What would be another model?
From a blockchain perspective it would certainly all work if content/curation rewards were simply set to zero and nothing else changed. Even some bloggers would still post (due to censorship resistance, possibility of getting easy tips via transfer, etc.) I'm quite certain and comments would continue as most comments don't get or expect to get rewards anyway but people still do them. Apps such as steemmonsters which do not rely on blogging/rewards would work just fine, in fact they would get cheaper since more RC would be available (I'm assuming that blogging/spamming activity would dramatically reduce).
That would have immediate positive benefit in terms of investors not seeing scary 8+% inflation (with just witness rewards it would be more like 1%, some offset by vesting if you power up., a more reasonable price to maintain the security of the chain) and many feeling they need to milk the reward pool just to avoid losing money.
What would be lost:
- Attraction of rewards to join. No great loss if this isn't working to grow the community (it isn't).
- Loss of support for content creators. No great loss if this isn't working to grow community or otherwise add value to Steem (it isn't).
- Loss of support for apps that are reward-supported. No great loss if ... (see above).
- Etc.
If the model isn't working to grow the community and increase the value of Steem then there is no reason to continue it. That's the definition of insanity.
Personally I would rather leverage Steems head start and already positioned model in terms of curation-allocated inflation rewards by getting it working better and start becoming the rocket fuel for growth that it was supposed to be. But if we can't come up with something that works, we can't. Best to move on and just focus on being a solid, efficient, and scaleable blockchain with innovations elsewhere. Plodding along in this zombie-like state is nuts.
There are other models we could think about as well to try to be a direct replacement for the blog/voting/reward model such as something a bit more patreon- or twitch-like with automatic subscriber payments and such. Nothing I know of is well developed even at the idea stage but it isn't impossible we could make a big pivot like that. Again, if what you are doing isn't working, try something else.
Thanks smooth... I agree, will this fall on deaf ears?
And also kill SBD on external markets or totally get rid of SBD, let them trade it into steem on the internal market or convert it... we have no real price discovery, steem is a currency right... not an utility token.
When SMT's are paired to steem, it should also not be possible to move those SMT's to external markets. Let them first go to steem as currency and exit to fiat.
To be clear I am not advocating turning off rewards (though it wouldn't bother me really as I think they are mostly worthless in their present form) and I doubt there is much support for it right now. I would prefer to improve the curation system so it can channel rewards to more value adding activities.
At some point if we conclude that we can't make it work then it would be better to pivot. One way to do that may be to have STEEM decline from competing with SMTs in the reward-voting game and let SMTs experiment with their own solutions. STEEM can instead focus on being a native coin (including as reserve and bridge asset for SMTs) and access and governance token for the network with much lower inflation.
I don't agree with your view on SBD, I view it as a complementary asset. Regarding SMTs, I don't think it is possible to prevent external trading. No one needs permission to do it.