With the upcoming hardfork that is going to reduce the earnings on many authors while increasing it on others, does it mean that the Steem tap is finally closing its valve?
The Steem blockchain has always been about distribution and for the last three years it has been doing just that but, things are changing finally. While imperfect, there are literally thousands of users who hold significant amounts of Steem but with the coming owned communities and SMTs to consider, the Steem holder base has to also increasingly become foundational in purpose to form the support of what will be built upon it.
While many people might be upset at the move as it will could effectively put more Steem into the hands of those who already have Steem and who already get support on their posts through the convergent curve, perhaps this is what is required to force the SMT communities out of the nest.
Someone brought up yesterday how many projects were started during the bullrun only to later die, and I believe the major reason was that they relied on the inflation pool for earnings, not their userbase. While it is not easy to build a business with customers who pay in an ecosystem that has an open tap, @Steemmonsters has successfully managed it thus far and 
But, if contributors haven't yet noticed, the SCOT tribes layers above the Steem blockchain have also successfully added some level of value to their users and are able to offer value for creation. This is where it was always headed and it isn't like people didn't know SMTs weren't coming… for almost 3 years now. This will continue and must continue as the Steem inflation pool is much to shallow and small for a huge number of users.
Right now there are about 324 million Steem in the supply which means that if all are spread evenly across a million users, no one account would have more than 324 each and with 10 million users, that drops to 32.4 Steem each. It isn't going to scale. However, the tokens above Steem need not suffer this same fate and can use a host of various ways to empower their user experience with limited resources. Resource Credit Delegation pools will be the first move toward this.
However, there will always be the complaint that new users will not be able to get in on Steem, but this is short sighted. New users need not have Steem at all as long as the tokenized layer applications that they use can provide some RCs to transact and, there are many ways to stretch these further too.
There seems to be an idea that every user who arrives at Steem should have the same opportunity no matter when they arrive, but then there is no point in being an early adopter. It is like saying that all people who buy Bitcoin should be able to get it at the 2009 price, or everyone who purchases Apple stocks gets them at the 1980 price. There are benefits to early adoption and risk taking and those benefits diminish over time.
The beauty of Steem is that the opportunity to be an early adopter doesn't disappear, it just moves to a different layer of the blockchain experience. People should start seeing Steem as the internet and the various tokens as the businesses that they can participate in. They can buy the tokens, earn the tokens and even mine the tokens in various ways and in doing so, support the business to build its future position as an early adopter.
While the earnings tap from the Steem pool might be slowly closing off the distribution of Steem to new users, the distribution to those who support the growth of the chain should create many more opportunities in the layers above as they fractal out to create similar but different expressions of the Steem blockchain and its userbase.
What is quite amazing is that even though someone is able to target and be an early adopter on a token business layer, their post will still have the potential to earn something from the Steem tap also. A tap that they could use to invest into Steem or sell to buy into the token layer above of their choice. Some of these layers have the potential to be very valuable also and the more the traditional economic mass starts to shift toward blockchain, tokens and the businesses that facilitate and use them, the more value gets built.
How I see it is that this latest change in the code of Steem blockchain is shifting the community support focus toward answering the question of, who we you want to secure the infrastructure of Steem? It could be said that in a general sense, those who have been buying in during the continual fall are those who see potential in a future rise and those who have continually participated and powered up, will continue to do so into the foreseeable future on average.
While these might be large assumptions, there is more track record in this than there is in distribute Steem to everyone and they will power it up and distribute it further. We do know that the chain needs to have enough distributed users with enough spread for security and stability and perhaps this move will not only encourage people to actively attract more stake and grow, it will also encourage some to buy some of the 100+ million Steem off the exchanges to be owners at the infrastructure level.
In many ways, this particular Hardfork might be a good indicator of who is looking long on Steem as it should somewhat narrow the distribution and for those who earn more only to sell it off again, they could be recognized and have the support they receive redirected. For me, this is quite an important factor as I am looking to have Steem be the foundation of a massive amount of opportunity and that means I need to play my part and support those at the foundation level.
The earning level is another usecase for Steem however and that is massively important, but people need to remember that one can be on Steem earning, without earning Steem itself, as we can see on the tribes. Many of those earners on the tribes are dumping their earnings in much the same way many on Steem have done, however eventually, those taps might start to turn off as they mature and then the next round will arrive.
The thing with Steem is that it was always meant to be an ecosystem that distributes tokens without having to commit to an individual token with an individual use. The culture of Steem needs to start shifting to incorporate the larger picture of the entire economy of multiple tokens and uses, not Steem as the only worthy currency.
This takes time to make the mental shift, but it is much like investing into any kind of traditional stock or an index of stocks. Steem is the index fund that creates a mass of held stake that supports the individual businesses upon it. Have you bought any of the Steem infrastructure, it is only 18 cents on the market?
While there are going to be a lot of complaints due to changes in distribution, the most interesting part of the next hardfork is seeing who believes Steem is going to be here in the future because, they will be competing hard and powering up while they can because eventually, the tap will shut off tight.
I have a bit of Steem FOMO at the mo.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]