STEEM must have more $$money$$ brought 'IN'to the system, while reducing complexity.
Good day STEEMers ..
Just food for thought .. in suggesting this I may be missing something OBVIOUS, but I'm NEW, ok!? Seeing things from a new users perspective is important, if there are to be design changes meant to make it easier for newcomers to fully-participate.
Here I am trying to wrap my head around STEEM, STEEM Dollars, STEEM Power, Powering down, Powering up, while watching the value of STEEM and STEEMDollars on Bittrex - STEEM is looking good of course, Dollahs not-so-much. My uneducated conclusion is that this is too complicated, and has a terrible feeling of very limiting artificiality to it, which I fear will substantially jeopradize wide-adoption. Of course, these things are designed to promote sustainability and control behavior, as all such-things are in the crypto-space; perhaps there is a way to simplify this 'and' make the value in the system 'real', while better achieving sustainability and growth?
Can we get rid of STEEM Dollars?
Why would we want to!? .. only because they have no value in the external marketplace, and add a level of unnecessary complexity which is always a turn off for soccer moms and wrestling fans. :-)
There really has to be more incentive, or rather absolute necessity, for people to bring real $$ into the system. Rewarding people with a little boost in "Power" when they do is fine, but not so much as to dilute real value. So people use 'real' money in the form of BTC, which they then use to buy and bring-in STEEM.
Bring STEEM in, directly to STEEM POWER, and use this for posting, voting and 'interest' earning. When you want to GET PAID! (cash out), move whatever amount of Power you wish to a STEEMOut wallet (at 1:1), and begin the power down period to cash-out over-time into an increasingly healthy marketplace. If there is enough growth, which I believe this would bolster, then it should be a win .. win .... hell, add another .. WIN!
People may ask, but where does that interest come from? Directly from the distribution of micro-posting fees, lost bets, and perhaps from mining (a portion of block rewards distributed to all, proportionally) .. mmm ..thinking about this while I'm typing ... yes yes I know, you can tell .. :-)
The more you have banked (STEEMPower), the more you receive in 'interest', incentivizing the 'holding' of increasing amounts of STEEM, which will help boost/maintain STEEM price in the marketplace. The extended "powering down period" also makes sense in this respect, boosting sustainability by slowing-down those who wish to exit.
Only through maximum, well-received participation can one gain / earn more than they brought in - hopefully MUCH more. Rewards for upvotes, giving some STEEM and getting 'a little' more in return when you 'bet' correctly on (soon to be) popular posts, makes sense - this is work done to improve the quality of the system. If you bet incorrectly, or systematically support nothing but mindless crap, you lose that 'deflated' portion of your bet (something I believe is already in-place?). It should also cost some STEEM to post (but not to reply), the STEEM from which is distributed to all, proportional to the STEEM Power held.
If your participation is not well-received you will lose, over time, but I believe people would buy-in regardless, in order to support their favorite contributors, and will also use the platform for their own personal reasons. There will be much more to offer, over time, even when not earning big $$ from posts - we see many great ideas being mentioned - planned development by STEEMers for STEEMers, attracting EVEN MORE STEEMers!
Of course, those who start out losing can keep on trying to develop quality material .. keep firing away at it .. hell, everyone deserves to have at least one MAKEUP DEMO-level success!!
Cheers!
I was slightly confused what stance you were taking in this post, but I'd like to talk about the three currencies. Steem is the currency, and is NOT investible. Steem is hyper inflated and will lose half of it's value each year if the price of a steem stagnates. Steem power is the investment into steem that is held for a period of 2 years. It can be withdrawn from the system over 2 years. This is a great feature for people who believe in the platform. You will also get paid enough to negate the hyperinflation in the currency and some more for helping the system of steem. Now steem dollars is the way to keep yourself safe while also having liquidity in money. Steem dollars are always equal to $1 in USD. So if steem is $1 each and you buy one steem dollar you will have 1 steem invested into that steem dollar. If steem halves in price you will have 2 steem invested in that steem dollar to negate the inflation. The system will always give you $1 per steem dollar regardless of price. So if steem gets destroyed you might be given thousands of steem for one steem dollar, but if it does amazing, you will be getting fractions.
I don't think the dollar to dollar thing is guaranteed though though
Perhaps I am suggesting that STEEM 'BE investible' and 'GROW in value', and growth makes inflation-beating measures moot. But just to be clear about the STEEM Dollar .. how does it pay out exactly, this US $ dollar? in the eqiuvalent of STEEM or BTC? Someone mentioned that this should be only internally-traded, because the markets are not supporting the $1.00 value level - if that is so, then people will make 'real' transactions in STEEM, so why not make STEEM the entire ballgame?
The steem dollar is a balance of steem for 1 dollar. So however many steem is equal to one dollar is how much a steem dollar holds. The international trade is irrelevant because that only applies to the exchange you use. If a Euro is $2 and you have one steem dollar you would receive .5 Euro's from whatever international exchange you use.
Oh I thought there was some sort of internal marketplace for trading of these "dollars", not just exchange .. see? confusing! The more I think about it the less 'meaningful' these dollars becomce - STEEM should be 'the thing!' .. it should be brought in, used, earn if held, and easily moved out (over-time) to an exchange at increasing prices. Perhaps there is a gaming-prevention aspect to these dollars that I don't see, or perhaps being rid of it opens us up to such abuses .. but hmm.. all I know is it is easier to sell simple - complexity sounds like BS that should be distrusted.
I think steem power is great because it is investing in the currency. It discourages people from panic selling, it keeps value in the currency. It also keeps from big company or big buyers from buying tons of steem power, upvoting all their friends, then moving it out to another account. Steem power is literally your power in the system, and I don't think it should be fluidly transferred, gained and removed. Steem dollars are on the other side of the table, where they are liquid, but they do not give you power, or reward you heavily for investing for the long term. I think the simplicity should be derived from: you can start free, earn money, and leave at any time. If that doesn't instill, not BS, I don't know what will. Great ideas though!
I like the "stable" mechanism of Steem dollars, as it puts "real" value to posted content; however I agree with your comments on adoption rate being tempered by the three main layers of tokens that make up the ecosystem adding confusion to new users. A welcome video with a live demo showing the three layers of the system in use will be great to quickly get users active and more comfortable investing, posting new content, or wisely upvoting for worthy content.
Now that I have been around a while, I realize this post makes absolutely no sense at all! Please disregard. :)