STEEM blockchain use cases. // Beyond blogging//... and a million and 1 opinion

For some time now i have been doing these comparative mental exercises in my mind as to how STEEM differs from other blockchains in the market. I have already written a post as to why i think the current STEEM market cap makes absolutely no sense but i wanted to take it a bit further in this post.

We all know that crypto is currently in a turbulent time. Every passing day cryptocurrencies are coming closer to mainstream adoption and the resistance to change from traditional markets, institutions, governments, fiat based businesses is increasing day after day. Eventually we will reach a point where political campaign contributions (and political lobbying from those same businesses) will shift from regular: tax, healthcare, immigration, gender and sexual minorities, etc. left/right partisan arguments ... to dealing with the coming threat of crypto to all those avert to change that will suffer losses in the short term, due to the empowering effect of cryptocurencies on those down the chain of power.
When we reach that point, we will see major politicians spreading a yet to be seen amount of FUD.
This happens whenever a major technological advancement comes into play. Their focus will be on the current inefficiencies of crypto, mainly that of BTC, and they will come hard on us....
The weird analogy i could find, would be the folk tale of John Henry vs. the Steam Drill where he raced against a steam powered rock drilling machine, winning, but dying at the end of exhaustion.
I know the point of the story has nothing to do with what im about to write, but just like poor John that raced the steam drill, so will the traditional markets try and fight crypto, for a time succeed, but eventually they too will reach exhaustion and fold in the end.
Technological advancement is the closest to evolution we experience as a human race. And evolution cares little about how hard working you are, how rich you are, how powerful, how greedy you are. It always finds a way out no matter how hard you might try and repress it.
All that matter is how fast you can adapt.

When this starts eventually, the focus will naturally be on Bitcoin and its closest followers in Market cap. There is no way to affect this since the markets decide what should and should not be lifted to the top of the list. I may think the markets are foolish and BTC does not deserve to be a pole bearer of the crypto world (that is at its core a innovation driven market), just because it was first.
BTC maximalists are atm even turning into a "cult", treating alt-coins the way traditional markets have been treating BTC for years now.

If the majority of the focus when discussing cryptocurrencies remains on BTC in the mainstream, then we will all be losers.

BTC cannot defend itself, when faced with adoption, current competition effectiveness, usability in comparison to services like Visa, Paypal, etc..
Even if they increased its tx/s by a factor of a 1000 and reduced fees by that same factor, that would still not be enough to place on top.
IMO, BTC exists as something that was supposed to show us the way forward and embed the idea of decentralization into our daily life.
It has succeeded.

One of the most important cars in the automobile industry. Doesnt make it the best choice when choosing what to drive on the highway these days..

So you might ask yourself: "What now? If BTC wont take crypto to the next level, then which cryptocurrency is?"

I cant answer that. What i do know for a fact that the success of this ecosystem depends on continual technological advancement and the currency that provides the most in that regard, should be the one to lead the pack.

Anyways...

That was a long intro... :)
The point of this post was to look into what STEEM as a crypto has to offer. Looking at its strengths and differences.
Its strength, imo, being in its ability to do what no other cryptocurrency managed to do so far. While all other cryptocurrencies rely on simply one thing.

The current traditional market dynamics and a hope for adoption.

STEEM does not.

STEEM is extremely unique in that regard since it doesnt rely on hope of adoption. It incentivizes, thus creates new markets and economic system of its own; it has the potential to create a ecosystem that can support all the traditional, all tech-based, all voluntary type, all content creation type businesses that exist currently with ease and higher efficiency and gain for those involved along with creating earning opportunity where it didnt exist thus far..
What do i mean by that?

Unlike the POW blockchains of old, that became a wasteful use of RL resources, that revolved around scarcity that leads to speculation without merit and holders just looking for a quick profit, never using their coins for the purpose it was created for; STEEM adopted a system that creates value for all those that actually use STEEM to interact in various ways.
Now the POWs of old could say:" We just need more people using it for it to succeed".

Fair point. But when put into a position where you are presented with a choice of using something like BTC to pay for something, would you actually use BTC to pay for it if you arent a firm devotee of the decentralization philosophy, because most people arent.
Wait in line for an hour and pay fees or would you choose another alternative and pick up the product in 1/1000 of the time and pay much lower fees? Crypto is there not just to

"stick it to the man" its there to provide actual improvement over the current services in place.

Another "anyways" (BTC fans will hate me. haha)....

STEEM has actually created usability that far exceeds its intended purpose.
When i asked @reggaemuffin a few weeks ago on a post discussing BTC having a tx/s of 7-10, as to what STEEM tx/s was, he replied:

"At max it should be around 140 000 tx/s but STEEM wasnt created for the purpose of being a world currency to pay for daily goods."

And i wondered why he would say that? Isnt a currency whatever we deem it to be?
A stone was used by early humans to hit each other over the head with it, but someone found a special rock that was hard to come by so they decided its better not to throw that rock at peoples heads but rather use it for trade.

My point is that a blockchain doesnt "create" utility. It creates a potential for it. It creates a specific utility but the users themselves will eventually decide what the wider use of the cryptocurrency will be.

So here, finally, after i bored you all with my thoughts i will go into the use cases on STEEM blockchain, that for me, show the various ways users have found to utilize the power of STEEM.

1. The bare basic P2P aspect.

This will probably be the shortest entry here at number 1. There is really not much to say here except to emphasize the 2 second, 0 fee transactions between blockchain users that opens up an amazing number of opportunities. Just think what kind of affect BTC could have on the world economy, with its "preferred status" in the crypto world, if it was able to actually achieve such levels STEEM currently does. It could actually position itself as a preferred payment option among its competition.
Its silly isnt it? Saying:

If only BTC was STEEM.

2. Humanitarian, volunteer work, open source.

The second part of what STEEM offers comes in the form of donations, in traditional sense non-profitable contributions to specific causes.
Due to STEEM having a very specific system, "the potential exists -the potential being already utilized", to provide donations to specific causes and at the same time being rewarded for it. While traditional POW blockchains might rely on "send me some crypto", STEEM is another beast completely.
On the STEEM blockchain, not only do you get to contribute to a humanitarian project or open source project with your time, money, but you actually have a potential to gain from your contribution.
Since there is no RL disincentive:

"If i reward someone else, i will have less".

There can be gain for everyone involved due to the consensus and acceptance of STEEM core system design characteristics.
Take @utopian for example....

Your open source contribution (usually) was motivated solely upon you having a warm fuzzy feeling of giving a portion of your time to help a project that, in the long run, might just have a marginal affect on your own gain. But with projects like Utopian, your contribution is actually monetarily rewarded greatly in real time outside the emotional or marginal effect your contribution might have on you.
This goes even beyond Utopian to the humanitarian contributions you might partake in where donating $ in real time in one form or the other, creates a potential for returned reward (even increased) with a time delay.
I was thinking of adding crowd funding in this category but i will leave it for the next point.

3. Crowd funding.

Many of you have heard about Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Both of which are crowd funding sites that create an opportunity for the general public to transfer "value" in form of $ to projects they deem to be of their interest.
Those vary, from movies to video games, even kitchen appliances.
Before those kinds of sites popped up, it was incredibly difficult to run upon projects worth your time as a backer nor did you actively look for them in most cases. Project founders would mostly look for large investors that took a large cut of the profits just so they can fund a creation of a product, service that would be used by the general public.

So someone had the bright idea of avoiding those that leached off of the entrepreneurs and idea creators and went to the general public and let them decide how valuable this product would be to them..
When you think about it, you realize how brilliant of an idea it is...
The core values being those of empowerment of individuals, their decisions and personal choices..

STEEM in this regard excels as well and improves upon the formula. Enter @fundition.
A crowd funding project, set on the STEEM blockchain that facilitates crowd funding by not simply listing projects on their site but by offering a whole other use case for stored liquidity in personal wallets.
Once SMTs launch the reward aspect will imo increase greatly which will add to the motivation behind supporting a project of your choice.

Today i have run into another coin on @vortac blog. Coin in question being Gridcoin (GRC).
From the short time i have researched the coin i came to more or less understand the basic premise.
They reward with GRC tokens individuals that contribute their computational power towards scientific research through BOINC.
Now thats amazing ofc. But what occurred to me is that had they moved their operations or even just expanded them (not the technical aspect but rather the idea) to the STEEM blockchain, just like @fundition for crowdfuning or @utopian with opensource ; support for scientific research could be augmented in a much higher degree, through the STEEM blockchain by rewarding contribution of those that volunteer their computational power.

An idea thats just another obvious aspect to the clear potential of STEEM.
If i would to sum up what STEEM is capable of i would say that a system like the one we have in place now creates an opportunity for gain for; those that come up with project, those contributing to the project, and those that are targeted by it..

4. Content monetization.

Content monetization is just a name for the first thing you found out about when googling STEEM.

"Oh, you just write stuff and you get payed."

Well no.. Its not about "just writing stuff". Its about bringing value, which is why most of us cannot rely on simply blogging and sharing stories of our daily lifes to earn something.
A niche needs to be set and value achieved either through talent, knowledge or your networking ability.
The problem with that is that not many can achieve that level of value and that level is steadily increasing with time with more people entering the ecosystem.
This means a top 5% of those with highest earning potential constantly shifts, with the prior 5% of users not being able to catch up. This could be seen as a good thing through the overall increase in platform value, but from the individuals perspective, especially those that had to vacate their spot, this can lead to frustration and burnout.

I always try to emphasize that STEEM is not just a blogging platform where your earnings will depend on you writing about life and making daily blogs, but rather on your ability to adjust to the ever changing climate that exists here. Utilizing the tools presented to you.
Now ofc, blogging is not the only way to monetize your content. @wordpress has cornered that part of the steem market and attracts what could potentially be high value and high quality writers and bloggers. But even with the influx and increasing competition, there are other ways for you to increase your gains here.
This we can see in the case of @dtube.

A blockchain based video sharing service that hosts various topic videos.
What i noticed is that those that might not be able to have a constant stream of income with writing (and i consider myself to be in that category), taking the same niche you cover in your posts and migrating it to dtube through creating videos on same topics, you increase your earning potential tremendously. This of course might be just a momentary thing and video making may hit the same obstacles as does blogging, but for the time being that is not the case.
This is actually something im considering myself.

Marketing and advertising aspect.

This in part is a controversial topic but lets start with the simple and mostly easily agreed upon things.
We noticed these last few days a great push by the community to reach number 1 spot on the http://contest.gonetcoins.com/ website to get STEEM listed on NETCOINS. (at the time of writing this STEEM has reached no1 spot)
Now you all must be aware why this contest started in the first place. 30k USD is not pocket change to give away no matter how many millions @ned or @steemit have in their wallets.
The monetary aspect here aside, why i think this is a tremendous opportunity no matter what NETCOINS listing gets us, is because this shows the networking and marketing potential on the STEEM blockchain; its size and reach, its engagement levels and ability to spread news between users. ie... Make it viral. (and NETCOINS essentially went viral on Steem)

I find this incredibly important because this creates an assurance for advertisers, that will be willing to invest in STEEM, will always have the potential to reach a high number of people and that their efforts, with the minimal cost, will always have the potential of having positive results.

Now, on to the controversial part here.....bots....
I have had a few comments back and forth with users like @nonameslefttouse, on the topic of whether bots are good for the platform and while i mostly disagree with him in almost every way, i have to say that he is right on one point, on one aspect of the STEEM ecosystem. And thats the Trending page. It doesnt look good.
While he may be just one of the pole bearers of the "anti-bot" movement on Steemit, he is an individual thats respected greatly by the community and listened to.
While looking at this problem with a narrow lense, its very simple to just disregard bots completely. Im of the opinion that they deserve a closer look.

Now that i listed so many use cases in this post i have to say that "blogging" is just a pixel on this 1920 × 1080 screen.

"Trending" being an even smaller fraction of that pixel.

Focusing most our attention on superficial and probably only momentary design of the content listing page leads to an over-saturation of simplistic, surface level discussions that require close to none intellectual energy and lead to nothing productive.
Thousands of comments reduced to "venting frustration". Bots suck/bots rule
And i can speak from experience that i have indulged in such similar practices.

I have actually starting paying attention to the work of some of the bot owners just for this reason. People that are demonized for their work with bots to an alarming degree seemed to be providing value in many ways while their work often ignored or even labeled as being worthless. Seeing them being attacked on numerous occasions subconsciously creates this idea that they have a sole purpose to leach off the STEEM blockchain and hurt everything and everyone. Just because i decided to do some research did i learn that wasnt the case.

I came to talk a bit with @themarkymark and @therealwolf who both seem "non-demonic" and both run bots, and their contribution to the STEEM blockchain is not only equal to the contribution of those that "want to make it better for everyone", but in most cases exceeds it greatly.

The reason i mention bots is very simple.

If we were to say Steemit is still in beta, then we must say that bots must be a proto-advertising tool on the STEEM blockchain.

Sure, things can be better but if you were to cry foul, and attack something that in the end might turn into a highly valuable advertising tool, are you not just like John Henry from the beginning of my post, fighting progress? (Though he was actually fighting to put food on his table hehe.)
He might have been able to beat the Steam machine, but tomorrow that steam machine got just a tiny bit better until it created such value that fighting it was a foolish thing to do.

Im not saying that bots might not fail tomorrow, and that the current use is not flawed to a degree, but imo, the idea behind them is extremely sound and just like everything listed here i think bots can bring tremendous value in the long run.

And thats about it for my post. I know i went all over the place and pinged who knows how many people but i wanted to point to some community members and projects that are tied closely to each of the points i make in this posts.

If i were to add another point id add Steemmonsters... but i already wrote about it last post and i guess that will do for now...

This went for faaaaaar too long, haha, and for all those that didnt go TLDR; i say have a great day. :D