Anarchy

I've compared the cryptospace to the Wild-West and the Gold Rush many times. It's lawless anarchy out here. There are few rules, little organization, and even less regulation. At the same time it's a high risk high reward scenario. The prospect of getting rich is a twinkle in everyone's eyes. The people of 1849 risked there lives to have the same opportunity we have today.

In the Wild-West, there were gangs that were incredibly more powerful than entire towns. You could rape and pillage, rob trains, kill sheriffs, and get away with it scot-free. The response to this unchecked aggression was a bounty system.

Can you imagine that? Being paid years worth of salary all at once to hunt down the world's most dangerous game? Paid to kill; legal assassinations. Some bounties would even give you a bonus if you brought them in alive. That way you could hang them in public while your kids watched. It really gives some perspective on exactly how crazy it was back then. Savage chaos: kill or be killed.

Bad Actors

Metaphorically, we see the same behavior here at Steemit. There are people running around trying to exploit this space for everything it's worth. Gangs of powerful exploiters band together and flag the weak talent into oblivion; no more competition. We try to say that Steem is better than Facebook and Youtube because content doesn't get censored. Really? Are we that naive?

Is the next logical step to create revenge bounties on these tools? Not likely, because killing someone removes them from the ecosystem, while flagging them does not. Perhaps a more creative and permanent solution can be found. I'm currently working on a filter that could render trending (and all other tabs) obsolete. Post exposure would no longer be fully based on stake weighted rewards. Wouldn't that be something?

Back to the metaphor

During the Godl Rush, the supply of gold on the west coast shot through the roof. A nugget that could have bought a horse on the east coast was only enough to buy lunch on the west coast. Who profited from this scenario? The rich and powerful of course. If you were lower or middle class you didn't have the resources to get gold back to the places where their was actually a demand for it. You were also using inferior systems of gold collecting, like panning for gold instead of using a cradle. In the end, a lot of solo miners had to let the dream die and go to work for someone else to take the lion's share.

Another group that benefited from this scenario were the people providing basic needs; the merchants. Food, water, cloths, shelter, supplies; these were necessities that many people weren't thinking of when they decided to risk it all to strike it rich. Even non-essential products like alcohol and sex were in high demand. People were willing to pay dearly for these things, and pay dearly they did. Sure, there are a few rags-to-riches stories, but most people got screwed... especially the hookers.

Back to Steem

My point here is that Steem is also creating an oversupply, but instead of gold it's blogs. How many people out there are writing the exact same thing and expecting to get paid for it? While @ned and friends are out there trying to invent hydraulic mining (SMTs) the rest of us starve to death. However, instead of a lack of food, we have a lack of exposure. This exposure is available to us in the form of rent (bid bots) to appear on the trending tab, and is controlled by the elite.

We developers here at Steem need to get our heads out of the clouds and provide #steemians with basic needs: a variety of proof-of-brain options and exposure to the communities they love. Not only is this the best thing for the platform, it's also likely the easiest way to make a name for yourself here and get paid doing it.