Hi @initforthemoney! I appreciate the point you make in your post @yabapmatt, but hoping for an increase in value in a few years is not a viable business model for a journalist :)
There are more than 900 cryptocurrencies of which most won't be the new Bitcoin. "Over the last few years, thousands of cryptocurrencies have been created and over 90% of them have failed" according to Blockgeeks.
Talking about the value of Steemit, my biggest concern is the difference between the hook ("Make money with quality content") and the reality ("Make money in the long run (maybe), or by investing money or by getting whales to like you").
I'm afraid the payout will only become more polarized when Steemit goes mainstream; millions of users will earn nothing and a handful earns almost everything. That jeopardizes the long-term success of the platform and the possible increase (or decrease!) of the value of Steem.
Don't get me wrong, I think Steemit is a very important step to show ordinary people the possibilities of cryptos and monetising quality content. But in my opinion and experience with Steemit as a professional writer, there need to be changes to the payout system, better curation and improved findability of content for Steemit to work in the long run...
..if the goal of Steemit is to revolutionize and monetize quality content, but maybe the real goal is to invest and trade Steem, or to get Steem to buy Bitcoin. That's perfectly fine also, but then the people interested in Steemit will be traders and not writers, artists or photographers.
It simply takes too much time to make content to get Steem when you can also buy it. Even when I split an article up in shorter pieces, it still takes hours to make and I only earn Steem for a week. Then it loses its value.
Please prove me wrong Steemit! I'll stick around and follow the developments closely. Maybe a better approach is to simultaneously post content here and on a personal website eg., and monetise both. If I understand correctly you won't be killed by cheetah for posting original content simultaneously on multiple platforms, right? Has anyone tried?