Towards our Own Economy: Excited about STEEMBAY Becoming Part of the Steemit Environment!
Yesterday, I was excited to see an official announcement that @steembay is now live and running, here on Steemit!
Red desert flowers
SteemBay is the brainchild of veteran Steemians @pollux.one and @schererf, and is an initiative to create an "eBay like" peer-to-peer ecommerce market here on Steemit.
In short, you can create a post for an item or service you would like to trade, call in the @steembay bot with a tag and it then "manages" auction style bids from others, for the normal 7-day duration of your post... much like it works on eBay. Of course, the best way to learn more is to visit the @steembay page. The announcement is currently available in English, Spanish, French and German.
Part of the reason I am giving @steembay a plug here is that I believe this will offer a great benefit and support for both Steemit and the Steem token, in the longer run.
Creating Economic Viability for the Steem Token
White winter flowers
Having a peer-to-peer marketplace where we can all trade with each other using Steem or SBD without having to leave the platform (or convert anything to Bitcoin of fiat) could be a major step towards establishing a deeper "economic reason" for the Steem currency to exist.
Compared to most coins out there-- which are, essentially, more of an "investment asset class" than actual currencies-- Steem is already ahead of the curve because we have the Steemit social content platform which involves "commercial activity" in the form of the rewards system. But is it enough? Will SMTs be enough?
Having an active internal marketplace where community members can trade goods, services and more with each other could only serve to help cement to viability of the Steem currency.
Why Does This Matter?
Winter sunset
Call me skeptical, but I tend to side with many who believe that cryptocurrencies are in a bit of a speculative bubble at the moment.
If you look at all the ICOs coming to market these days it almost seems like people can raise millions of dollars with no greater business plan than "using the word blockchain in the white paper" after which every person on the planet blindly throws money at them.
Alas, that's unsustainable, in the long run... at some point, they will all have to "deliver the goods." And I believe that-- much like the "dot-com bubble" burst in 2000-- there will eventually be a reckoning... and (to paraphrase Warren Buffett) "when the tide goes out, you discover who's been swimming naked."
Of course, when the dot-com bubble burst, the solid companies with something "real" to offer made out just fine-- Dell, Yahoo, Amazon and others are industry giants, today.
How does that relate, for @steembay and Steemit?
If we have an actual Steem-based economy in place when the big cookie crumbles, it will offer us the all important "differentiation" that will set us apart from all the so-called "shitcoins" that will take it in the nose.
Of course, this is just my opinion-- I'm no financial expert. However, this seems like a really important step, so I encourage you to support the @steembay initiative!
What do YOU think? We're you aware of the SteemBay initiative? Do you think it would be a good thing for Steemit, once it is developed? Would you be interested in using a Steem-based peer-to-peer marketplace to trade goods and services with other Steemians? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171121 17:04 PDT
Excellent post.
I am super bullish on Steem for the simple reason I really like the development that is occurring on this platform. People seem to look at the crypto world by focusing upon the token while completely overlooking the fact that it is the development on the blockchain that matters.
To me, dtube, zappl, dsound, and some of the other apps will provide tremendous value to steem. It is going to really revolutionize the social media arena. As you stated, there are already transactions occurring...more than on BTC and ETH together.
That said, a peer-to-peer marketplace is a sensational idea. There already is a store open that people can shop with using steem. We all know how big EBay is, this will only serve to pull business into the world of steem.
What a great idea.
Of course, the implementation is brand new... I'm just excited that they have actually developed the bid bot and launched it. This was discussed a good bit back in the spring and also before I even got on Steemit... nice to see it getting "real."
There's a still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done... and I don't know if they'll end up aggregating the listings on a separate domain... but at least there's something there now.
It is progress...and another asset on this blockchain.
I am one who fully understands the nature of coding and software in the sense that it comes out with bugs. There is no way to alleviate everything until it goes live. Patience is required. As you said, it is something....and it could really be huge given another 6-9 months. EBay is a huge company so taking a sliver of that away and putting it on here, even if it is just something present users utilize, that is huge. One of the steps needed in 2018 is a variety of places where people can spend their steem without having to convert back to fiat....that will be a major breakthrough.
I hope you are one of many that will be emerging.
I totally can see an "eBay style" marketplace taking hold here... eBay was actually really cool during the first 5-6 years when it was almost all individual sellers and collectors trading with each other... like a giant online fleamarket-collectibles-art-mall. You could find the coolest stuff, and people just ate up the idea of it being "peer-to-peer" without a middleman. Since they went "big corporate" and public it has just turned into yet another giant online retailer and it's pretty much no fun anymore.
Steemit has the additional wrinkle that people here would bring an existing reputation to the table... a sort of additional trust factor. On top of which, the transparency of the blockchain and what happens with Steem wallets makes it so that scamming becomes a lot harder.
I was all excited about it too when I first saw it. Then after reading the whole thing and digesting its workings, I lost my enthusiasm. Although it's a great idea, there is no central place to find what is for sale. Same problem we have for getting noticed with our posts. How does a noob like me sell anything when no more than 10 people actually read my articles? So I get 10 people looking and MAYBE if I'm extremely lucky, one may put in a bit. So they automatically win the bid with any vote, no matter how low it is. I can see this working with a slight tweek. The seller needs a central place to post their link and prospective buyers can go to that central site to see what is available. Perhaps just a simple reply to a weekly posting of items for sale for that week may suffice.
It's pretty much a prototype at this point... but I'm just stoked they are finally developing it, at all... we were talking about this back in March and I thought something was going to happen.
The system still needs a LOT of work; the bid bot needs work... as for the finding, there's a dedicated tag and as long people don't abuse it, clicking on the tag would bring up current listings in a post feed form. But it needs work... I'm just trying to participate with encouragement and suggestions... it may be that it needs to be moved to its own space, OFF Steemit... we'll see how they do.
I agree about it having potential. There are a lot of potential initiatives that I got all excited about before, so now I'm becoming a little more cautious about jumping the gun. I'm still trying to sell some custom made jewelry without even anyone showing an interest (never mind actually buying anything), so of course I got all excited to check out this new initiative. Now that my post is old, how would I add the dedicated tag? I can't. I would need to make a new post and that would incur the wrath of steemcleaners for double-posting the same stuff! What I need now is a place to drop my post link and have people go there to see what all is for sale.
So since this is early... this is almost "Alpha Testing" as much as actually using it... there's one issue: Editing something... we can't edit the primary tag on Steemit.
Next issue: Steemcleaners would need to have a special coding for posts with the dedicated because duplication inevitably happens... if you're trying to sell 30 different comic books individually, 90% of each post would be duplication... but it's not plagiarism/spam duplication... it's commercial.
The good thing about Steemcleaners is that they don't down-vote right away. In fact they give a very tiny up-vote with their notification. Hopefully they will investigate and create a white-list for this sort of repetition. I used to get the warning with my games and contests but I don't think I'm seeing it as much lately. (perhaps I've simply learned to ignore it?)
Why just talk about it? I decided to try and see if I can make a go of it myself! Let's see if we have enough people that want to sell stuff to make it work. Check out my store here:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@happyme/a-simple-method-to-sell-goods-on-steemit
See my comment on that post!
Very good news indeed! Zappl, Dtube, Steembay... we are definitely striving towards long term growth
Hi @ronni, nice to see you!
Yes, it seems to me these can all help bring some stability to the Steemit ecosystem... and when the time comes where all the "shitcoins" get their wake-up calls, it will set Steemit clearly apart: We will have a community that WORKS, not just promises and ideas.
I resteemed the article, when I read it! (and I don't resteem much).
I think this might have a big future and grow steemit, in terms of both the site, and the currency...
I'm hopeful you're right... one of the weaknesses of most alt coins is that you can't really "do" anything with them other than invest in them and trade them on the markets. Now, if you can actually use Steem to buy... a pair of shoes, or web site design services, or classic comic books... then we enter a whole new era of economic utility; functionality that pretty much is (currently) limited to Bitcoin.
Ok...lemme see if I follow.
hypothetical...
let's assume I have thing boat thing...and I took some stuff out of it that I don't need but I don't rilly want to junk because they might be useful to someone.
Like : a marine toliet.
...........a propane stove(four burner with oven, regulator and propane tank)
..........a sink.
all 'as is'..dunno if the work or not...I just yanked them out of the boat.
where would I go from there.
hypothetically of course.
Tiny housers will want those!
kinda what I figured.
I don't want (explosive) propane on the boat so I'm getting rid of it.
I don't like the style of the sink
I'm going with a composting toliet..
so I don't need them either...
I'd be tickled to death to trade them for steem.
I think all you do is Make a post about what is for sale and what your minimum bid and shipping cost is, Then call in steembay and it will keep track of who has the winning bid. Then you ship it and get your SBD from the buyer. :)
hmmm...buyer pays shipping?
I can even include pictures.
Sounds interesting..
It's basically however you want to do it. You could just add the shipping to the minimum bid.
Check out this post by @mrkstn1. He is selling a cigar box guitar with steembay.
OH? It's already happening?
Just read it...wouldn't the shipping charge depend on the distance shipped?
Yes. So you need to ballpark it as well as state where you are willing to ship to. Since we are a global community... I'm sure it would cost a fortune to ship that toilet to Madagascar.
It's very early days yet, but at least they are developing it now... there was some talk back in the spring, but I think the idea lost its shine when Steem dropped to 10 cents... I'm just glad the idea is back on the table and actually being tested out now.
I think that once it is fully developed it will be a great boon for steem. We need a place to buy and sell our goods and services using steem. It is a natural progression of the blockchain.
It does seem like a natural progression to me... and we will benefit a lot (I think) from an investor perspective from having an actual economy here with people using the currency to trade with each other... puts Steem way ahead of most other alt coins... which bodes will for future price trends.
Ooh I'm excited! I just started selling my things on ebay recently. I'd love to do it here and earn some crypto.
I hope they make a serious go of it! There are many kinks still to be worked out, but I love the idea of us having our own internal marketplace.
I can see some very positive growth for Steem from the implementation of steembay. Pretty cool stuff!
I'm very hopeful it will turn into something good and solid many people will use. I'd love to trade some stuff for Steem, or use Steem to buy things.
Beautiful
Yes, Steembay could become huge. If/when there is an integrated SMT (Smart Media Token) Steembay could really skyrocket to a high level position among similar online marketplaces like eBay.
I also saw a post about the Steem Flea Market recently, which reminds me of fb garage sales in a way, only global instead of "Your Town".
It's a great day to be in crypto!