As a longstanding study of history of stocks, we can tell you one thing for certain: Steemians probably don't have to worry much about their Steem price for the near to medium term. If you think about yahoo vs AltaVista or Google vs yahoo, the damage wasn't done to the former until WELL after the latter was up and running for at LEAST a year-- with product. Google was probably born around 1999, yet we remember yahoo still cranking higher thru at LEAST 2002. That's 3 full years of google being up and running before it hurt yahoo shareholders. Also remember quite vividly being long Overture stock in 2001 and starting to get worried about these Google people (who were still private and 2 years away from IPO) in about the Spring of 2002. This is just ONE example, but there are many. How about Apple and Microsoft? They co-existed for two decades, with one pulling WAY ahead of the other by 2000, then 20 years after THAT look where we are now, AAPL is about to be the first trillion dollar company and has left MSFT in the dust (yet MSFT shareholders aren't complaining TOO much!).
So, at least at first, it's not zero sum. In the END it might be, but we recommend Steemians not worry about it for now, and in fact can double-down on the powerups since a new competitor sometimes "proves that the original guys are onto something". Again, this is from experience.
Also, see our Apple writeup... (we get no more "juice" for it bc its 13 days old, but you still might find it helpful investing-wise)
https://steemit.com/aapl/@harpooninvestor/aapl-why-you-shouldn-t-be-scared-of-apple-usd600-target-price
We will be doing an overdue writeup on SNAP too, a stock we've liked since it cracked it's $17 IPO price, and like even more now at $19 (for a long 5-10 year trip to $300).
Also resteeming this, rare for us, but this is exactly the content for which we come to steemit in the first place.
Also, since we're talking about social media, we've recently (today especially) gotten pretty excited with Snap's stock price:
https://steemit.com/money/@harpooninvestor/snapchat-the-greatest-investment-in-the-stock-market-at-usd17-15
Thanks so much for this long, thorough and well thought-out reply!
You make some valid points with regards to Yahoo stocks slowly dwindling instead of instantly crashing. But there is a bit of a difference between the stock markets and the crypto markets in terms of volatility and liquidity firstly, but also because in this particular market users == investors. We're not talking about institutions hoarding STEEM and speculating so much as individual users who may very well pack up their bags, cash out of STEEM and buy into EOS-Steemit. Contrary to a slow dwindle, with the current liquidity in the markets this could put extraordinary pressure on the prices. Literally every user leaving this platform means one more investor cashing out.
I do agree that at some point 'OMG SOCIAL MEDIA CRYPTO' hype is going to strike, and people are going to look at STEEM. However... it can go otherwise too. Just look at Bitshares, which is the world's first DEX, yet everybody seems more keen to adopt other DEXes than to use Bitshares for some reason. Just like how in every discussion about DEXes being the future, somebody will stand up and say 'But... we already have Bitshares...', somebody may say the same when Socialmedia-crypto-hype strikes and reference STEEM. I don't know what it is or why - but on other social media you will find very few people talking about STEEM. It is practically invisible on platforms such as Reddit. Same as with Bitshares, actually, which seems to have a strong core following but have difficulties reaching the main crypto crowd.
And we shouldn't underestimate the Dan Larimer effect either: responsible for the world's largest ICO ever, and EOS is arguably one of the most popular crypto's out there. In big businesses it's all about removing friction, and when the EOS ecosystem is wide enough and you have EOSteemit interoperability with tons of other EOS projects, yet STEEM has some hindrance due to it being it's own blockchain - this could have it's effect too.
Doubling down seems like a risky strategy, unless one is already heavily diversified and doubling down on many other things too. I am mainly worried about the smalltime minnows who have maybe a hundred dollars or two on here, which they worked their ass off for, and they are at risk due to being unfamiliar with the ongoings in crypto. For some of my followers, I know they mean well and are super honest, but I really worry about them having all their eggs in one basket. Some of them got lucky by being on Steemit early enough and have quite some funds - but otherwise they may be rather inexperienced in the whole of crypto. The big whales, I'm not that worried about.. they'll have taken action in time and know their way around I suppose.
Yep, but the overall market didn't become $800 billion in December from users, it was Wall St getting involved. So dont underestimate the power of silent holders of crypto who don't know the first thing about the crypto they hold. Take Korea and it's bid-up of SBD, right? Everyone who knows Steem knows SBD shouldn't really go up faster than Steem, or even up at all. But it does, even now, when the "Gaurdians" (to borrow a Minecraft meme) of Steem are planning to make SBD go from it's current $5 perch (per USD) to $1.00 in the near future! so even the INSIDERS aren't powerful enough to stop the numbskully herds from investing in one-liner themes and cocktail-party hints.
Best thing to do, will be to just get involved with the new platform and see if it's better. Even if it is, we've found the previous platform isn't usually done yet. Snap vs FB is a perfect example, FB continues upwards even tho Snap has been stealing market share for years now, outgrowing FB to this most recent quarterly report. Yet investors still trust the big guy, and ignore the problem coming right at them.
again, we agree with what you're saying, it just doesn't always work out so crisply in reality, that's all we're saying.
Frankly, we'll all be fine either way, altho some early-birds in Steem might take a hit if the new platform doesn't reward being early like the old one does now. but even some of that reputation will transfer.
interesting. Let's see how it will end up
Hello harpooninvestor, as a fellow investor I would love to discuss with you about the market. Join my community: https://discord.gg/vDPAFqb
(pandora is in there too)
https://steemit.com/money/@harpooninvestor/snapchat-the-greatest-investment-in-the-stock-market-at-usd17-15
that's our half of the discussion!