Steem / Steemit - Idea / Suggestion
FUNDING CREATIVE IDEAS
I have been thinking about this idea for a while now and have decided to throw it out there and see what people think.
The idea is that you will be able to pledge your STEEM to a user with a Funding Requirement for a Creative Idea.
EXAMPLE
Let me give you an example of what I am thinking about.
Let's say a user has been on the site for 3 months and is an amazing artist.
Now let's say this amazing artist can only afford a couple of pencils and a few pieces of paper and is struggling to produce any meaningful artwork, but it is clear the potential is huge.
Now let's say this artist puts forward a funding requirement, say $100 for some oil paints, pastels crayons and some paper and presents a "mini business plan" as to what they intend to produce, when and how by publishing on Steemit.
Now let's say 7 people decide to fund this but at different levels of funding, say $3, $5, $8, $10, $20, $25, $29 = $100 and they pledged their respective amounts.
Now let's say that the artist has their $100 pledge and then closes the Funding Requirement and accepts the pledges the funds will be transferred at whatever the current exchange rate it is, say $0.15/STEEM.
Effectively what you now have is the ability to make an investment into an idea that someone proposes on Steemit.
PAYBACK
Payback would be proposed in the Funding Proposal, let's say 50/50 of the increase in the value of the user's account.
On other words let's say the user has 1,000 STEEM and the funding is closed this puts a peg in the ground.
Now let's say they go out and spend the $100 and produce some amazing artwork that increase the user's account to a target of 10,000 STEEM, the funding would be paid back proportionally.
ie. 10,000 - 1,000 = 9,000 / (50/50) = 4,500 split proportionally over the Funders.
TRUST
Trust will be paramount and it will work through a pure desire for it to be repeated.
On other words a Funder will only fund an idea if the Proposer is trusted and that will be open to the community.
CREATIVITY
Obviously we are not talking great sums of money here but the idea would allow those creative ideas that lack the funds to flourish with the help of the rest of the community.
Steemit is all about valuing creativity and it would be a real shame if a user was unable to offer their full creative skills through pure lack of personal funds.
In the example above I talked about an artist needing drawing material, but this idea should it go ahead could be used for a limitless range of ideas including: a better computer, laptop, better camera, video recorder, singing lessons, sponsorships, merchandise, education, training...the list is endless really.
FUTURE SCALABILITY
The reason I have made this suggestion is that I am thinking about the scalability of Steemit and Steem and that allowing unrestricted funding to a certain extent would allow the community to grow exponentially.
I am excited to hear what people think as to whether the idea is a good one or not.
Thanks for reading.
Stephen
It seems to be a good idea once steemit becomes an exchangeable currency. Something like this exists already with Patreon, although there you pledge traditional currency
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback. I will see what sort of response I get over the next few days. Stephen
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I love the idea.
Thank you. I have been thinking about it for a couple of months now and decided today to throw out a sketch idea to see what people thought. If the majority think that it is a good idea I will do a more detailed proposal but the principle is simple really. Thanks again. Stephen
Great Idea! Resteemed and upvoted!
AWESOME..!! Thank you. Stephen
Indeed, cool idea! 😄 but I don't think it needs to be integrated into Steemit to work, as others have pointed out, it's about trust, so you'd need a trusted third party to escrow the funds until the deal is made.
Actually this is pretty much what smart contracts do, a think that Ethereum is famous for. I found this article when looking for something on it, well worth a read.
In general I think that a lot of suggestions for Steemit can be solved with it or with agreements between people, instead of actually integrating it into the system.
😜 👍
Thanks. I appreciate the feedback. The idea of having it bolted on the side within the Steemit community is that the Funding Requirement & Pledges could be recorded on the blockchain and that the Funder is identified as being a Funder and who they funded. Keeping it all in Steemit just keeps it neat and tidy. Thanks again for your feedback. Stephen
I guess my point is that it wouldn't be neat and tidy though. The cool thing about smart contracts is that they work on the authority of the blockchain itself. Bolting funding and pledges onto the Steem blockchain would require fundamental code changes to the blockchain AFAIK (which I would probably welcome btw). Bolting it on to the Steemit platform built on top of Steem would be against the philosophy of blockchains and here's why.
The idea of the blockchain is to get around the issue of trust by deferring to the system itself so there is no need for a trusted third party.
From the first page of the Bitcoin whitepaper
and that's exactly what Bitcoin, and thus blockchains, solve - for simply one to one money transactions. For more complex transactions, like the ones you propose, there have been developments in Ethereum and I also believe that Bitshares does this too (seems like it's the blockchain swiss army knife).
What you are proposing is that Steemit acts as the intermediary between parties (funders and the fund-ee), which would reverse the gains made by blockchain technology. I doubt very much the founders of Steem(it) would accept the idea in its current form as a result, so I mean to constructively criticise your proposal.
Maybe instead there could be a Bitshares app built as a third party app for Steemit? Dan is one of the founders of both platforms so there's be a shared interest there too.
Thanks for the feedback. Stephen
Cool idea man. :)
Thank you. I appreciate that . Stephen
No doubts it's a good idea if only it's based on too much trust. I see steem growing and people realising its potential, steem should be in any website related to payment and free support.
I don't think that between those (2) tabs, your concept will be clear. Where would you place your goal/objective? Why not just place your goal and what you are asking for in your profile blurb where it says "Advocate of BLOCKCHAIN" and call it good?
The idea would be in the "Funds Required" drop down. I put a "1" there to show that you could have mulitple funding requirements. Same with the "Pledge" drop down. I put a "1" there to show how many pledges made/funded. Stephen
I think for people to go for it, you would need to make your goal/objective clear and visible on your Steemit profile header.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it. stephen
What a fantastic idea, Steemfunding. There are so many talented people who cannot afford the basics that will help them to develop their talents, I would love to be able to help someone do better just as I try to on Zidisha, BTCJam and the other P2P sites. I hope this is something that is implemented ;-)
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback. So far the feedback looks positive. Stephen
Interesting idea! :)
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback. Stephen