Stake is defined in many ways, but doing a brief search on the word's definition, I feel the most applicable to the blockchain I am engaging on is the following:
a share or interest in a business, situation, or system.
In our case having stake in the blockchain is having some share in this ecosystem through VESTING, but just because you own a piece of something doesn't necessarily mean that piece is worth anything. There are plenty of stakeholders in different ventures that hold worthless stake, what makes our stake in this system better than these collapsed ventures?
Feel free to interpret this picture however you please
While this question is open-ended and you are free to respond to in whatever way you please, I will answer the question by proposing two things:
- generated content
- token scarcity
If you have read any of my recent ramblings on the blockchain, you will know that I don't feel like Steem does a good job at the second thing, and does a very bad job at the first in terms of doing anything useful with content. In fact, it encourages garbage content creation by lazy creators? Why? Because nothing is at stake.
But wait, don't these folks posting have some stake? By the definition above, they most certainly do have stake. But do they have anything "at stake". Not really. "At stake" implies that there is a risk of loss. Now the proponents of Proof-of-Stake argue that monetary value at what is "at stake" in the system. But even though that might be true, the token which can represent value is never really at risk. It is never really at stake. Sure you might lose some value due to speculative nature of the asset, but unless the witnesses collude to commit fraud on the blockchain, you aren't losing tokens.
However, you could argue voting power and resource credits are at stake, but these are regenerative resources. They don't really count. You make a mistake with them and guess what, a few days later, they are back to where they were. While temporary influence is at stake here, it doesn't have to do with money and it is only temporary.
So, what sneaky and dirty thing am I suggesting? Tokens should be at stake. Rather than ROI money printers, they serve as a representative sacrifice demonstrating loyalty to the system. You know, being a responsible shareholder rather than a leech. What if you had to burn a little stake to use the blockchain?
Look at the two items above: content and scarcity. Now that there is downside risk to using the blockchain, lazy creators will think twice before being lazy or else they just burned stake they aren't getting back. Now the seldom used flags really mean something. They mean that you're taking a L. They mean negative ROI. They mean you better think twice about spamming (or else). As for scarcity, now that we are burning tokens, inflation doesn't become as much as an issue anymore because you can simply recycle burned tokens. And since you need tokens to get more tokens, demand skyrockets. RCs attempt to do something similar but they are overly complicated and favor whales over new users in an excessive and asymmetric way.
But of course, practically speaking no one would want to do this. Why? Because it introduces more risk into the equation and makes the scheme shift away from the freemium model. But the upside is that only those who sacrifice for the chain have the opportunity to be rewarded.
Of course, you can put your faith in the "stake" versus the "at-stake" model. You can put your faith in social consensus rather than hard (coded) incentives. You can put your faith that the winds of speculation will turn in your favor. Those things might work, but they don't have to. Not that I'm saying the "at-stake" model works any better, but it sounds more compelling on paper from a theoretical engineering point of view.
But hey, theoretical engineering means nothing. Look at the RC system. That was a waste of time despite all the optimistic praise it garnered after it limped into existence. However, I will mention this. I don't think this will ever work on Steem. The "at-stake" model is contra to the spirit of the whitepaper and contra to the social consensus of the blockchain.
So why bring this up? I don't know. I can post anything to this blockchain for free without any risk of losing anything (but pointless reputation and nearly pointless RCs). So I did. There you go.
If you enjoy any of my content be sure to hit that upvote button so I can earn more imaginary money tokens and hit that follow button so I can indoctrinate you with more of my sneaky ideas. Or you can return to paid programming and the cult of optimism. It's your choice.