I lost faith in steem some time ago, due to the Whale problem and the fact that only the whales can take away their own power. However Steem is still VERY useful, if only as an immutable ledger for text communication and broadcasts. I do share with you that Steem will grow during 2017, I personally will be using it quite a lot. However I feel that the financial cases for using steem are flawed. A basic income is granted to EVERYONE, steem is administered by the whales. I've not fully considered how much of an effect the 3 month power down will have, but my initial thoughts are it will go some way to removing their seemingly limitless power. Great article though thanks for sharing. Ive been following you for months now
Thanks @cryptosi for the follow and response :)
I don't particularly see whale concentration as a problem, especially atm since that we're still considered in the early stages. In my mind, the network is considerably decentralized, also with curation guilds these days to spread the votes a little more. I remember when I joined few months ago when Steem was about 20-25 cents, and I was lucky enough to hit thousands on a single post. These days even 300 bucks seems difficult at the same price level. It's weird that I'm saying that the network is improving even though my own potential payouts are much lesser these days!
Not sure what you're talking about, any example of the financial cases that you mentioned?
Currently if you invest money into steem, you are simply handing your money over to whales for them to disperse as they see fit. Whales and even guilds can disperse payments but they never actually need to invest. This is what I mean by flawed financial cases. However the power of steems community cannot be denied, and if the merit system is overhauled then steem could go back to a $400 million marketcap overnight
I see, yup that's a legit concern. I would call it a "lossy" system, since it's backed by a subjective proof of work. But then again, if you think about it - BTC isn't considered "lossy" because funds are dispersed only to miners, which in turn MUST also maintain the network in order to go on. So the MUST keyword there is important I think.. and ways to contribute to the network is actually way more indirect that anyone would expect.. call it a big Black Swan experiment if it ever gets that huge.
That's a very very very good point! Only difference is that Bitcoin's total coins is capped, so Capital appreciation is huge factor in investing. Actually the only factor. If steem had a fixed amount and raised funds via advertising or some other route then it would become a much more financially viable model. Infact I dare say that someone will fork the code and do just that sooner or later.
Accounting for unretrivable / mia accounts and all that, i think a small addition of new currency is okay.