Speaking my STEEM mind on my birthday.

It's my birthday, I should have made an APPICS, but this blockchain is always on my mind 24/7.

Everyone that relies on the reward pool for their income or business model will simply have to wait for the STEEM price to go up until the projects that don't rely on the reward pool add enough value to the Steem network to make that happen.

There I said it.

Changing the reward model 25/75, 50/50 or an upside down n^2 with a 90° turn at the halfway split, it doesn't matter.

STEEM will just end up in different hands. The reward pool will spit it out according to a new set of rules and the people that know how to get it will get it.

It's that basic. It's never been different.

Personally, I think changing it is a terrible idea, There are no set proven benefits, yet you going to fiddle with Economics, businesses have built upon for the last 2 years.

It's a huge risk with possible side effect you can't see yet.

From my point of view, an author/content creator on Steem is no different than a business.

Back in 2016/2017 content creators were the only businesses here and they all wanted a piece of the reward pool.

It was the business model back then. But considering most authors had no stake they relied on whales and their upvotes.

Some got loads. And what did most do with their earned STEEM? Most sold it. Not once thinking about using their stake to propel their own author business in the future. No, sell it and give me more.

And who was supposed to buy that STEEM? You got it, the same people that upvoted them.

(Well, and me...I realized fairly early on I was never going to make it as a content creator unless I would build up my stake. I'm terrible at politics and I like to have control over my actions, hence I needed Steempower.)

But luckily as Steem is a very fast moving Ecosystem, this thought process is now changed to something way better.

Much to the dismay of some content creators btw. (You can find epic gems on this blockchain, where people say they used to make $10000 for their blog posts and now they only make $300, and Steem is therefore now shit).

Steem Monsters (Splinterlands) is by far my favorite project showcasing the power of Steem without relying on the reward pool.

They are using Steem for the awesome properties the blockchain has. And instead of using the reward pool to fund everything, they do the opposite.

They make sure that not only Steemians but also TRONians (if that what they are called) now and soon many other communities use the Steem Blockchain and the one account system and start spending money into the ecosystem. And on top of that, they use their SP to reward their community members, instead of paying themselves with it.

Other Applications also starting to understand that relying on the reward pool as a business model is not the way.

Here are some more examples. (They don't generate income from users by selling products but at least use their users to generate some income outside of the reward pool.)

Steemit.com - income from adds
Partiko - income from adds while rewarding users with their Partiko point system.
Steemhunt- Using the Steem Blockchain to add value to their HUNT token

I'm in huge favor of businesses standing on their own feet and using Steem to propel their business, by using this blockchain for all the awesome properties it has but also as a rewarding tool to reward their members.

If you are a single author on Steem today, that is what you are up against. Times have changed.

It doesn't mean Steem is shit, it doesn't mean Steem is unfair, it means that making it on Steem is very hard and requires a lot of building, time and effort.

Nobody is going to do THAT for you. So get to it.

I'm convinced there is not a bigger opportunity on the internet today than these beginning years of the Steem Blockchain.

Don't let it slip through your hands.

ps.

I believe SMT's or other tokens is what will be used to reward content creators in the future. @Steemhunt is doing it, and it works. Go check it out. Also, read the bombshell @aggroed dropped yesterday with SCOT here. Now that is forward thinking.