Easy Steem to USD to Attract More Users?
First let me say, I like it here.
Second, understand that I am a newbie, and I realize I have much to learn.
Thirdly, my son's bearded dragon knows more about cryptocurrency than I do.
That being said, is the goal here to spread the word about Steemit and try to get the "general public" to join? Let me be clear, in my mind, the general public is the average housewife that is maybe 50-60 years old that spends an inordinate amount of time on social media. I talk to these folks quite a bit on the likes of Mylot, Niume, YouTube and Facebook. I try to pitch them on coming over to here. The number one stumbling block that I have heard is the confusion of not being paid in dollars. Now cryptocurrency may be the best thing since sliced bread, but to be honest, most of these folks don't give a rip about it because they buy bread at the store in USD. Now maybe once they were here, and became more educated, they may change their mind.
So can someone (in real simple terms) tell me why we cannot have an easy way to convert and payout to Paypal WITHIN Steemit?
Am I way off base?
Do we just not want those folks here?
Thanks in advance for your patience with this old timer!
Pic of Iggy is mine.
I think-- to some degree-- this is the result of Steemit not really being a "click for cash" site, but rather a social blogging/social content site that just happens to pay out rewards.
In other words, the focus here is heavily on "community building," which is also why we see so many posts encouraging people to "power up" rather than cash out.
To answer your question of "Do we just not want those folks here?" I expect many would have reservations. Why? Because the Steemit mission seems to be focused around helping people become "stake holders" in the community being created. Someone who comes in here and makes a bunch of posts and cashes out every time they have $5 really don't help the platform, in the long run. How so? Because they don't really care about "the content," they care about "the cash" only. In fact, it's that very mindset that causes the consistent demise of sites MyLot (you mentioned it) which had to suspend payments; Bubblews, the biggest screwup of all time, Tsu and others.
Also, part of the mission here is to make Steem-- the alt coin-- an actual and viable form of payment for goods and services... and if it's too easy for people to turn their Steem into Dollars every three minutes, that's never going to happen.
So, when we think of "mainstream," what's really suggested (just my take-- keep in mind I've only been here for six weeks, myself!) is perhaps "the 1% MOST alternative, anarchist, independent, Libertarian, Freethinker people on Facebook." Which would still be 25 million people... a pretty "stout" niche.
But hey, I'm no expert... I'd love to see some of the old timers chime in, here.
I think that you hit the nail on the head with your comment about making Steem an actual form of payment. That could really be the Trojan horse of the whole system.
I was at the Bits and Pretzels startup conference in Munich in October and one of the apps that will hopefully gain traction soon is Blockpay.ch. This app allows merchants to accept payments in almost any alt coin! I used the system to purchase pub food using BitShares!
The future of money is changing and we just might be witnessing some of that right here.
Now that Blockpay.ch sounds like a really interesting idea!! Anything that would make payments easier would be awesome.
Interesting times of change for sure. I'm glad to have seen the evolution of the internet on society thus far.
Thanks for the well put answer. I understand the idea better now. Yet, I'm not sure if I totally agree with the idea. It almost feels like when Google forced everyone that wanted to comment on YouTube to make a G+ account. I thought perhaps the greater good to the community would be to get the people in via a easy to convert system, then once they are exposed to the values and features of Steem, they could then make that decision.
I suppose its almost like a protectionist vs free market type of argument. I sure don't have the answers. It may be that Steemit will be a fun niche site then instead of a mainstream social media site. We shall see...
I hope young Paul you are not putting ME in the average housewife box....ha ha... I am here and I just want to write, be read and have fun and if I earn a few spondoolies then that's a bonus..... and to see you, you always make me smile...Thankyou :)
Oh I am sure you will build an audience. There are a good number of new people joining. If you give it some time, I think you will make some good friends, and even a bit of money along the way lol.
I hope so..If anyone likes to read the exploits of a crazy English lady living in Thailand then I am sorted...lol
It's quite likely that you are old enough to be my pa and I have the same questions as you. I know my way around common programming languages and computing hardware. I do not know my way around cryptocurrencies and wallets. Although I am learning daily, I'm afraid I may lose some $ trying to transfer lol. I'll sit back and hope for a legitimate answer.
Well it makes me feel better that I'm not the only one lol. I want to learn, so I guess it cant hurt to ask. Thanks for reading!
That is one beautiful pic. As always, would like to see exposure data.
And the text is in line with my thoughts that you commented here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@lighteye/steemit-marketing-tactics-and-strategy
Thank you very much.