Understanding Market Value 101

Let's dream up an extreme scenario. If Steemit is the one and only social media platform that everybody in the world uses (wow.. so moon), what will happen if there's a sudden Armageddon asteroid heading towards our planet? Estimated time of arrival - 24 hours. Such a situation would likely cast a great boon on anything to do with Doomsday. Market value distribution will be focused on stuff like goodbye posts to all sorts of crazy plans to save planet Earth.

In such a situation, ain't no one will have time for food posts.. yo. Unless if it's a post of some raw whale sushi, and somehow, Zeus knows why.. a Steemit whale happened to feel sentimental about it and decided to divert some market value to that post (if someone has the time to make such a post anyway). During Doomsday!

Lesson #1:

The market is never guaranteed to be rational at all times (as a whole).

Lesson #2:

A better sense of market value requires both context and knowledge of possibly hidden information. Not knowing why a food post was trending during Doomsday, @contentchampion made a post about the importance of quality and relevant posts (while also making a remark about the untimely and overpaid food post). Market forces could be hidden.

Lesson #3:

To their credit, @contentchampion even backed-up their post with detailed plans on how to destroy the Armageddon asteroid like a boss. Low cost, effective, and totally human-free. But in the end, no whales voted for @contentchampion's superpost. Instead, the attention was somehow given to one very silly, low-level plan that was promoted by curators. It was a masterplan that simply attracted the market better, and the idea caught on like wildfire. People donated and funnelled market attention to that post.

The plan was to send martyrs to the asteroid - pretty much like what you saw in the movie Armageddon. Lesson here - there may be better stuff of better value out there, but in the end, the market does what it does best - being itself, doing whatever it wants. For that, market value is always fleeting.

Lesson #4:

So what happens after Doomsday has been averted? Life will be back to normal with its breadth of human activities. The only way for a market agent to channel / focus market value into some specific "containers" is to provide enough context and narrative for market evaluation. Market value is largely belief or story-driven, especially in a post-scarcity world. Just take a look at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Personally, I think most people hold beliefs which are ultimately selfless in nature (especially if such beliefs had been market-corrected over time). Which is why it's a good thing to express and articulate both thoughts and ideas. The easiest way to do this is through writing and vlogs.

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And as always, collusive votes remain as a possibility.

Obviously I'm not an expert in econs and or anything like that. But as someone who assigns value to the world on a daily basis, like anyone else.. I think I may have some good ideas about it, which is the point of this post. While it's important to understand that market value should be diverted to important stuff, it's also important to come into understanding that market value is a somewhat uncontrollable force of nature.

Do you agree with this piece? And, do you have anything to add?

Thanks to @lpfaust for adding an important note for all this:

Each author needs to consider the vehicle to maximize the value and exposure of his or her article more than anything. Something which earns nothing here may do incredibly well elsewhere.

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_{Open-use image from Wikimedia.}

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