The original whitepaper lays it all out. The Steemit platform allows testing and demonstration of the transaction capabilities of the Steem blockchain. It provides a path for bringing people into cryptocurrency and build their understanding, piece by piece, with conversation among people, rather than a project having to put out information all the time.
People being people, the Steemit platform also surfaces creative human behavior -- good and bad. That allows developers to test ways to code around some behaviors, like hackers, spammers, disruptive folks. But the value of the blockchain will come through new applications that were never even imagined when Steem started. Steemit is simply a piece and not even the centerpiece over the long run.
That's all in the whitepaper. Is Steemit for bloggers or business? The developers don't care which. So where does that leave bloggers? Here's how I see it.
Hang onto your SP if you think the Steem blockchain and other projects will have increasing value. You are mining cryptocurrency with your mind, as many folks here have said.
If you already have a website, the SEO of Steemit is worth a lot to that website. @fitinfun has had great results with this. The way I understand it, it's because SEO somehow counts comments by you and/or comments on your posts when you have links back to your website in your blog posts here on Steemit. The Steemit posts don't even have to be about your website topics. For some folks, like @fitinfun, that's been a huge value of being on Steemit! So that mixes business and pleasure, lol.
Develop content and relationships that will transfer to other projects and platforms.
For me, the other reason I'm on Steemit is to watch the evolution of a new and rapidly evolving technology and ecosystem. I've learned about cryptocurrencies, trading, economies, and more -- with a lot more learning to come, I'm sure.
So, the white paper says some stuff loud and clear but doesn't answer the bit my questions/concerns. I think you misunderstood my main issue here.
I am saying how would it be if outsider businessmen got on Steemit as investors, with main (and maybe only) purpose the money, when someone posts on their behalf.
And what if, instead of personal blogs, the place becomes a company blog social media instead.
I totally agree with 1 and 3, a bit sceptical about 2.
Also, I'm not sure that developpers don't care - it's their baby and even though it's out of their control now, they probably have some preference regarding where would they like to see it going...
I hear you about the learning - it's amazing how many more info I got in my head since I joined!!!
I think we have seen the business side already, in several forms. We've had investment syndicates on the trending page for awhile, getting upvotes for junk posts, to provide ROI for the investors. There are writing syndicates, where authors get paid a nominal rate for a post and the syndicate gets much more. There are the bid bots, profiting from authors that want to increase their visibility. And from the folks that delegate to those bots, but get much poorer returns than if they actually curated posts themselves.
With the current code, it would be straightforward for business competitors to crush Steemit with the bid bots. For a few million invested in SP, they can command the whole reward pool, making Steemit a place where nobody wants to be. They would lose those few millions as SP declines in value, but that's cheap compared to buying a company, and a way to deal with a distributed system. I'm open to the idea that's some of what's going on even now with the bots.
Even if business just gets on Steemit, to use Steemit as a company blog social media, what would that be? An endless stream of commercials. Who wants to be here for that? Nobody even likes that for Facebook or Twitter. We've seen this on Steemit already, too. Folks got so tired of seeing hotel booking dot com, lol. The Steemit audience size doesn't seem to be worth it to a business yet, though. There's not a focused market that's large enough. With communities, that should change. There will be identifiable groups of people interested in specific topics.
Lots to think about anyway!
Even though I wouldn't wanna see Steemit becoming a 'business platform only' - elite style -, I do believe that something good could come out of something like that, like charities [as I mentioned before], or monetary strength. Why would it be just 'commercials'?
And as I said, it depends on who posts in their [investors'] behalf after all ! It doesn't have to be junk posts, I just question the way it would work, if...
I'll agree about the size - but what if big investors can actually increase that size in the end...?
Indeed a lot to think about ;)