Has Steemit Solved the Micropayment Problem(s)?
Micropayment has become something of a buzz word over the last few years. Everyone can see the democracy this form of payment can offer the internet. However, there has been no global application that can claim to have solved the issues surrounding this concept;
Micropayment:
A micropayment is an e-commerce transaction involving a very small sum of money in exchange for something made available online, such as an application download, a service or web-based content.
Micropayments are sometimes defined as anything less than 75 cents and can be as low as a fraction of a cent. A special type of system is required for such payments, which are too small to be feasible for processing through credit card companies.
Steemit and Micropayments
There is a very good section on Steemit’s relationship to Micropayments in the White Paper - Page 40. I am going to talk through this section and refer to my experience on Steemit, to see whether Steemit’s model could be the answer to all Micropayment problems.
Micropayment Problems
Cost:
The biggest problem to overcome is the transaction cost involved in micropayment. Visa, MasterCard, and even Bitcoin Transaction fee’s are far too high to process a payment of $0.01 to $0.50.
Engagement:
Micropayments require a decision by the consumer to pay for the content they love. But the problem is, making a decision to ‘tip’ someone so little, barely feels worth making a decision in the first place.
The only transactions that users can approve without thought are ones that cost them nothing, thus any micro-transaction of positive value will incur mental costs through its requiring a decision.
Brave Bitcoin Browser are making some interesting strides in this area, with their Ad-Blocking Browser. If you fund a Bitcoin wallet on Brave, they will automatically micro-pay your favourite sites. You can read more here and here.
Who Should Pay?
Should the hosting site allocate funds to content providers from profits generated, or should the consumers pay the content providers directly, on top of being exposed to advertising throughout their experience..
Steemit’s Approach..
Steemit’s founders see the concept of Micropayment, and how it could feasibly work, differently to many industry leaders…
Everyone benefits from everyone’s actions so everyone should pay or no one should pay, depending on how you look at it.
Steem bypasses micropayments completely because when a user upvotes a post it is the community that pays the bill. The same amount of money will be spent whether the user upvotes a post or not and the funds will not come from the voter.
No one individual pays, the whole community of Steem and Steem Power holders pay. There are around 50,000 votes per day on the Steemit Blockchain, and each of these votes are essentially micropayment between Content Creators, Content Curators and Steem/Steem Power holders.
Remember the Feeling..
I remember the feeling when a single up-vote from myself allocated $0.01 for the first time. It was exciting to be able to reward a Content Provider I liked $0.01 worth of Steem based cryptocurrency. And the best thing about it, It didn’t cost me (personally) a thing. It was built into the system I accepted when I signed up.
Steem Blockchain Killer App - Free Transactions
If Steemit, or another Steem Blockchain Base Application gains traction moving forward, the fact that Steem transaction are free on the Steem Blockchain is a massive reason why using the Steem Blockchain for micropayment makes sense.
Have Steemit Solved the Micropayment Problems?
I believe that, if Steem Dollars continue to prove to be Stable, Steem has provided a legitimate solution to Micropayments problems. Steemit addresses each of the main points of concern over current Micropayment projects, something which no other application offers..
Interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on this topic…
Steem can be a solution to micropayments. But it'll take sometime I believe. Steem needs to grow bigger as a community, adoption. From then on, a stability in SD and STEEM itself will be another concern. But at the moment, it seems like STEEM will be able to last for the longhaul. Most popular altcoins nowadays have their different uses. Steemit is definitely something more than a 'reddit' like social media blockchain, it will be the first step in making STEEM grow, and I look forward to more developments.
Nice post as always @hisnameisolllie (:
Steemit.com created many possibilties with the tool of sending steem dollar within a few seconds. It really provides a solution to Micropayments problems, as you say. Good blog-post, I upvoted ofc.
Have a great time @hisnameisolllie
Yes, to an extent Steemit has solved the micropayment problem. A lot of altcoins are attempting to become the go-to micropayment coin, however there is no practical use for them...yet. This is where Steemit is currently taking the #1 place. If Steemit grows to mass adoption then I would say it has completely solved the micropayment dilemna.
@tinyhomeliving Good post. I agree.
I love being able to provide some money in steem to people who post their words or art or music here! I think steem is a good system that keeps getting better. I look forward to new ways to expand the steem economy, as the devs and maybe other programmers add new features to the system.
I agree with your conclusion. SBD can be the solution to micro-payments. I would be interested to see how many people/accounts receive a SBD payout on a daily/weekly basis. This would give you an accurate count of the potential user base. Of course as you say, SBD need to remain stable or the whole thing collapses like reddcoin and all the other failed micro-payment alt-coins.
Great points! I think Steemit does have a chance to fill this niche... Now the question becomes... when will the currency become stable?
I was thinking about this today. Steem Dollars have been reasonable stable. Hoovering around $0.90 for sometime now.
Pretty stable for a Cryptocurrency and for how young Steemit is. I believe this will only get more stable as we move forward..
So the price of steem dollars is what is more significant and not the actual price of steem?
Steem has been falling hard for 2 months... after skyrocketing for 2 weeks before that of course
I would say they are both significant, so in terms of Steem, you are absolutely correct. Probably should have elaborated more. My point was there is some stability in the system.
Would do certainly need a stable Steem currency as well.
Hopefully in the future we will..
Yea, I was asking cause I didn't really know myself... it seems the currency itself is what will need to stabilize right? That is what is actively traded and quoted on the exchanges...
Yeah, free transactions + price stable cryptocurrency + really fast blockchain is killer combination!
I agree 100% with you...
Steemit has good solution to Micropayments problems.
I think steemit is improving day by day and it will take some time to solve the micro payments solutions and it also depend on stability of steemit so hope and wish that this great announced as early as possible.