@techemist. While I appreciate the thoughtful and well-written article, your argument hinges on the assumption that advertisers will NOT want to hold steem/Steem Power. I believe that is true for smaller advertisers. But what about major advertisers? If I am a major advertiser, why would I pay per advert when I can buy up a large percentage of the platform in Steem Power and upvote any advertisement of mine?
You make an excellent observation that advertisers are the end game as well. I agree. However, what will happen to liquidity? If major advertisers buy up much of the steem/SteemPower, they are not going to let it go. Without liquidity, where is the benefit to new curators/creators?
It's possible that the best content creators who might be dolphins or whales now, could turn into minnows when they cash out to advertisers.... Then, how will these new minnow content creators make money if the advertisers are only upvoting their own posts?
The shift to advertising whales could be a huge negative X factor.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
P.S Still bullish
Thank you for your thoughts.
Advertising today is all about gaining maximum efficiency for ad spend. ie down to the cost-per-view/click. Buying half the platforms steempower could be a strategic move but very difficult to put exact value on and hence why most professional or major advertisers would prefer to buy eyeballs through mechanics they can measure.
Also - think about it. Advertisers with massive steempower upvoting themselves is would result in thousands of posts where most of them are ranking high for a while before downvoted. This would look like advertorials and the masses are starting to resent adverts, masked as content (ie advertorials).
Advertisers upvoting themselves (via massive investment) is only going to work for a small time until the masses mass downvote their articles. Adverts cannot be downvoted, only ignored, which under my proposed mechanics doesn't cost the advertiser.
Thank you for your response.
You are absolutely correct, and I agree, that advertisers currently prefer buying eyeballs through metrics. However, steemit could turn that model on it's head because now not only does buying SP give a ROI through advertising, but also gives ROI as a share in the overall revenue of the platform. Admittedly, I would be speculating on how advertisers may value that.
Also - You make a great point about the downvoting that I didn't initially consider. However, correct me if I'm wrong but.... a minnow's downvote does not have a large impact on a whale's post, right? But, I can see how the masses could make a bigger impact.
Hopefully, the masses come into the platform before an Advertiser scoops up larges amount of SPs and makes massive changes to the platform.