It is very rare that one can find true libertarians and free market thinkers. We see all too often people, who supposedly believe in free markets, promote certain constraints in the name of eliminating "abuse."
A person who truly believes in freedom and free markets understands that if the system is designed well, the so-called "abuse" when exposed to light will self correct -- whether through the pressure by other members of the community or just not being profitable enough vs. presumably non-abusive behavior. The founders of Steem truly understood this principle, for which I salute them. From the white paper itself:
Eliminating “abuse” is not possible and shouldn’t be the goal. Even those who are attempting to “abuse” the system are still doing work. Any compensation they get for their successful attempts at abuse or collusion is at least as valuable for the purpose of distributing the currency as the make-work system employed by traditional Bitcoin mining or the collusive mining done via mining pools. All that is necessary is to ensure that abuse isn’t so rampant that it undermines the incentive to do real work in support of the community and its currency. The goal of building a community currency is to get more “crabs in the bucket”. Going to extreme measures to eliminate all abuse is like attempting to put a lid on the bucket to prevent a few crabs from escaping and comes at the expense of making it harder to add new crabs to the bucket. It is sufficient to make the walls slippery and give the other crabs sufficient power to prevent others from escaping.
Very well said.
STEEM White Paper is long and not many are going to read it. I did it and I am happy for that. I sense a deep understanding of the economics from the developers and more then that a lot of Wisdom.
By the time a finished to read the White Paper I was convinced about this project and decided to give it a go.
I was intimidated at first, but it is actually well written and coherent. I love how they compare the system to investments: long term equity (steem power) and debt (steem dollars). Very well designed.
To be honest, I am a bit concerned with the 10% inflation embedded in the system, and the freedom of witnesses to determine interest rates, but hopefully these concerns will turn out to be unfounded...
You are absolutely right that people will modify their behaviour automatically once they start thinking through how it all works - which means there is no need for the devs to intervene.
Thank you, teatree. This is just a great experiment.
Wow 73 votes. This is so great!
We are up to 76! Thank you all... I hope we can get to a 100!
Given enough time the free market always prevails. But I share your concern about the sustainability of Steem inflation. I think it could end up being adjusted later.
I think the way to protect yourself is maximizing the steem power you have and the steem dollars. STEEM tokens themselves are the most exposed... although even with the 100% annual inflation on tokens, the current demand may exceed that and lead to price increase regardless.
Great article. Keep up the good work. :) Upvoted
hi izzy i like your post, and up voted
thank you for reading my post
Thank you for the upvote. Stay tuned!
"A person who truly believes in freedom and free markets understands that if the system is designed well, the so-called "abuse" when exposed to light will self correct"
Sounds like someone has never read Sinclair. We tried unchecked capitalism in the past; we got the gilded age of robber barons, corporate slavery, horrifying wars for the purpose of imperialism, and a few corporations tried to overthrow the government.
This idea of "Oh, it will just fix itself! The consumer has all the power, after all." is bullshit because the consumer can only change if he KNOWS about the practices being used and corps are always highly secretive when it comes to what they're doing. You wanna sit around eating questionably sanitary horse meat for 5 years before someone blows the whistle? Want the poor to be forced to live in company housing, buying from the company store and running themselves hopelessly into debt? Where privatized police have you pay a premium for prompt service?
Because corporations exist to make money. The market crash a few years back showed us that they will happily engage in immoral, short-sighted, and inevitably self-destructive behavior if it makes them a buck today.
A truly free market is no different than the much touted perfect communist worker's utopia. It is an idyllic dream which will fail to crystalize into reality because it fails to take human nature into account.
Appreciate the discussion. But true capitalism will put a cost in externalities (like pollution, crowding, noise, etc.) and charge people for producing these things. We never tried that. Just the opposite. Few pollute, but the whole society bears the burden, for example.
Ah.
Alright, then you won't mind paying a 150 dollars for your plumbing, 200 for your trash service, 75 service charge for owning your land (monthly, of course), internet for 10 dollars a GB download, etc.
Oh, but if they charge that much I'll just switch to another service! Oh but you can't! See, total free market means no anti-monopoly laws. So you get to eat shit mr. consumer because there's only one service in this city and you need to use it.
I agree with you ecto. What we have leads in some instances to monopolistic businesses, sometimes due to economis of scale and sometimes due to regulations / politicians' blessings.
It is quite complex the subject I want to believe that steem be something sustainable over time. I believe in steem power
here is a good article https://steemit.com/steemit/@teatree/steemit-is-all-about-game-theory
Thanks for sharing this on my post :)
https://steemit.com/intro/@beanz/greetings-fellow-steemians-i-hope-the-oceans-not-as-cold-as-it-is-here-in-ireland-because-i-m-getting-in
Good stuff @izzy. You are the first person I've started "following"!
I would also add this as a good analysis for the platform... https://steemit.com/steemit/@teatree/steemit-is-all-about-game-theory
Yay! One more upvote and we get to 60! My highest post yet!
@izzy I have the same feeling regarding Steemit! Here I share some comments regarding our most valuable asset in life:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@argsolver/a-message-to-steemians-don-t-waste-your-most-important-asset-your-life
Thank you. We passed 60!