If you have ever tried to explain a new technology to your parents, you know that it can be exhausting and hilarious at the same time. 

My mom is a huge fan of my steemit blog, she reads every article. During the Christmas holidays, when the whole family came together, she suddenly asked me: 'I really like what you are doing there on that platform, but why can´t they just reward you with real money?'

We sat down at the kitchen counter, having a plate of brownies in front of us. That´s how the 'brownie bakery theory' arised.  

The brownie bakery theory

Mom: I really like what you are doing on that platform, but why can´t they just reward you with real money?
Marly: Imagine that we both agreed on adding a certain value to these brownies, considering them being something like money.
Mom: How could we do that?
Marly: Because we trust each other. Our brownies are an expression of loyalty between us, like a social bond.
Mom: OK, but why don´t we just use normal money to establish that bond - like we have always done?
Marly: Because we don´t trust in the institutions which are controlling and regulating our money anymore. We have lost a lot of money due to these centralized and corrupt banking systems. Furthermore, we would like to manage our own money independently, being able to transfer it from every single corner of the planet to every other corner. That´s why we prefer establishing our own financial system, independently and self-governed. We agree on a linguistic abstraction and declare brownies being a value. 

Mom: Understood. But anyone has to bake these brownies!
Marly: Right. Imagine that their was a magic oven, which was programmed to create new brownies according to a certain formula. Imagine that this oven was working automatically, without any need to be controlled or operated by somebody or something.
Mom: Fine. But how do I get my brownie, if there is no baker in the bakery to open the oven and provide me with my product?
Marly: Imagine that the oven produced a new brownie every time a brownie fan - somebody like us - stepped into the bakery store and told a sad story. Like that he or she deserved to get a brownie - like a sweet consolation.
Mom: Good. But what if my story was sader than yours - then I should get the brownie and not you!
Marly: (laughing) If we both were good enough story tellers, the two of us could be rewarded. Imagine that the bakery would be full of brownie fans - people who like sweets and trust in our model of sharing them - a brownie community. They got aware of our new trustworthy bakery and joined. According to their opinion the automatically generated brownies (you remember: they are a reward for sad stories) would be distributed amoung the brownie fans. If you made people cry, you´d surely deserve a huge bite of a brownie. If nobody listened while you were telling your story, you wouldn´t get even one vote for it. And if somebody who already collected a nice amount of brownies - let´s call him browniac - liked your story, then you would receive an extra large piece of brownie. Because the more brownies you have, the more important becomes your opinion.

Mom: That´s fair. So I should socialize with these browniacs!
Marly: (laughing) Sure! The more you work on your sad stories, the more brownie bites you will receive. After a certain time you are able to achieve a huge amount of brownies. You can keep them to become a browniac, or you can exchange them into other sweets.
Mom: (starts laughing) Good, but I don´t think I could get a pair of new jeans for a bunch of brownies.
Marly: Not yet. Because the lady who sells these jeans hasn´t discovered the trustworthiness of brownies yet. But you have to take in mind that everybody could get a licence of such a magic oven and build a bakery around it. It wouldn´t be neccesarily a brownie bakery, it works for any kind of sweets...
Mom: I got it! And now let´s have some of these brownies, I can´t be starring at them anymore. 

Terms / analogies bakery vs. steemit: 

Brownies = token = steem
Bakery = application = steemit
Oven = blockchain
Brownie fans = members
Group of brownie fans = community
Browniacs =  whales

Yesterday my mom called me. She wanted to know how the magical oven really works. I told her that she would have to call the oven constructor or the ones who built the bakery around it... I told her that I had just learned how to get some brownies and that this was quite enough...:-) 

I hope you enjoyed the read.
Cheers,
Marly -