I was thinking about buying Steem and then came across this post by the highly eSteemed 
Elevator music
So, I wasn't actually thinking about buying Steem myself as I don't get paid for a couple weeks and all free funds are tied up in expenses however, I was wondering why others don't buy. My belief is and like I said to Mr Nonames, Steem the blockchain is a point of subscription and like he added through his post, you don't lose value by subscribing. Well, you could lose fiat value if prices decline etc but, the Steem you have in your wallet, you own. And, it even gives a Steem return by interacting with it in various ways.
How I see the future is that Steem Power will be used as a key of entry into various experiences built upon Steem whether it be a game or premium content on a news type site. But more than that, SP will be a subscriber to reward and engage with the creators themselves. Essentially, Steem Power is a backstage pass to everything on Steem. Is it unfair that some people are able to afford the tickets to meet the bands even though they put on a free concert for everyone to enjoy?
This is analogy only of course but Steem Power is an investment into one's future entertainment activities and while there aren't many bands out there to meet yet, they are growing. But, it is also an investment of the more traditional financial sense and if one is able to first see the entertainment value of it, others will too and that is what drives the masses to subscribe.
The subscription fee is essentially whatever one is willing to put in but, many aren't willing to put in much at all, if anything. That is okay, no one has to subscribe to Netflix or HBO or Spotify or Dropbox or.... you know, no one has to pay for anything on the internet, but they do.
Currently, there is not a large enough entertainment attraction for people to consider powering up some Steem but it is a chicken or the egg problem because, if people did there would also be an explosion of price, attention and therefore willingness to contribute, whether it be through the development of a post or application of some kind. When contributors are actually vying for attention from the audience, they have to actually work harder. But, the audience of Steem also helps them out as rather than having to do the work first, the audience is simultaneously adding attention value through upvote consumption.
But, there is not a great deal of incentive for investors in Steem to promote the bands they enjoy and, because some bands do a lot of "promotion" themselves that attracts potential attentive stake, even those that do try are not going to be able to shine much of a light on their favourites. But, most of the promoted bands don't actually get attention from anyone who likes their music.
However, free downvotes that are suggested in the EIP bring in a new function of attention, as rather than just being able to push a post upward, there is also the possibility to push a post downward. This is something I consider very important in the ordering of content as it means that the promoted bands that no one likes are able to be taken out of the eyeline giving space to the bands that people actually do enjoy. I am quite sure that after incurring promotional losses, many of the promoted bands will disappear and then, the bands that are enjoyed will take their place.
This creates a new form of attention on Steem, negative attention. And this means that while contributors are vying for an audience, they also have to be able to offer something the audience wants to see and, doesn't want to downvote. Once everyone is incentivized to downvote freely, there is a lot more risk and randomization in the system making every paid vote much more unpredictable in value, risk of loss is something most people avoid.
What I do think is that while there are some drawbacks to the downvoting, there wil also be a great deal more interaction as people will become more aware of the content on the platform as they will consider downvoting it. This also means they will consider upvoting it too. While I don't know exactly how this is all going to play out, I do think that in short order, the content in the Trending tabs is going to look somewhat healthier and potentially with more stake in the pool up for grabs, content producers will try harder to produce content of worth.
Yes, 50/50 curation is also potentially coming in which is technically less stake in the pool but, what there is will likely be attracted to better content and away from worse content. This means that content producers actually get what they want as content that is seen as valuable by the community will get rewarded and the stuff that isn't will be flagged down with the difference being given to that which is. For quality producers and personalities that attract attention, this is likely better and for willing consumers who power up, it definitely is.
As I have said many times before, we need a system where there is incentive to be a contributor, a developer, a consumer and an investor and most likely, it is best to have users who are some combination of those points. For example, I am a contributor, investor and consumer and while unable to develop directly, hopefully do add value to those who are through ideas and support. There is incentive for me to interact at all points because I am interested in all points.
While many will disagree with how to do it, most will agree that in the world of digital media, attention has value and that is what we need to be able to attract at all levels of the ecosystem. This is not necessarily easy to do as it isn't done through content alone as even the biggest bands in the world, have promotional teams working for them and the up-and-comers have labels that pay to push their music up the charts to gain traction.
Are you paying attention?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
End of train journey.
