It's Saturday and after having read some articles here on Steemit I have decided to do this post, to address some of the things that those Steemians think is wrong with Steemit and Steem, and also some observations that I have made myself about what I think.
What is actually wrong with Steemit and Steem?
So the issues that I have seen people bring up here is:
- Initial Steem Power (SP) after sign up is too low, hitting the RC (resource credit) limit too soon.
- If I have to invest money it's not worth it, Facebook is free.
- Account approval takes too long.
So let's look at some of the arguments being made.
The first sentiment is that newbies and especially those from less fortunate countries, should get more SP and thereby more RC, so that they can make more use of their accounts without investing any money.
The second argument is that they do not want to invest anything because Facebook is free and they got their Steemit account for free, so they are entitled to use Steemit for free too.
And the third argument is that it takes way too long from applying for an account to it being approved.
How to fix it?
Well here is my thoughts on how to fix it.
1.
So to begin with, the reason for having RC, as I understand it, is based on two things, the first being to lower spam, and the second to better cover the cost of running the servers that Steem and Steemit are hosted on.
And to be rather frank, I think those are valid arguments, and at the same time the knowledge about those limits to anyone that have just signed up is limited if not completely absent.
That of course causes disappointment when a newbie after just a few comments and upvotes and even posts, is met by a message that they need to invest money, or wait, in order to continue using it.
So what I think is that, even though we can always discuss what level RC should be at, there is a valid reason to have it, but that the knowledge about what that means should be made much clearer, that monetary investment is not a requirement but highly recommended in order to use Steemit.
2.
Which brings up the second argument that it should be free, since signup was free, and Facebook is free.
So let me start by saying, Facebook is NOT free.
Yeah, you really read that right, Facebook is NOT free.
Facebook is however not paid for by it's users, but by it's advertisers, and the users are actually the product, the target for the ads.
When it comes to Steemit however it's completely different, Steemit and Steem and the dApps running on the Steem network is the product and the users are the customers.
And even more to the point, it's not a charity, Steem is a cryptocurrency, and Steemit is a for profit business as is most of the dApps.
Therefore this feeling that it should be free is just spoiled entitlement, and nothing more.
The value of Steem is directly proportionate to the economics of supply and demand, if there isn't anyone who wants to buy it then the value is zero, and if it was all free that would be the case.
So be glad it's not free, or it would not be worth anything.
3.
And last but not least let's look at the third argument, that signup takes too long.
I completely agree, 100%, signup takes way too long.
So why is that?
That's because when any new account is created, it is assigned a small amount of Steem, and it's also delegated another amount.
First there need to be room for that by printing new Steem, and that takes a bit of time, and secondly this new Steem means that it's paid for by eveyone that have invested money, by actually diluting the value of the entire Steem pool.
Of course Steemit wants to make sure that the account holder is valid, since the account will be backed by real money.
And this is why it takes so much time for new accounts to be approved.
But there is now a solution to this with Steem.Ninja, where you can actually create an account in 15 seconds, by just buying it for $3, with a credit card.
Hopefully that will help a lot in making the sign up process faster and leaner, even if it's at a cost.
Conclusion
So to conclude I think that even if there may be some things to discuss, these issues are mostly overblown or have got solutions already, but that it's vitally important for the future success of Steem and Steemit to spread the knowledge of how it actually works, to not give new Steemians the wrong expectations.
So do spread the word, and have a nice day.
Thank you for reading, follow and like if you do.
Sincerely,
Erik Gustafsson