@marketingmonk wrote : "It would be nice if the richest person in the world was also the person who contributed the most to humanity".
Yes! And this is why Steemit MAY be the beginning of a totally groundbreaking formula. Inside the Steemit ecosystem the incentives line up according to a structure where the most powerful stakeholders are motivated to share their own value with those who bring maximum value to the whole community. It is actually in their objective self-interests to do so. And it will be in the objective long term interests for any newcomer to bring maximum value to the whole community.
If this is the case we are talking about a new paradigm of system design where individual and collective interests directly go together.
What if this incentive system was expanded far beyond Steemit as we currently know it it? Remember this is only the beginning. Steemit may evolve into something far more revolutionary than anyone has considered possible. Not just a different currency...not just a social media platform...not just content creation...maybe a totally new kind of super-hybrid-economy. I just think it is worth considering that we may have discovered a groundbreaking new economic model here.
Currency derives its value from what people consider to be valuable. This means that the ultimate value of any currency is always subjectively based. It has also been said that the only value that currently comes directly out of Steemit is the production of potentially great articles.
Here is my question : what would be the value of an article containing an algorithm for solving all the problems in the world?