I see disappointed users, in here and on other forums, complaining about "unfair" reward system, too much steem power Concentration etc.
They get dejected quickly and lose motivation to continue using the platform, but still do enjoy what they'd do anyways (writing) in other forums.
I fail to see the rationale behind this..
Why is posting for free suddenly worth more than posting for something, sure , It may be very little but it's still something , and if you gain traction, who knows what might happen in the future? All you need to do is to maintain a Reasonable number of loyal followers interested and try and get noticed by more and more users.
Something that newbies need to understand is that power concentration is just an element of a Capitalist economic model, pyramid structures by themselves are not scams, they exist for a reason.
For an idea, Satoshi (bitcoin's inventor) himself mined (mining is a process that is relatively very easy in the beginning) and kept 1 million bitcoin to himself prior to Launch of bitcoin to avoid a crash when the Early miners get tempted to sell because they lack the long term vision - the revolution of turning bitcoin into a mainstream currency and secure liberty from the corrupt banking practices. Instead, they are interested in their short term goals, making some money quickly selling their coin when it reaches a 'local' peak.
We need to look at steemit from a similar perspective, few people having a super high power concentration might be a good thing if they are trustworthy, if they have faith in steemit to become the next big thing in social media and the crypto-space, sort of like a hybrid. Then the question you need to ask yourself is
Are the founders and whales trustworthy?
I will not even offer my opinion because I wouldn't want to cloud your Judgement or make you feel like I'm shilling - there are tons of posts and videos of them, spend a few hours, get to know them and decide for yourselves whether they are genuine or not.
FYI : The voting power is currently proportional to the square of steem power one is holding, and it is going to be made linear. That just might be the necessary step to restore 'balance' in the community b/w whales and everyone else, which IMO brings more value to the network as the user base is steadily growing. Once people start realizing this, it might drive the prices higher.
We'll have more and more new sign ups each day, and one obvious way to keep them interested is by giving them more influence power than what it is currently, which is a bit too low, and in my observation - a primary issue for driving people away from here. Fortunately, it is being fixed.
The "unfair" reward system.
Another Element of free-market capitalism, where the worth of something is totally subjective. While I might disagree with a makeup tutorial getting $30k, my own opinion is irrelevant, if the market wants it, so be it. There's always unfairness, and that's why services (or content) which provide value to most users are usually also the ones that make their creators the richest. The 'market' is no more than a collection of individuals, their collective needs and desires make up the 'free market', Regulating that artificially has almost always failed in the past (read : communism). Would you rather want that ?
Take a look at Facebook. Even though I see it as a propaganda weapon and a threat to free speech, I do not see Zuckerberg himself becoming a billionaire as "unfair" because he built a platform that services more than 1 billion people across the world. He deserves to be rich.
I'm writing these things (even though there probably are countless other posts addressing these 'issues') because I myself had honest doubts regarding this model of steemit. I talked to other users, researched a bit and eventually was able to get a clearer understanding of the ecosystem. And I'm still here, so you know what conclusion I was able to make ;)
Check out this insightful post from @JerryBanfield. $10 in $10 months.
WHY on earth would you want to miss out being an early investor when it's 'time' and not even money that you're investing ? ;)
Just believe and Keep steeming :)
