RE: HF21: What Makes Steem Valuable?
It's true that eyeballs are not property of a blockchain, but what if we make it one?
We can easily solve this problem in a centralized way.
Step 1: Steemit, Inc stop using ads for personal profit.
Step 2: They start selling the ad spots by auction to the advertiser who is willing to burn the most STEEM. (They can even take a small cut if they are that greedy).
Step 3: Bidbots are obligated to burn at least 20% of the profit they make, if they don't, then steemit, Inc downvotes them to death. This will create a good sink for STEEM. Centralized, yes, but effective.
Step 4: Price of STEEM obviously falls less than it is now, and rises higher if helped by speculation. Steemit, Inc which holds millions of STEEM is now happy because they made more through increase in price than by selling stupid google adsense ads.
Step 5: Encourage Dapps like Dtube etc to use ad spots and sell them by auction to the highest bidding advertiser (again burn most of the steem). Those apps will help the price of steem, which will benefit them, benefit users, benefit Steemit, Inc. THIS IS THE STRONGEST NETWORK EFFECT EVER.
Step 6: Dapps that help steem in absolutely no way are also downvoted to death. Centralized but effective, again.
With the exception of (6) none of these can actually be enforced in any plausible way. (6) should probably happen but even without any access to the reward pool, dapps can still build business models (for example around selling ads, services, etc.) which don't contribute much if at all to the value of Steem
Can’t be enforced but it’s possible to go in this direction through discussions. You are more influential than me so getting to you is one of the best things I can do.
Posted using Partiko iOS
When I say not enforced I'm really saying that I don't think they will work out because without some form of enforcement, people and companies will find ways to cheat, although they will usually dress it up in less negative terms than that.
A couple of years ago Ned was talking about the attention economy and some concept (never fully defined) of how ad revenue would be shared with the content creator, the reader, and/or with Steem as a whole through burning.
But when the rubber hit the road and they started selling ads, they just decided to keep all the money in the name of 'sustainability', and there isn't a damn thing anyone else can do about it.