsleves or individual users onboarding friends and family - the funnels into Steem should be plentiful. With a future of niche tribes and SMTs increasingly populating the ecosystem, each will become a funnel that will play its role in developing user and transaction mass and the more it expands, the further it can expand - much like the coastline of a fractal pattern that branches out into eternity through replication.

However, Steem isn't about replication alone, it is also about innovation and pushing the boundaries of how content, currency and community can collaborate to build a hybrid digital and real-world economy that empowers all users. Empowering is something that should be encouraged on the Steem blockchain, but that doesn't mean that there are no forces to keep power in check - something some of the returning users might need to investigate considering most would have left pre-EIP.

A couple things I will add:

Earnings on Steem

People are often talking about all the quality users who have left Steem, but then, how many of them have considered how they themselves support quality users? It is interesting that in an economy where content creators are looking for reward, they themselves might not necessarily consider what they are rewarding the content they consume with. Many seem to think that their content alone is their offering to the community and should consistently get rewarded by those with stake, even though they are unable to reward others.

Imagine if everyone who had earned Steem hadn't sold in the first 3 years and instead used their stake to support the content they like, would the platform look different? Probably. Of course, people want to earn on Steem in ways that support their lives and while that is great, you better be ready to work because if you live anywhere in Western country, Steem earnings at these prices don't go very far. However, if there are those who never sold and created a place that rewarded contributors and consumers which put demand and therefore scarcity on the markets to drive price upward, then the earnings would be much more significant and while the pool won't change, the value it spreads could be far greater.

That is the current reward pool and value and has a market value of about 115,000 dollars US, which is about the monthly income of 100 unemployed Finns on social services. There is about 26 million STEEM being printed this year and that has a total value of about 3.9 million dollars. You want to earn significantly on Steem? Be part of driving the value of Steem upward. At a dollar, the yearly pool is 26 million worth, at 10 it is 260 million worth.

How do you drive the value of Steem up?

It is easy.

Pay attention

No, not to this paragraph.. I mean pay attention. That is the answer. This is an attention economy and if you aren't paying attention to it, why do you think that anyone else should be paying attention to you? If you want to earn (You can earn STEEM on Steem - not fiat - 26 million out there over the next year), then you have to look at your blog like a business with customers that you are looking to draw the attention of, people who are hopefully interested in what you have to offer them. If you aren't offering your audience what they want, they aren't going to buy.

But I don't have an audience on Steem.

Well, you better build one or onboard one because expecting a decentralized by governance and ownership platform to do the work for you isn't likely going to get you very far, unless lucky enough to have an audience find you. This is very unlikely because the spread of stake isn't great and those that wanted to earn but powered down can't spread like they had their earnings spread to them.

As said above, SMTs and niche Tribes are going to be funnels, but they are also going to be earners for most users. What I find incredible is that so many of the people who complained about their content not earning on Steem, still didn't buy in to the tribes that are better suited to their area, they still expected that they can earn without having to provide anything to others. Again, a token has value through demand, not through sale and if people aren't willing to add something to the sinks to lock up tokens, it is unlikely that value increases significantly. Also, if one also isn't willing to work out ways to provide value to other content creators but expect others to provide support to you, it isn't likely going to inspire the content creators of this platform.

But, this is always going to be the problem in a decentralized community at this stage of the industry, because while everyone wants the results of a centralized platform, not many want to contribute to the work involved, the investment involved, the time involved, the potential for failure and loss involved. Risk is a pretty big turn off for most people and that is why most people in this world have zero investments as even if they could squirrel a little away, the value in the moment trumps the potential value of the future.

I can buy and drink this beer now, I don't know if I will lose the price of it later if I invest it. I would rather get the beer and be guaranteed the loss of the money.

As I see it, Steem is three years old and attempting to do something in an infant industry while competing with giants in what is now a well established industry and supported by centuries of economic consolidation. This is a ground up economy and community questioning and trying to solve for failures in economics, centralization, cronyism, nationalism and a host of control abuse that goes along with each and more. Yet, people expect it to be their earner for their story, their picture, their poem without considering the larger ecosystem in play at all.

Perhaps that can go in the next Newsletter.

This post wasn't sexy at all.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]