Thoughts on the future of Steem and its success (or downfall) by Federico Pistono, best-selling author
Hello Steem community,
My name is Federico Pistono. I'm a best-selling author, speaker, AI researcher, and Internet Creator.
Two months ago I wrote my first post on Steem, where I shared my book "Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That's OK" for free and published the first chapter in its entirety.
Since then I've been writing more posts, and before I decide whether to continue, I thought I'd give you my two cents as a creator and crypto-enthusiast, as I believe now Steem might be at a turning point.
These are just some personal thoughts and opinions. Nobody, contrary to what one might believe, can predict the future.
That being said, I've been playing with cryptos for many years, it was way back in 2010 when I first approached Bitcoin, and I've been around the block long enough to notice some familiar patterns. So here are my thoughts and suggestions on how Steem could become the new driving force for internet creation in the world, or how it could burst like a bubble and die a horrible death.
How Steem could go be the next big thing
I run a website called Konoz, where hundreds of creators (EduTubers) organize their YouTube videos into courses and can run crowdfunding campaigns to support their channels by receiving donations from their fans. It's like a blend of Patreon and Khan Academy.
Here's is what my profile looks like on Konoz:
To give some perspective, during the same amount of time (in 2016) I made about $30 on YouTube. Really, no comparison.
And here's my profile on Steem:
As a creator, this is encouraging
Within two month, four posts on Steem made almost 50% of what I received in over seven months on Konoz, and almost 60 times what I made on YouTube. All this was done at no cost to my fans and readers, and without annoying ads.
Now, I am considering using Steem as a platform for publishing my posts with continuity, maybe even making original Steem content. Last week I was at VidCon, where every year I meet with internet superstars like Hank Green (VlogBrothers), Kevin (Vsauce 2), and Henry Reich (MinutePhysics), who have millions of subscribers and create truly amazing content.
And I'm also considering sharing Steem with other internet creators, who may decide to come here and join the community. Except...
How Steem Could Die, Part 1
I log into Steem's homepage today and this is what I see.
As a creator, this is not very encouraging. This is shit.
Almost every trending post is from a cute girl showing her cleavage. Ironically, the post at the bottom is from a guy making an inside joke reflecting this very bias of the Steem community. Here's a few tips:
You get what you reward
If you use your STEEM POWER to upvote pictures of cute girls and enthusiastic Steem fanboys, then that's exactly the type of "creators" you'll see.
Lesson 1: if you want Steem to be successful, upvote high-quality, original content from creators who put effort in making it
That's it, really. All the problems with the editor, the missing features, the confusion about STEEM, STEEM POWER, STEEM Dollars and all the rest can be overcome. It's just a matter of time. But if quality creators are missing, Steem will die and disappear before you can cash out any of your rewards.
Speaking of rewards, this brings me to:
How Steem Could Die, Part 2
STEEM is growing. Like CRAZY.
In fact, since I started writing this post and made a screenshot, the price of Steem has already increased 30%. Just today it went up almost 300%
This is great news, and it is also terrible news. I've seen this before, many times.
For the newbies, here's a historical chart of the infamous AuroraCoin, which made a huge splash back in the day and was supposed to be the "next big thing". It was created as an alternative currency to address the government restrictions on Iceland's króna, and it intended to be the new currency for Icelanders. In just a few days it went up over 1,000%, shooting at a whopping $90 per coin.
A few days later? It dropped to almost zero, and it never recovered ever since.
Lesson 2: pump and dump will kill Steem. You need a key market differentiator.
There are so many projects and cryptocurrencies out there that you can only hope to survive if you have something that makes you different, something that makes you stand out.
For Steem, it seems pretty clear to me what the key differentiator is: the mix of content, community, and rewards system.
You have a reward system
It still needs (a lot of) adjustments, but it's there.
You are building a community
It's growing organically and nicely.
You don't have great content (yet)
Content is king. If you don't fix it, you'll be the next AuroraCoin, Flattr, and Diaspora. Great ideas that died quickly.
Putting actions to my words, what I'm doing for the Steem community
So far I posted four things on Steem:
- The first chapter of my book, which was an international success translated in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, German, Portuguese and Italian.
- A paper on Artificial Intelligence co-authored by Prof. Roman Yampolskiy, a leading authority in the field, and the first scientific publication officially posted on Steem
- An essay on Mathematics, Art, and Patterns
- A conversation with crypto legend Ralph Merkle on DAOs, Democracy and Governance
If you want to make Steem the next big thing and not yet another failed project, post and upvote great content.
You get what you reward.
It's now a turning point for Steem.
Your choice will determine its future.
Choose wisely.
Do you like what I write? Consider upvoting this post on Steem :)
Where to find me:
A response to your thoughts on the future of Steem
Steem isn't only Steemit. You can take the Steem source code and build your "nerd preferenced" educational style Steem site where people exclusively make educational or academic content. Nothing stops you and your friends from doing that so why not do that and add value to Steem and forget about Steemit?
Your voting power is based on Steem Power. I call Steem Power Freedom Points. If you don't like how content on Steemit is ranked then you should buy more voting power by purchasing or earning Steem Power (Freedom Points). Complaining is fine and it's noted but if you want to do something about it you can just buy more Steem Power.
The preferences of the curators who hold the most Steem Power determines the daily or hourly focus. Perhaps the dashboard could be better organized into different channels. Perhaps this problem can be solved with a better user interface. This doesn't mean that because you think a certain category of content is not high quality that your preferences are somehow the gold standard. Another person such as myself might really find value in travel experiences of others. The female perspective to another person might be really valuable and we might take time to try to understand that perspective.
So in short, stop judging other people's content and put more effort into producing content. If your content isn't being voted up then either it's just not that good, or there needs to be more curation in which case the only way to have that is to buy as much Steem as you can at cheap and power it up. If you want better curation of content then buy Steem Power and curate rather than focusing only on generating content, else you can wait while the current content generating title holders retire and become whale curators in which case it might not be the best idea to diss their content by acting as if not much effort was put into it.
I think your post was genuine so I voted you up but we expect a lot of FUD to come as people who own traditional social media sites begin to feel threatened. Reddit and others are going to do everything they can to try to downplay the success of Steem but in my opinion it's not going to stop it. They'll have to buy Steem Power if they want their flavor of content or their slant.
this comment should actually get the $1340+ this lame article is getting.
Hey, what do you think about the article I wrote here on content creation by autonomous agents?
https://steemit.com/journalism/@fabz89/bitcoin-and-steem-could-integrate-in-an-autonomous-network-of-journal-publishing#@fabz89/re-norbu-re-fabz89-bitcoin-and-steem-could-integrate-in-an-autonomous-network-of-journal-publishing-20160714t115242004z
I agree on all your points... but comparing steemit with aurora ??????? :)
The current price of steem is about $1 and i think it also seems the price wont change much in future. Steems are collected on this platform by members and distributed to users again by upvotes etc. This aproach seems to be causing inflation as steem becomes invaluable over time while there are more contents on steemit. The main idea is: if people can easily post an idiot picture or low quality content and still earns steem, this makes sense that steem cant be valuable and also shouldt be either. I think this situation can only be solved by changing the listing algorithm on steemit so that high quality content may get higher rankings even without any upvote or comments. This could be provided by adding score point calculation to steem posts in backend software so that every new post or updated post has an updated content score calculated by a content analyzing system. If you prevent low quality content be visible on top of lists than steemit will be a much better place for content generation.
Any chart with such a steep rice is to fall down. The question is whether it will be a correction or a definitive end of the underlying asset.
If you don't know how Steem works then you might think the whole point is to buy and sell Steem for quick profits without realizing that if you just power the Steem into Steem Power you get compound interest. Compound interest takes longer but it's a lot less risky and a lot more profitable. Steem Power is like the retirement fund for bloggers.
I think this post and a lot of others may come from the confusion about the value proposition of Steem Power vs Steem. Steem Power is why long term supporters of Steem get more curation power but it's also where the most money will be made because every day new Steem is created and given to the holders of Steem Power
PLEASE PLEASE, anyone reading these exchanges should please learn about Steem Dollars and Steem Power!!
Steem Dollars allow you to day trade Steem and when you hold Steem Dollars you can get 10% interest. This is better than cashing out into fiat and less risking than cashing out into BTC. So if you do decide to buy Steem in order to later dump back into dollars you should probably dump into Steem Dollars if you're trying to be smart.
Steeemit has a built in exchange right here: https://steemit.com/market.html
I encourage people to use that.
I don´t think Steem will fall because there is a real value behind it. Comparison with altcoins having no useful function is not good. I have read white paper and I have some Steem power and some Steem Dollars and I do not want to sell.
Anyway nothing rise to sky and it is not easy decision to buy Steem at 3 or tomorrow 10 or maybe later 100 SMD. Buying (anything)at high levels is driven by greed and panic selling is driven by fear.
I am sure at some point correction is inevitable. Remember BTC at more than 1100 USD and the correction to near 200 USD.
Correction may be inevitable but might not be as violent as we see with Bitcoin. Steem seems to have a virtuous cycle where the people who earn are given incentive to power up, which seems to raise the market cap, which seems to increase the payouts, which makes it even easier for new people to power up.
I could be wrong but that is a way it could go.
Exactly.
Another major potential downfall is the negative feedback loop of high powered accounts running bots autovoting on specific accounts, regardless of the quality of their posts. It's impossible to enforce any kind of a bot ban, due to the realities of the blockchain. But there has to be a way to reward intelligent human curation. Right now there is none. Rewards for curation are pitifully small, unless you have very significant amounts of SP. And in that case it's clear a lot of people are happy with just automating things and keeping the wealth within a small circle.
There are about 30 whales that pretty much decide what is on the front page. So this is what they want.
https://steemd.com/distribution
I think Steemit is somewhat pump and dump resistant because of the Power Down mechanism. You can't get your funds out like flipping a switch. It will take two years to get all of your steampower converted into steem dollars or STEEM. The biggest factor will be if a whale will power down.
This souns like a great Steemit.com motto:
https://steemit.com/steem/@johnerfx/steemit-com-motto-you-get-what-you-reward
Thanks @federicopistono ;)
Hi!)
Very good points, do you think the 2 year vesting negates pump and dump?
CG
"As a creator, this is not very encouraging. This is shit." This is kind of a dickhead thing to say.
I actually read the modeling post and found it interesting as a photographer and a guy who dates models, and is friends with many of them as well. The travel posts to Africa sound interesting as well. Better than this crap post that apparently is getting $1300 because of ass kissing to the Steem community.
And here we had people complaining there are not enough women in crypto, and as soon as some get some foot hold trolls like you pop up.