Enough bananas: Salaries on Steem

To do what I want to do in this world is going to take trillions of dollars, I don't think I am going to be able to earn it. It is actually quite strange to think about money in some respects when things are said like, We can't afford to clean up the environment."

It is a pretty silly thing to say considering in most of the world the idea is to perform tasks that earn money so, why not earn money cleaning? It would definitely create jobs considering how filthy we are as a species but, it would also cost jobs in traditional industries won't it? And those jobs are in protected industries and generally the ones that are polluting the most or, managing the money of the ones who are polluting the most.

But, why need money at all is the next real question. Of course, it makes handling large sums easier and bartering products to eventually get what you want is a bit unwieldy. One day, I wonder what it is going to look like when we can upvote for goods and services. It already happens here considering utopian-io and several others pay their people through upvotes which means, out of the pool and not necessarily on content that adds value. The assumption is that the payment on a comment is on tasks performed that the community doesn't actually see. Where does this lead us?

You wanted investors on Steem?

I mentioned a long time ago about a situation where a company buys say, 1 million Steem and then their employees have an account created here. Let's say that they have 10 employees. Currently, 1M in Steem is a 100 dollar upvote which means, they can pay their employees with a 100% upvote a day.

But, the company keeps its capital investment and not only that, could increase it through the curation numbers. The employees gets paid in Steem, a potentially appreciating currency. That sounds like a better deal than in dollars and could possibly be used as a supplement for their normal income, they could go 50/50 on dollar/steem in their employment contract. Which would you take?

Paying without paying

I find this concept very interesting because it fundamentally changes the use case of Steem in this area as investors can use Steem to lower their capital requirements over time, keep capital requirements static and invest simultaneously.

Currently, 1 million Steem is about 1.7 million dollars. With all things remaining equal, if they want to pay their 10 employees 100 dollars each a day, 1.7 million will last 1700 days (assuming 7 days a week) is just under 5 years until the 1.7 million is gone. If paying in Steem though, after 5 years, that 1 million Steem is all still there, plus curation, plus price increase.

This of course opens a whole can of worms doesn't it? Everyone can do with their stake as they like which includes paying for services that are performed off chain, such as normal work tasks. The draw on the pool is also obviously a question because those tasks may have zero to do with Steem or the community at all.

A new payout order?

This already happens with devs, mods and the like and many delegated apps pay their workers from the pool, not from their earnings. It is quite a unique situation considering a business can run, have employees but, not have to actually pay them as long as they have Steem Power. The cost (besides initial investment) is zero unless you count the opportunity forgone to self-vote, which of course they will do with any remaining power as they self-vote things like, their company advertising material. This already happens too.

Now, this is far from my area as is often the case in what I write about concerning Steem but, this would completely change the landscape of Steem and shift it from content based reward, to off-chain service reward, where access to the pool (Steem power) is all that needs to be bought. This would also mean that the first people in will have the largest possibility to pay employees. But, they don't need employees do they? They can sell their vote to a company for access to the pool to pay employee salaries.

I wonder who is willing to pay more for votes, content producers, advertisers or, companies who can heavily change their tax liability profiles and massively reduce overheads?

Charitable efficiency?

Of course, there are other possibilities with this aren't there? For example, let's say a charity organisation which often loses 50-90% in 'administration' chooses to do the same. 1.7 million dollars in donations will give them 1000 dollars a day to distribute to 1000 accounts in a third-world country where a dollar a day is a significant amount. Of course, they can adjust their vote to keep providing the dollar to a family but, could service 2000 accounts if price doubles. They would distribute 50 cents of Steem value but, that 50 cents is worth 1 dollar US.

What does Steem become?

What happens when this starts getting used in such a way? What happens to content producers and distribution on Steem then considering the pool could essentially be locked up by corporations offsetting their liabilities?

This will of course drive Steem prices through the roof and for those who hold Steem in SP will be not only very well-off but, have the opportunity to sell their votes to companies just like they do to a bidbot for content producers now. But from the community aspect, what is the result? Is it a natural progression of the ecosystem?

For me, the intricacies and complexities of this require a great deal of thought and not being my area, I am missing a lot of things yet, I don't see why it isn't possible to do as long as there is a community of people who believe that Steem has trading value. For the SP holders the question is going to become;

How many monkeys can you buy with your bananas?

I am predicting that this is something that is going to come up in the future and, it is going to cause a lot of discussions, headaches and drama.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

Btw, I couldn't find 3 bananas together in the right shape of the Steem logo so had to settle for two.