"I believe that by making up-votes a fixed amount regardless of vests, would eliminate many of the issues faced today. If we allow 30 votes per day and everyone's vote is worth the same, there would be less incentive to hoard votes or even to self-vote."
I don't get it, is your goal to make Steem Power worthless, send SP to 0, and completely kill Steem and Steemit?
This suggestion fundamentally undoes everything that is Steemit.
"I'm going ultra-conservative and suggesting (for our calculation) the value of Steem reaches only $500 after 5 years."
A roughly 500x gain is "ultra-conservative"? This is so wrong.
A 2% gain annually, that's conservative.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion. Would you mind clarifying the statement:
Without explaining why you think this, it doesn't help me to understand the problem. I think it is obvious by my explanations that I don't wish to harm Steem and am looking for solutions to current issues. It would help a lot if you explained why the ideas I presented would do harm.
SP would NOT be worthless because it is SP that gives you more weight when voting for resolutions.
I make more than 2% on my stocks and bonds! Crypto-currencies are doing way better than that. What has Bitcoin done over the past 5 years?
The main reason people buy more Steem is to be able to vote larger rewards. Removing this ability from Steem would make it objectively much less useful, and therefore worth much less.
Consider if there were two kinds of Steem, the normal one, and the one you propose. Which would be more expensive?
Most people don't care about witness votes, I doubt most would care about resolution votes. (Note: That's definitely bad, but it is what is.)
"I make more than 2% on my stocks and bonds!"
I bet you don't after inflation.
What Bitcoin has done is immaterial, and in no way conservative. Adding 500x to Steem would make it several times BTC's current market cap. Not likely imo.
Thanks for the clarification. That is a valid point. But it also has me wondering what would make Bitcoin so valuable then? There is no reward system with Bitcoin, so why are people buying that?
I'm of the mind that people are getting into crypto-currencies for the ability to escape banks, inflation, and of course speculation. Steem has all of that. The rewards system is just a bonus to get more people to jump on the Steem train. That is why I compare to Bitcoin. Is there something else I'm missing?
As for factoring in inflation, I make between 8 to 10 % and inflation is what? 1.5%? 3%?
I think real inflation is much closer to 6-10%. The CPI has been carefully gamed since the 1980s in a ton of ways, like hedonic adjustment, to keep it far lower than reality.
If you use the CPI formula from before they changed it to make it lower, it's like 8%.
Track your groceries prices for a year, you'll see.
"what would make Bitcoin so valuable then?"
The same thing that makes the US dollar valuable - it's the denominator for international (and oil) trade. People buy BTC to get into the market, because you kinda have to.
At this point, I think BTC is vastly overvalued and could crash to near 0. As you pointed out, there are many technically superior options. Bitcoin Cash is just the newest one.
Having Steem be just another in that list seems like a near-guarantee of Steem becoming one of the probable-90% of failed ICOs.
That's a very interesting point of view you have. Thanks for sharing.
If I'm understanding you correctly, then Steem is unique in that it allows investors to reap rewards without having to wait for gains in the value of the currency itself. This would make it a game only for those who have the funds to invest big-time and grab as much as they can before the penny drops and people realize what is really going on. At that point, the game is over and whoever cashed out got what they got and it's time to move on to another adventure?
You are probably correct about the real inflation rate being much higher than advertised. But then would that not favor the use of crypto-currencies? Would that fact alone not encourage mass-adoption of this new way of doing business? And with Steem having a unique feature, would that not bring Steem over the tipping point so that it is within the 10% that do NOT fail? I suspect that those coins that can be easily used to actually carry out transactions without a lot of encumbrances will be the ones that gain the most traction. It has to be very easy to spend your coins anywhere and everywhere.
Another great crypto example is Bitshares.
Bitshares seems to be some of the best tech around. It's got a decentralized exchange where anyone can freely make assets, which means there are a lot of cool assets like Bit.gold (pegged to gold) and all sorts of other stuff.
It provides an exchange with no counterparty, it's very fast, etc.
Bitshares also has witnesses. In fact, the system is pretty similar to Steem and I've included the Steem witness' Bitshares witness rank, since many of them are both:
https://cryptofresh.com/witnesses
I would say the UI could use some work, it's a bit off-putting. Other than that, it's great. However, the market basically ignores it. People clamor into Poloniex and Btc-E, or whatever other risky exchange, because that's where the volume is. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
The market often picks an inferior or an irrational option simply because it looks better, or it's in the right place at the right time. As a result, it's often very disappointing to attempt to invest on fundamentals alone.
You are correct there too. I witnessed that when VHS beat out Beta in the video tape market.
Thanks again for all your input!