Economic collapse is our opportunity: The gift of desperation

I have been on Steem for 23 months to the day, one month shy of my two year anniversary. Around this time last year my account was in the vicinity of 100k+ dollars worth, today it is reading 13k but, that is false due to the incorrect feed price and it is more like 9k. Oh, from those heady days of all time highs, I have almost double the Steem that I had then so if we went back to the ATH, that would put my account in the 200k+ range. Am I desperate yet?

No.

I was desperate when I arrived on Steem and my every waking hour (which was about 21 out of the 24 per day) was spent taking care of my screaming baby daughter, my wife who was still recovering six months later and running my business. A few days earlier we had paid an allergy specialist 220 euros to tell us our baby had strong food allergies and needed a special formula that would cost 6-700 euros a month.

Even though we had insurance for our daughter, they wouldn't cover it and neither would social security. We had run through three years of savings in the last 6 months due to our daughter and my wife's needs and we had nothing left and maxed out credit cards.

Desperate.

One of my brothers had heard about Steem from somewhere and suggested I give it a go. No, it didn't help with our costs. Steem was around 15 cents when I joined and I wasn't earning very much if anything on my posts. I literally had no idea what I was doing here. I was working my ass off in the real world (I still do) trying to make ends meet, taking every little bit of work I could get my hands on only to have it disappear immediately into debt service or some kind of medical expense.

I was up nearly all night catching slivers of sleep when I could and instead of watching shows and movies like I had been doing, I began writing more and more. Slowly though, I kept plugging away and occasionally I would get a "large vote", a dollar here, 2 or 3 there, sometimes 5+. Steem dropped lower, not that it mattered, I wasn't using it, I didn't even know how I could use it. I did start trading some though.

What was there more to lose?

I stopped powering up 100% and took some liquids to learn about the system. I traded 8 cent Steem for 15 cents. then bought at 12 and sold at 17. It took me less than a year to gather the 10,000 I needed to become a dolphin and while the trading helped, it wasn't the main reason. The main reason I earned was instead of sitting in front of the television at night, I wrote, and wrote and wrote. I worked and worked and bit by bit I started to learn and eventually, I found people, I found some community.

This was actually the turning point for me on Steem.

While I had gathered a fair amount of Steem that served as my track record, it was the people I met in steem.chat that helped me learn what Steem was about. You know who you all are. It was there I started learning about Steem and trading, started connecting with people at a more personal level and started interacting much more broadly than I had been. Steem opened up into a new world of possibility and 1.5 years after that, I am still here, writing and pushing much like I had in the beginning because, there is a future here, especially for the desperate.

Desperation is a collapse away

In @whatsup's post about Steem not being broken it came up about economic recessions and depressions and that poor people don't buy crypto. She is right, poor people don't buy crypto, but on Steem they can earn it with work put in. Desperate people put in the work.

While an economic collapse is going to decimate the world economies, tear apart retirement funds and layoff millions upon millions of people, Steem becomes much more attractive, even in its current form. Last night I wrote a little about subscription services and what happens to them if the economy fails. 137 million people spending 12 dollars a month on Netflix - that is 50 STEEM

Desperate people cut subscriptions.
Desperate people look for alternate sources of income.
Desperate people try anything.

Just think if 5% of just Netflix swap their subscription to the service for Steem every month, that is 84 million coming into Steem. That can buy all 58,000,000 Steem on the exchanges 5 times over at the current prices. That means that 1% of the subscribers moving over would be able to take all of the Steem and make Steem incredibly scarce - and it would cost each of them just 12 dollars - once.

But remember, this is a global economic collapse. It isn't 137 million people looking for additional income, it is literally billions of people from all over the world and while they might not invest into crypto, they might subscribe to a place that gives them an opportunity to earn, as well as be entertained.

We talk about trying to get eyes on to Steem, we don't need to work at it at all. All we need is to be able to offer a compelling set of applications that a user can not only replace their current set with to some degree, but provide them a chance to get a return on it. The earlier they are in, the faster their return on investment becomes as more pile in on top. At that point, there are enough users to service the businesses, play the games, provide the eyes for advertisers.

The people who have been left out in the cold by a broken economy, jobless, their businesses failed or failing, can have a new home where the banked have little power, where the fees are gone, where they are able to be funded through a million free micro transactions that pour in from all over the world.

All it needs is the catalyst of economic collapse and in the current state, it is a tinder box ready for a spark.

Do I sound like a crazy person? Perhaps I am, but what I know is that desperate people are willing to try anything when backed into a corner, when at rock bottom, when needing to find a way to feed their children and, they are willing to work for it.

And when they come to earn they also become consumers. And when the economy is failing and businesses are struggling at the global level, what money there is, is going to look to where the people are. And once those businesses realize that the advantages blockchain and free transactions offer them more options and profits by cutting out middlemen, they will set up their shops, they will design and tailor specifically for the new ecosystem. They will join the new economy.

You might be desperate now, but you are already here.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]