RE: Content producers and 7 years of bad sex
The bar to earning on content is going to increase massively as mainstreaming happens because as the general public come in, they are likely going to have to actually invest something which means, being more discerning with their voting. They are going to be less likely to upvote someone random picture about visiting a city as no matter how good the picture is, they are now thinking about their future. They can go to Instagram for free, why would they think that it is the way to their investment growing here? This content discernment will attract professional talent in even the smallest niches.
Rest assured that if Steem were to go mainstream most new users would be ordinary people migrating from other social medias and mostly be upvoting people in their own social circles just like on other social medias or on Steem now. The onboarding masses will not be upvoting only the best in every possible niche because they think that will be good for the platform. No, they will upvote to earn and that will involve doing pretty much the same thing that already goes on: upvoting people who they know will upvote them back. How many people will pay, say $10 for an account on Steem taking all the trouble of creating that account just to be able to "curate quality content" at their own expense. Not many. How many will pay for their account as an initial investment and compete for upvotes and expect to make more money than they spend? Not many. As a business model that looks like a pyramid scheme very few people are not smart enough to avoid. Steem accounts will have to remain free of charge to create and easy to come by if any mainstreaming is to be expected.
For STEEM to have any real world value, corporations will have to buy Steem Power or rent it to buy influence on the platform to promote themselves and their products in the real world. What kind of content will they upvote? That will depend on the product or the company in question and the specific community they will be using their Steem Power in. For example, a camera manufacturer with a lot of SP might organize photography contests to reward the best photos and to get more people into photography and their gear in particular.
Until then, the value of STEEM is merely speculative and reflects the general ongoing cryptomania and the expectation that corporations will buy pay for Steem Power to attract the attention of the crowds.
This is where the money will come from, will they be upvoting like normal people? unlikely. This means that the people earning here will have to attract those with stake but for the most part, the mainstream crowd will not have bought in.
It will be decentralized authority rather than centralized authority who shape the content.
Yes, the mainstream crowd will not have much in the way of stake. Because that will probably be the case, they will not earn much, either, except for a few talented content creators. They will, however, be what attracts the corporations. There has to be something it it for them. If the opportunity to earn money will be limited with stiff competition, then it has to be the social interaction. Steemit, Inc is doing exactly the right thing by making sure the back end is capable of handling the onboarding of the masses and creating developer-friendly interface on top of the node interfaces. After that, it will be up to third parties to create all the sexy and snazzy front ends for the end user to fall in love with.
By the way, I think much of the confusion as to what Steem is at the moment is caused by the fact that all the potential use cases of Steem the blockchain are yet unknown.
Yeah, most will never know what is powering them.
Yep, as more are born, more will be born. It is the way I write too. :)