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RE: Steemit is a SCAM??? Who ARE These People??? What are they THINKING?
The general public does not understand digital currency and blockchain, or decentralization. Of course Steemit sounds like a scam. Just like Bitcoin and digital currency does. It seems like it's too good to be true. We have a long way to go before any of this is mainstream. Honestly, I think some financial disasters need to take place to force people to look for alternatives before they will really understand.
I agree... to a point.
One possible path forward is to emphasize "non-monetary" benefits to this technology. Steemit, for example, is also a great platform because it doesn't suffer from the arbitrary banning and account closing of YouTube, Google+, Facebook, twitter and so on. Aside from the issues of whether it sounds like "a scam" we can also point to the fact that transaction costs are much lower than other methods. For merchants, cryptos offer a way to perhaps gain a few more dollars from a few more customers... who tend to be quite loyal to establishments that accept BTC (For example, my wife and I are about to start accepting BTC at our art gallery).
I have also asked people to consider cryptos as part of "investment diversification," pointing to the way people made fortunes by investing in AOL and Yahoo at a time when the world regarded the Internet as "for nerds and for creepy pedophile stalkers."
Successful marketing is about "rephrasing" something scary with existing terminology people can actually relate to.
Do we have a long time till this goes mainstream? Yeah, probably. The idea of "everyone" having an Internet connection took a good 15-18 years. The idea of "everyone" owning a computer took about the same. Bitcoin is barely 9 years old; alt coins much less... so we probably have a good 5-10 years till "mass adoption."