For the most part, this post is reiterating an older post about my vision for Steem. I see so many posts talking about the vision, direction, whatever you want to call it for Steem, and the general idea is we don't have one. We don't know where we're going, we're just in limbo. I definitely think there's truth to this, but I can't understand why. It's RIGHT THERE!
This original, simple idea, rewarding content creators, or you might call it connecting consumers and creators, or whatever. Without selling you a lie, or an exaggeration, or some bs, Steem is literally, technically the best platform in the world for this.
I say technically because I mean, we have the technology. We don't have the features, the user experience or the user interfaces.
Adding donations to posts and comments is not the end, it's the beginning. Follow me though a little brainstorming session. Once we have donations associated with authored posts, what else becomes possible?
- Putting content behind a paywall.
Now of course you could do this with just upvotes, but that would be incredibly limiting and well...stupid. By allowing users to combine their upvotes with a direct payment/donation, very simply, you give content creators an incredibly powerful tool to sell their content on the platform. This also creates an incentive for people to buy Steem as well as Power up Steem. The more SP they have, the more content they'd be able to unlock for "free"
Expanding on this feature, you could create multiple types of locks. One that says, "If this posts receives x rewards, it gets unlocked to everyone" or "Every user/account has to pay y to unlock this content for their specific account". With just that we are now competing with Kickstarter, Patreon, Gumroad, Artstation, any website where users can sell digital goods. Every post could be it's own mini Kickstarter.
We don't need to mimic other platforms. We need to INNOVATE and use the power of blockchain and cryptocurrency to show the world that we're sitting on a huge mountain of gold and opportunity.
- Borderless, Global, Censorship Resistant Support for content creators, all at the speed of the internet.
Again, this is not some bullshit sell. This is what we already have if we just develop it so humans can and want to use it. ie It's easy and pleasant to interact with.
Here's a little anecdote. I play Tekken, the 3D fighting game. When I was younger, I used to compete all the way up to the national level. Tekken has become a pretty popular e-sport now and it's my football/basketball/whatever sport you like. I have my favorite players that I've been following for years. So at EVO Japan(a large fighting game tournament) a guy came out of nowhere and won the entire tournament. Korea has always dominated Tekken for over a decade now. This guy was not Korean, he was Pakistani. Turns out Pakistan has an insane Tekken community, but they don't travel much because of Visas and money. The guy that won is arguably top 3 Tekken players in the world. The other people in that range who are in Korea, or Japan or the UK or America, don't have 9-5 jobs. They are pro Tekken players. They have sponsorships and make money streaming.
What's the point of this story? If this Pakistani player was on Steem(and we had a fully featured streaming platform) and Steem was popular, he would not only be able to afford whatever he needed to travel the world playing Tekken, he would probably be pretty well off. In Pakistan, they use the Rupee, 1 Rupee = .0066 USD. I'd love to live in a world where when you're the top 3 IN THE WORLD at anything, you don't have money problems.
Steem has the ability to be that solution. It just needs to be nurtured. One more.
- If you could donate in Steem, why not other cryptos?
What function does @blocktrades currently do? What is @freedomex planning to do? Steem engine? We have all these businesses that will operate as exchanges on Steem. How awesome would it be to be able to receive donations on you posts in any crypto and have it instantly converted to Steem and sent directly to your wallet? Why not? It's all already here, just waiting for someone to take all the puzzle pieces and arrange them in a way to where they're elegant and beautiful and easy. This takes Steem out of the realm of just being this internal echo chamber to providing a service and function to the entire crypto community. Then this becomes the home of all the crypto communities. Combine that with the actual communities feature so that the different tribes can stick together and we are on our way to literally changing the world.
Can you see it? I'm usually painting pictures with pixels, but I hope you can clearly see this picture I'm painting for you now. This is our unique selling point, out value proposition, the thing we can do that others can't. It's RIGHT THERE, we just need to take it!
To just drive this home, I saw @crypto-daily posted a video on 3Speak. I thought it was cool he was posting on Steem, but when I went to the site what did I see?
That's right, a donate button. We need this everywhere. We need to take the shackles off of Steem and start using it to it's full potential. Okay, if I was talking, I'd be out of breath, but I'm tying so...
Anyway, thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts in the comments!