Nice post @taskmaster4450. As I have several months of experience delegating nearly 100% of my steem away, I can say confidently that I was well rewarded for that gesture, even though I did not charge interest for it. I do not believe that usury should be used in any form and that is why I refuse to charge interest in order to gain a ROI.

My reward as given to me through an avenue that I least expected. The Stewards of Terra Mater became my most loyal followers and upvoted all my content as an expression of gratitude and appreciation. Friendships flourished! The publicity of being a member of the Stewards of Gondor also brought a following as well, which attracted more followers to my own blog. As a result, I was able to rocket to dolphin status in 112 days.

I have @fulltimegeeks delegation to reward people who interact and engage with me, while the Stewards of Terra Mater have mine to do the same. As a result, I am gaining on average 40 steem a day and I am now gaining nearly 10 new followers a day. I write high quality and heavily researched content which also accounts for the rewards that I am receiving.

With that said, I also live off grid and have little need for steem right now. Between my wife and I, we cashed out about 150steem over the last two months to pay the one bill we do have. We literally are living off of the proceeds of steem right now and continue to build our accounts and influence here on this platform at the same time.

The economics of delegating steem rewards me heavily. It may seem counter intuitive as I don't have 5000 steem to use, but giving it away results in 5000 steem upvoting me and interacting with me. It is like me upvoting my own content through a proxy. As I receive 75% of the upvote, it rewards me more than doing my own voting and receiving a fraction of that through curation.

The economics are up-side-down in comparison to the banking world we are used to interacting with. In my view, people who charge for an upvote are double dipping as they system is already compensating them for the vote. People who charge for the use of steem are engage in usury and missing the whole point of a gifting economy.

Old habits are hard to break. I've been very well rewarded for paying it forward and gifting 5000 steem to others while being blessed to use 15000 from @fulltimegeek.

By shifting the wealth down the food chain, the dolphins and whales are rewarded and continue to grow. The value of steem increases which is also a reward for them.

I don't see delegations as loans but rather anti-loans. They are gifts. The gift I received from @fulltimegeek is through my capacity to earn more steem by using his steem. I get to keep the proceeds as a result of my own curation through upvotes. I am rewarded and gain benefit from his gift. He receives benefit through increase success of the platform which drives up the price of steem.

If people charge usury, then that is a loan. But if no usury is in play, it is a gift and everyone is rewarded as a result.

It may seem counter intuitive, but I believe we are growing the middle class quickly through this gifting paradigm. I see it working well and accelerating peoples rise in wealth. The graphs that I show regarding the growth of the Stewards of Terra Mater demonstrate the acceleration of their growth as a result of the gifts that were payed forward. It happened every single time. The more we give, the quicker the growth.