RE: The Great Steemit Debate: Tone Vays vs. Jeff Berwick "Ponzi Scheme or Paradigm Shift?"

Hello Jeff. I have been following you since your first post here and listened to the whole of this video. I have studied the White Paper and also listened to a number online interviews with Ned and Dan.

I want to commend you for your very thoughtful and respectful conduct during this interview. I agree that every one of the points that Tone makes are issues worth considering carefully. However, if I may, I would like to make a few comments about the contents of the video.

I do not think the number of "shares" or "steem dollars" or "other considerations" held by the founders and or developers is relevant at all when looking at the viability of the Steemit platform.
It is the concept that serves as the basis of how the platform works that is relevant. It is completely unreasonable for anyone to expect that all the functionality of the platform relative to the concept can be executed in a few months. The question I am asking is "does Steemit behave in a manner that is consistent with what is outlined in the White Paper"? Given that the company has finite financial and infrastructure resources with which to execute the goals outlined in the White Paper, I would expect that most unbiased observers would have to say yes to that question, even in an atmosphere of "due diligence".

I am a complete newbie to the Steemit platform and I am excited about it even though I have not made money from any of my activities so far.
There are a lot of extremely difficult technical and scalability challenges in getting market share and ramping the user base for an ambitious project like Steem.

The concept, in my humble opinion, is pure genius and even if it fails to reach critical mass, it will have opened the doors for a massive paradigm shift in what is possible in terms of innovative uses for the blockchain. That alone is an incredible outcome, if nothing else comes out of the Steemit initiative.
I think that Steemit is going to go places that the "whales" and "developers" have not imagined in their wildest dreams. I, for one, am looking forward to riding the tidal wave..there's much fun to be had ahead!!!