RE: Steem token burning: Visibility As A Service
Authors who burn tokens should do so in order to reach a larger audience of readers and curators. If developers and curators make sure to reward authors with upvotes and visibility for burning tokens, then it becomes a value for value exchange. This gives utility to the token, and if the value of STEEM will go up, it will be driven by that utility.
I think "visibility as a service" makes sense in theory, although in practice I'm a bit skeptical there are enough humans viewing the content right now to honestly justify it. I think it's potentially a bad idea to think of the value you get from visibility in terms of the rewards on a post, if there's too much of a direct path from payment to reward then the idea of getting visibility for content that deserves rewards can fall by the wayside. I think it would be a problem if people started to think of post promotion as a lottery ticket for getting a big upvote.
Maybe, if you just consider the possibility for people to read the particular promoted post. If it can also be used as a way to put yourself in front of people who might become followers, that changes the calculation, though. With that in mind, I do think we have enough people here to support it. Also, as I'm exploring with Popular STEM another use case might be for promotion campaigns by communities, instead of just individuals.
I agree with this, but I don't think it'll work out that way. Basically, post promotion means that the author has "skin in the game". Maybe it's a way to improve the odds that a curator will look at your post, but you still have to create something that they'll be willing to vote for. I would think it would create an extra incentive to produce content that is worth voting for.