How is all monetary value assigned to any currency? Belief, faith, trust and loyalty.
From dollars to doichemarks, gold to cryptocurrencies, it's all the same: we create and assign a monetary value.
In currencies created by countries, the value is supposed to be based on a representation of the labor of that country through an economy to give value to the currency. If no one was working to create products and services, the backing of the currency would be non-existent and the currency would not hold any value. Countries can also devalue their currency by printing more of it into existence to misrepresent the ratio of currency to labor of the market.
Many cryptocurrencies don't have this real world backing. They are just "mined" by computers, that take processing power and energy to create, so they are limited more than a fiat currency that can be printing into oblivion. So they have a value because of this restriction.
If a cryptocurrency does not create something real, like app products, or offer services, then there is no real backing behind it other than it being a restricted supply-currency that can't be exploited like other fiat currencies that can simple be created into existence without limit.
Here is where STEEM comes in.
STEEM has a real world value: content from Steemit
Content isn't mined automatically, it has to be created by the Power of Consciousness through the magic of our word of mouth, the Art of Communication, Meaningful Speech. This requires HUMAN potential energy to be used, not simply automated computer and electrical energy. This requires time, energy, effort, dedication, determination and persistence on our part. Not simply relegating the work to automatic systems, like a robot. Steemit creates real world value through human labor.
People on the Steemit platform create content. This content has a certain value that people in society attribute to it. The value of Steemit is achieved through the reputation of the platform, that reflects into the cryptocurrency of STEEM tokens.
Without content, STEEM would be like many of the other altcoins that have no real world backing to give it value.
What would give Steemit the highest reputation and therefore value?
Maybe being a sports platform? Maybe being an economic platform? Maybe being an art platform? Maybe being a photography platform? Well, that all depends on what people in society value. I have my own criteria on what real high value quality is.
People for centuries seem to prefer the bread and circus pleasure trap of entertaining "light" fun and not thinking, not the deep effortful hardship of seeking, thinking and learning about important truths in our lives. We want fodder, and we get fodder.
People can value the lowest form of information that does nothing to raise consciousness to higher levels of understanding themselves and the world, or they can actually value truth that matters and seek to elevate themselves to improve their individual and collective condition and quality of life on this planet.
Garbage in, garbage out. Quality in, quality out. Everything we input into ourselves, either physically (body) or metaphysically (consciousness), affects us. We become a reflection of what we consume. We need to choose more wisely.
Information is power. Restricting information has power. Secrecy is valuable. That is what governments and intelligentsia (CIA, MI5, CSIS, Mossad, etc.) do. They hide, occult and encrypt information to prevent everyone from knowing what is really going on in reality. They trade in information and have power over our lives. Our desires for lower consciousness consumption fits well into their domination over our lives.
I have said in a post called "Steemit Succeeds if We Make it Succeed - Analysis to Help Yourself and Steemit Grow in Quality", the real value of information of the highest quality, is information that can help us better ourselves and the world.
This is what I KNOW as an objective fact of reality. If we want things to get better in life, we need knowledge to empower ourselves. Important truths about ourselves and the world is the most valuable form of knowledge. I know this. It's demonstrable. It can be verified. It's how things work in reality.
To think we can improve the condition and quality of our life, other's lives, and the world, through focusing our time, energy and attention on self-gratification or on low quality information, is foolishness from ignorance. Not enough people have spent time thinking deeply to understand how life works to "get this".
Steemit is a platform that I am seeking to do this through. I have tried Facebook. I want Steemit to be better and greater, because it actually rewards people who create content, rather than simply exploit them to use their energy and currency of time and attention to reap all the money for themselves (i.e. Facebook). People don't understand the potential value that Steemit can bring for themselves, others and the world.
Do you now see how Steemit actually has real world value through the content it has, created by us, the community, and how that reputation and value is judged by society to assign reputation and value to it? If no one cares for truth and higher quality information, then that will not be valued in Steemit. If people value low quality information that does nothing to help us learn about ourselves and the world, then so be it, and that's what Steemit will become.
If we can create a higher value quality platform, we have the potential to alter, affect, influence and change the consciousness of people in the world and as a result change the world! This is the potential power of the future of Steemit as I see it. This is what I am trying to create on Steemit.
Steemit is a free market. We, the content creators, determine what it will become. We, the content creators, determine the reputation and value that society will judge it upon. We, as curators, will determine who gets valued and rewarded on the platform. Steemit succeeds if we make it succeed.
But, what do we want it to succeed into? More entertainment and "fun" pleasure for people to stay at the same level of consciousness, like all the mainstream TV and popular Intern sites do? Another ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Facebook, Instagram, etc.? Or do we want things to actually get better for ourselves, others and the world? This is a serious question people need to ask themselves. This is a life changing question. It completely changed my life once I understood the supreme importance of truth in life.
People on the platform succeed and are rewarded if we give them recognition for the content they create. I give people value and recognition when they provide information that helps to inform, educate and therefore possibly elevate others in quality knowledge, awareness and understanding of themselves, others and the world. The power and potential future of Steemit is in our hands. I don't get to choose what the platform content will be, we all do.
But... imagine if Steemit was a platform for high quality knowledge and valuable truth about ourselves and the world. Imagine the impact this would have on the world. Imagine how valuable that would be...
STEEM isn't recognized as having much value right now, because people don't understand what gives it value. Many people now, are turning on the platform through their ignorance of these dynamics. I will explain more of these dynamics below.
About the Complaining, Whining and Blaming Steemit and the Whales
When I first joined Steemit, I recognized how revolutionary this platform is. I still do.
Some people are not liking how things are going recently, and they are complaining about how "unfair" it is: that they don't get enough upvotes, that whales don't upvote them, that the whales have too much "power", that the system is not setup right, that the whales should be giving their power away, on and on the complaining and blaming goes. There is a lot of whale dislike (or hate) going around in conversations about Steemit and Steemit posts.
What if your content is not valued by others? What if your content is not that valuable in terms of quality information and truth that matters, as I have described above? Who is to blame then? Start to look inwards, and point the finger at yourself.
But regardless of that.... Let's get something straight here...
Free Market Dynamics
In a free market system, if you got in on a project or company early, did the ground work and leg work to get it started, then you will be in a better position if that project succeeds, with your time and effort paying off. In a company, if you invest early on, and it takes off in success, then you will reap the rewards exponentially from your initial investment. You will have power and influence in that project, system or company.
This is what the whales have. They came in early, got things running early on, and now they are the major share holders with the most influence and power in the company. That is how things work.
You don't see people in the business world complaining about how Facebook or Google early-starters are stealing from people, ripping people off, have too much power, etc. This is how investment and early positions in a startup work. You take a risk, and if it fails you fail hard, and if it succeeds you can go "to the moon" like a rocket.
Working Hard But Not Being Recognized
Many people work hard, and create great things (or not), and are often not recognized or compensated for it "fairly" or whatever. Life isn't always fair. Things can go your way, or they can go against you sometimes. That's the unfairness of life, there is good and bad, fair and unfair. Not everything works out the way you want, wish, desire, or expect it to.
Don't get too entitled about what you think you "deserve", and take out your frustration on those who didn't recognize your work. Entitlement is big problem these days, especially from the "socialist" "liberal" leftist mindsets. So many people expect things to be granted to them and get pissed off when they don't get what they want. Does that sound like a juvenile child attitude? Well, it is!
You can either keep going at it, and hope the next time you do something, it gets more attention, more visibility, and more value recognized for it. Or you can quit. In either case, you can also whine, moan, groan, grunt, bitch, complain, and blame others for not giving you what you expect you are entitled to get from them.
I sometimes have posts about great topics, real high quality work to help people learn about consciousness and existence, themselves and the world, go "nowhere" in terms of payout and reaching people, while other posts do less to help humanity yet get much more visibility and payouts.
But, do you see me writing posts about how unfair this is? Do you see me bashing the platform or the whales? Do you see me complaining? Nope. I understand how things are in a free market, and that the whales might not see my posts, might be busy, or they might not even care about the content. Just because I put time, effort and energy into a post about a really important topic for people to understand, doesn't mean I'm going to get rewarded for it.
For example, today I posted about what truth is and it's importance. This is an extremely important topic to understand what truth is so that we are all on the same page when talking about this basic aspect of understanding reality. But, it hardly got noticed by the more powerful players on the platform when I was writing this ($8). Now, its up a decent amount for the real world value it contains to help people understand about reality, existence and truth, the basic foundational axiom for progressing in accurate perception of the world. If it got more attention, through more upvotes, then it would gain more visibility, and reach more people so that they could learn from it. This is just an explanation to show how things don't always go my way, what I expect, etc., but I don't go taking it out on Steemit or the power players. I also made an embarrassing dyslexic goof error and put "if Life" instead of "in Life" in the title, which I hate messing up on my posts and now it's forever stuck in the link... LOL.
My first goal is to spread important knowledge. It's a personal responsibility to share what one knows about important aspects of reality so that others may learn about it and do the same, and improve our collective condition. I have been doing this for years on Facebook and on my own site with no monetary reward for my work. Steemit is a great place for me to finally get a monetary exchange for the work I produce. I highly value this platform, saw it's revolutionary potential, and that's why I put $150 of BTC of my first ever BTC purchase into Steem Power, my second day here after getting a $0 payout for my first post. And I later added another $150.
I'm just explaining how I know what my content is worth, and how it doesn't always get matched up in payout compared to other posts, yet I don't go complaining about it. I know what it's worth in terms of how it can help the individual and the world evolve in consciousness to greater understanding and change things for the better. That's what I know is important to head into the future on this planet. That's what I look for in content to curate. That's why I create the content I do, because it has real world value to change things for the better.
The way Steemit and STEEM was created makes it the most valuable cryptocurrency, but it just started. STEEM has the potential to be the most valuable cryptocurrency if we make it that. What do we choose?
I didn't even talk about the market potential in other things like products, stores, exchanges, and so many other things that are out of my depth. I can only speak about what I know and can demonstrate. I have more to learn on those subjects.
Remember:
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need
Thank you for reading! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.
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Author: Kris Nelson / @krnel
Contact: [email protected]
Date: 2016-09-17, 5pm EST
Nicely put. I and many others have argued that it is naive to expect Steemit to solve the inequalities of the modern world overnight whilst simultaneously trying to create a whole new economy around it.
The idea is patently ridiculous. Inequality has always existed and probably always will. All we can do is keep trying to make things better.
Although I don't always agree with what the team is doing I do think they are trying to improve things in this regard.
Perhaps in some cases they are making changes too quickly - for example the failed 12 hour payout schedule.
The key to success in any field is persistence, time and hard work. This triad does not guarantee success but it makes it a whole lot more likely than if you sit around hoping to just get lucky.
The problem is some people will complain no matter what the situation is. If the distribution of SP was more even I'm sure they would complain that payouts were too low, or too many people were voting reducing the rewards.
The fact is it will take time for things to improve via gradual iteration, trying new things and new ideas. Sometimes it will make things better, sometimes it will make things worse.
Nothing is guaranteed and sitting around complaining instead of trying to help move things forward achieves nothing except boring everyone.
That is one way to guarantee you don't earn anything.
Indeed, well put. Trial and error is part of life. Move forward, move back, and correct things when it goes wrong. That's life and learning. Thanks for the feedback. Take care. Peace.
I make it short: This article got me so concentrated and focused. It was worth reading it! I just discovered your post on fb and will definitely follow your content :D
Awesome! Glad I can keep bringing valuable knowledge to people and get more people to understand and stick with Steemit. It has great potential and will become one of the most valuable sites on the net in time. Take care. Peace.
Well Steem wants to be a real currency it should carry more goods and services to exchange with than buying other currencies. The key will come when there is a marketplace so people can buy their necesities from steemit. The big issue here is if these stores be located in a way that people are confortable to aquire. No issue with digital goods but traditional goods is a different thing altogetehr. Buying a burguer from my local store might speak volumes since ATM the store doesn't even carry debit cards.
At the moment there is no Wordpress plugin so that your upvotes can be carry on your own blog as opposed to ta steemit.com site. So the economy is very well centralized in the steemit.com domain. I would like to have a store, so having a shopify's magento's like plugin willl also be great. I would love to see these code poping up on github. ATM I dont see any bitshare (steemit father) marketplace site.
[
] Hello @jza
You should perhaps be a little more humble and not state so much like it is facts, when maybe it is not. Here are one of the Wordpress plugins: https://steemit.com/steemit/@wordpress-tips/steemit-for-wordpress-1-display-your-steemit-blog-in-your-wordpress-website-with-this-free-plugin
In my town there are already some shops who take STEEM as payment and in other countries as well. I have never seen anything go as fast as Steemit in the real world. In Germany they can even build you a house for STEEM.
Regards
The Viking of Norway
Yeah it's great! Just the other day @gardenofeden, I think is the account, adopted STEEM into their store. STEEM is growing week by week, and will soon become a much more accepted form of payment in many places. I'm not too versed in markets and store venders and such, but it's wonderful to see other people know what they are doing and get STEEM into the mainstream this way. Wo0ot.
Hade @ramta !! Hvordan gar det ? so is this true that in Frederikstad there are shops accepting Steem already ?? That is truly ground breaking news and I will be looking forward to seeing this with my own eye,s when i arrive there in one week !
Yes of course it is true. I can not lie here on Steemit can I ? That would be the same as killing myself here. Blockchain and all.
Regards
The Viking of Norway
Yes see what you mean ; - )! sorry for this ridiculous question then@ramta Well that is fantastic news !! Steem is officially recognized as a currency of exchange in the first world !!
thank you for this information @ramta ... I'm delighted WP is starting to get some plugins to support Steemit.
I'm glad that there is a crazy Steemer in your town who accepts Steem payments. However, I don't believe there will be many of them with the currency going down so quickly and consistently. People have small businesses to pay bills not to invest in futuristic technologies. As a payment method a bearish currency is not an option.
[
] Hello @klos
Why do you lie? Some shops are not "a crazy Steemer". It takes only a minute to sell STEEM on bittrex.com Have you ever tried? It take them only minutes to have money for the bills. One of the shops even do the exchange for people that want Steem but have not been on exchanges themselves. So, all you say is a lie. If you want to have that opinion, be my guest. And now the sting. I have been reading your two posts, The one about steemit is absolutely a big misunderstanding about what this is. There is nothing true there. So learn what this is and you will make money ;-)
Regards
Ramta the Viking of Norway
Good points. All the market stuff is mostly out of my knowledge area, but Steemit has a lot of potential to go into the future. Thanks for the feedback. Take care. Peace.
I get a smile when I see somene uses the phrase "if steem wants". We should drop this ridiculous use of words. Steem doesn't "want" anything.
Thoughtful piece. A good read for everyone on Steemit.
This is a great piece and I am happy to upvote. Now following and looking forward to reading more of your posts. Made an interesting post earlier on about the future of Social Media. You may like to see it. Catch us also on Twitter Twitter✔. Cheers. Stephen
Followed on Twitter!
Thanks. Following back. Cheers. Stephen
Thanks @krnel
I feel you buddy. Nailed it right on the head. I can't believe how many whiners there are on here and some of them have good content and others, well, simple put, just don't. The payouts are cool but the great content and interaction I'm finding on this site is even cooler. Thanks sharing and you have a new follower.
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. I hope you continue to gain value from the work I put out. Thanks for following. Take care. Peace.
This is a great story. Well done. I too am a believer that STEEM is one of the few cryptocurrencies that is actually mined from our mind. Once the whales have redistributed their wealth to the new member base it will become more fair but this is a necissary step in the platforms evolution.
Indeed. It will take time, but they have what they have because they were first. In time, more poepl ewill rank up and things will even out. People need to be more patient and put in the work to climb the platform. Take care. Peace.
Nice article. The only problem I see is that Upvotes only distribute Tokens. The price of Steem ultimately determines the monetary "value" and I don't see that point adressed: who is buying Steem and why. Even you bought 300 USD only.
[
] Hello @Fabio
I by STEEM, so far I bought around 40,000.000 from Bittrex. Why? Simply because it is as good as anything else you can by if you want to invest. Much better than gold in my opinion. That is my opinion. The future will tell the truth, if I am right or if I am wrong. Why do I think that this is one of the best investment you can do? People produce in this system. And they produce much more than post and replies. Look around, shops start to accept it, spinn offs, apps and much more. In the end of the day it is production that creates wealth.
Regards
Ramta the Viking of Norway
Yeah I "only" bought 300, and? I could have bought 0. What is your point? I think it's better to work and create content to get your SP, rather than buy STEEM to then convert to SP. But I did it early on because I wanted to help Steemit. I was making the point that I saw the value and potential of Steemit early on. People can make their own decisions, as I made mine. I didn't say that I keep buying STEEM to get SP... I don't. The real value come from creating content, not buying coins like all the other altcoins... which is the point of STEEM being the most valuable cryptocurrency, because it has real valuable backing of information as power.
But people need to buy Steem. Otherwise all the content is worthless, right?
Really enjoyed this piece. Thanks brother. Following.
Good job.
You say you do not complain about your reward but, then, why would you? You tend to get tens of dollars sometimes hundreds, and only rarely mere cents so of course YOU are content. Might be a bit different if your usual reward was a few cents and not tens of dollars+. Yeah yeah yeah value is relative and if others with necessary influence do not choose to upvote that is just tough shit, I get that. But it really does make for a depressing experience to see your work go so under rewarded time and time again.
In fact, I personally think it is better to forget the monetary reward, which is nearly always insultingly low, and content myself with the thought that some people bothered to read what I post and hopefully got some satisfaction out of it.
Yeah, I actually create valuable content, that happens to get recognized, and I worked to get here. Stop focusing on the money indeed. Yes, I am content that I get something for the quality I put out. My first few posts got $0.00, $0.25, etc. And yet I invested on my second day... and I wasn't writing posts about how crappy Steemit was....
It's hard to say what is good content these days when funny animals or swearing gamers can make millions on-line. But if that makes people laugh then I guess it has value. A lot of people are just not interested in reading long and informative posts. And so 'clickbait' posts can make a lot on Steemit whilst many people will feel their carefully researched posts are overlooked. There's only so much Steem to be shared out.
There are many ways in which Steemit could succeed. Adding games where people win Steem could be popular, but it's not what I want. I'd love to see writers, artists and musicians being well rewarded for creating great work. Many in those fields are struggling to be able to create their work without having to take on other work to pay the bills.
I hope to see Steemit grow to become the go-to place for content of all kinds and with a market for goods and services using Steem.
Thanks for the feedback. To think and depend on Steemit and not "having to take on other work to pay the bills", is unrealistic. You yourself said there is only a limited amount of Steem to be shared. Therefore, it's not realistic or rational to depend on the platform to sustain your income. Peace.
For now it's probably not realistic, but in a couple of years when there are millions of users and Steem has a much higher value then it may be possible. We've seen already that some authors made thousands, but I'm not sure they could sustain that.
They are already popular, some of them.
While others, seem to be Socket Puppet bots run by some whales for exploiting the system to reap and drain rewards, curations, and payouts to themselves by using deceptive and manipulative tactics to siphon the daily-pool wealth into their pockets. This is a serious issue that is perverting the platform for all the regular honest people. Please read that post. Over 400 upvotes with 0 payout because there seems to be a clic of greedy corrupted whales who don't want this information getting out. Money has degenerated them.
hi @krnel, just stopped back to let you know that you were one of my favourite reads today. You can read my comments about your post here
Very detailed analysis of the current main problems.
This is easily one of the best articles I have ever read on Steemit. I'm following you to read more of your insightful post. Keep up the good work.
I like this post. I ran out of upvote juice (20 limit) so I can only comment. Great job by the way.
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