RE: Steem price and low demand - Fix it finally! Solution is waiting
I see no effort at all for advertising Steem Power or for adding gamification features to make Steem Power more attractive. It's almost like the developers have given up and it's a shame.
Instead I see discussions about reducing the inflation rate to encourage short term speculation, which makes absolutely no sense at all because no one has a reason to hold onto Steem if Steem Power were attractive. If anything, it looks like it's a rush to the exits as the founders and big holders are fumbling over each other trying to power down and make tweaks to for example reduce the inflation rate or get rid of the 2 year rating period so they can dump faster.
So I guess if everyone is trying to power down as fast as possible it's get out while you still can? Until I see some serious effort in marketing and gamification why should I expect anyone in the future will care about Steem Power? And when you can't even buy Steem Power without Bitcoin it's almost useless anyway.
I think you miss the point of this platform. This platform is not here to sell a product it is here to rewards content creator with cryptocurrency.
99.99% of people using steem want to earn SP they don't want to buy it. Even if there was some incentives to buy steem power like reddit gold , bagdes this is not going to pay for all the rewards. These things could help reduce the inflation rate to lower than 10% on the whole platform by burning steem ( like the promoted features already does) but it is never going to be enough to pay for everything.
The content is the product. The content producer produces the product. Cryptocurrency is irrelevant to 99% of people and no one needs to give a damn or even see the word crypto.
If Steem is just another cryptocurrency then it's not goin anywhere and will be dumped just like others. If it's trying to be a world changing platform then long term holders are the only people who really matter, and speculators only matter to support the Steem Dollar but holding onto Steem itself isn't important that I can see. You either want people to hold Steem Dollars or Steem Power, and not Steem, and the price of Steem can go up if people have enough demand for Steem Power and Steem Dollars.
The quality of Steemit content has been going down for months as the payouts have been going down. Payouts are high to support the quality content production. So yes, the product is content.
You expect users to be rewarded from other users buying steem power. This is a failed business model.
People who will pay for content are the ones with heavy pocket, it has always been and always will be.
If you remove those people you basically shoot yourself in the foot
The only way the current model would work is if steemit has already huge user base and many advertisement contract , then they could use that money to pay for rewards. But bootstrapping a site like this to something like facebook with no speculators/ investors is never gonna happen
People already pay for content and will continue to pay for content. If I could buy Steem Power and get higher quality more personalized content then I would buy it if I could with a credit card or bank account. My own personalized information feed would easily be worth it and the more Steem Power I have the higher the quality of my feed.
Steemit isn't going to have to be like Facebook. Speculators and investors are not necessary. What is necessary is an easy way for people who have lots of money to get the content they want.