3 Solid reasons why steemit is for me – maybe for you too.

Why do I use Steemit? An incident this week let me thinking.

I am not going to talk about the technicalities of Steemit. For that, you can read @dan 's post Response to Coindesk Article “Steem Provokes Doubt of Market Observers”

The Incident
A friend of mine posted a blog about a hiking trail we have done together and sent us the link to read it. It was very entertaining and according to my judgement a very good blog. My first response was that Steemit would be a great community to share this blog with, and I told him so. He quickly deflated my enthusiasm with the following statement:

I have looked at Steemit and here follows a summary of the average blog (sorry Dan for my prejudiced).
Blog type 1 – “Hi Steemit, you are amazing. Please say I am amazing as well so I can make money”.
Blog Type 2 – Why Steemit is amazing and not a Ponzi scheme and will save the world.

I was taken aback by this response. If his conclusion is correct, what am I doing on Steemit? Is it only to hear how amazing I am? I sat back and done some soul-searching: Why do I believe that the Steemit is for me?

Reason 1
My first thoughts went back to a blog by Scott Adams (Dibert) about Donald Trump's talent stack where he analysed the skill set Donald Trump. According to him, Donald Trump built a very impressive set of skills which he now utilised completely in the USA presidential elections which are current in progress. For example:

1. Raw intelligence (opinions vary, but smart enough)
2. Business skills (plenty of failures, but better at business than most of us)
3. Public speaking skills (He’s no Martin Luther King, but very good)
4. etc

The concept of a talent stack got me think and raised the question “what is my talent stack?” Analytical, as I am the starting point, was to divide the talent stack into three categories:

1. Talents/skills to accumulate information
2. Talents/skills to process the information into knowledge
3. Talents/skills to present and share the knowledge

So, where do I stand with my talent stack? My talents to accumulate information are limited to reading and observations. I can work on talents to interact more with people and get insight from them. The processing of information into knowledge I believe is my strong point, because of my analytical skills and tendency to think things through. Lastly how to present this information is my weak spot, because I am an introvert I don’t like to communicate or to market myself. I need to develop this last talent category to have a more balanced talent stack - hence Steemit. Through Steemit community I can develop the presentation talent with my writing. Even if I am not the best-skilled writer.

Reason 2
The above reason only justifies my involvement in a blogging site, not Steemit pe se. Then, why Steemit? What make Steemit different that I prefer it above other blogging sites? To answer this, I need to borrow some insight from Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson’s book “Why Nations Fail” (and no am not getting a commission when you click on this link). They explain the concept of Extraction and Inclusive entities. An extraction entity is one where the upper structure extract all value creation from the peasants (feudal system). An inclusive entity is where all the participants of the entity got an incentive to produce value (capitalism). Needless to say, that Steemit is built on a structure of incentives and therefore more in line with Acemoglu and Robinson reasons why it should succeed.

Reason 3
My last reason why I prefer Steemit is that Steemit is in a different league than any other blogging site. Blog sites are only a storage facility for a lot of articles. Steemit is an online game, where the winners are rewarded with SP and SD. The carrot is to become a whale, and that manner receives more status in the community. The rules of the game are the same as the ​rules of life. If you can master the Steemit game, you have learned pretty much about life.

Conclusion
Back to my friend. Yes, he missed the picture by reading a few blogs or searching for blogs which suit his view. Maybe one day over a cup of coffee I will explain to him the how Steemit works and why it is not a regular blogging site. I assume you must be ready for Steemit before you can participate in Steemit.

Also, see Steemit is an experiment in Anarchism

#hiking #