The value of Us
My last post evoked a couple of comments regarding value and what does it mean. @aussieninja questioned why we get any votes at all and @void asks regularly if his development makes sense; do we add value?
Value itself is obviously perception based and subjective in form at some level however we could consider it from various perspectives that can quantify it in some way, albeit inaccurately. As they say, time is money which implies that time itself has a value attributed to it but for each person, the value of their time is going to differ, as is what that time is spent doing.
People are quite content to spend 15€ and 2 hours of their time consuming a movie at the cinemas even though afterward there is no tangible change to their experience, but are unwilling to spend the same amount buying a course to learn the basics of blockchain technology. Which is more valuable in the long run?
This is the trouble when it comes to the value we add as the attention economy burns our most valuable resource but where we pay our attention doesn't necessarily get considered as a product. In 2010, the average American household spent 8 hours a day watching Television, and in 2015 the average Netflix account spent 570+ hours per year consuming programming. What value did it add to their lives?
As consumers we have to consider these questions quite carefully as like another adage, we are what we eat and when we are consuming content fed to us through all of the algorithms and streaming services, it is easy to lose track of what we are actually digesting. We can feel that we are getting value, we can feel we are learning but unless something actually changes, is there any value at all?
@aussieninja asked why upvote and is there actual value at all? Again, this is going to be perception based but, if I can draw your attention there is a cost to you in time and energy as well as opportunity cost to consume something else. If however I can present to you content that you value for some reason, it is valuable content. This is individual dependent of course but if I am able to change your perception or behavior to improve your experience in some way, it would be tangibly valuable even if incalculable.
A change doesn't need to be perceived to have an effect of course which means information can be absorbed and create change value without being consciously aware, the same can happen in reverse when it comes to the costs. The cost of time wasted is rarely considered unless obviously felt as wasted time.
This makes evaluating value a difficult business as not only can it be imperceptible, it can go unattributed to the actual source as the results may not be seen for years to come. Often what we may feel in the moment as time wasted or a cost to us might actually have a future benefit value that we could not see at that time.
Using Steem as an example, I see that one day Steem is going to be worth considerably more than it is today which is why I power up a great deal of what I receive. Steem is worth 60 cents today which means 10 Steem is worth 6 dollars. In some places that is a decent amount of value. However, if an article I wrote influenced someone to power up 5 Steem and use the other 5 now, they enter into a risk position. That five Steem at 50 dollars will be worth 250 dollars at the risk of the 3 dollars now. Even one Steem will be worth 50 dollars at the risk of 60 cents. No one has to take the recommendation that holding some is a benefit but, those that are influenced by my words should attribute any future gains to me. Yet, the decision s theirs to make, I take no responsibility for their gains or losses.
I use that example because there are some kind of numbers involved however there is rarely such things when it comes to what is of value in experience. What value does a smile have, or the question, "are you okay?" What is valuable in a photograph or painting, or a poem?
As I see it, value has to make m think, it has to bring new ideas and perspectives into the mix and it has to be presented in a compelling enough form that not only will I spend my time to consume it, I will actively invest myself to make changes in my views or behaviors to improve mine or another's experience.
This is the problem with the blind consumption of content through bidbot orders on Steem in my opinion as there is no relationship to the value they add other than that of the order bought and the vote paid. For many, no one is actually consuming them at all which makes it a pure economic decision. Is this valuable to the community, is this the best use of resources? Can a post that goes unconsumed add any value past that basic transaction or would there be more value generated through content that engaged the user base?
It again is individual perspective dependent but when it comes to adding value to the blockchain, I fall into the thinking that in the long-term view of the platform, the value has to be much more than economic, it has to be transformative. What I mean by this is that in order for we as a blockchain and burgeoning industry, we have to be able to connect the real world lives we live with the technologies we are developing, this is why the community holds the key and is the value core.
We create our world through our decisions, our purchases, our buy-ins and the only reason we are in the global positions we are now is because of our past consumption habits. It is we who have empowered banks and governments, we who have increasingly stacked value onto middlemen and proxies in much the same way as we do here, blind consumption. Rarely do we take responsibility for the state of the world and instead lay blame on society or tyranny negating the fact that we ourselves are consumers and creators of those very mechanisms.
What we value, what we are willing to pay for and invest in is always our own decision to make but if what we buy doesn't change us, it can't improve us, and if it doesn't improve us in some way, why would we consume it at all. Without improvement, the best case scenario is a static position with a spectrum leading to the worst case but even static comes at a cost.
Time is the the most valuable resource we have but this doesn't mean that we need rush, it doesn't mean bulletpoints and tweets are meals of efficiency as they rarely go deep enough to change our perceptions and behaviors. They are a waste of time, despite the economic and emotional incentives that are bundled with them to make us feel they are valuable to us.
When it comes to value, there are those who look for easy and those that look to improve themselves and in so doing, the world in which they live also. If we as a community can do more of the latter, there is almost no way we can fail because the process requires relationships, development and real world actions that continually connects the blockchain to what actually holds value; Us.
What are you willing to pay for?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
There are some great points in here...
So, people watch TV for a variety of reasons; to relax, to learn, to share the experience with others at the time or friends after the fact. My preteen brother and sister rarely watch TV at all, they have iPads and watch YouTube... whenever I visit, they bombard me with videos I must watch there and then. They share these videos with their friends constantly.
So... I guess value in the economic sense is right there... Steem versus YouTube versus Netflix versus TV. I don't consume Netflix nearly as much because I hang out on Steem and spend some of my spare time learning to code (to further add value here)... my partner does watch Netflix but browses Facebook at the same time... we create value on Steem with our articles because eventually my partner might find herself reading articles here (because people get paid here) and my younger siblings might watch videos here (because creators get paid here)... so us receiving upvotes helps bring more quality content, which adds value as it brings more people, etc etc... until people rock onto Steem for their content instead of TV, Netflix and YouTube.
I guess the thing with bid-bots is that at least those users are here instead of elsewhere, so they are adding some value with their attention (they're here instead of elsewhere)... just not quite as much as they're taking from the reward pool.
Okay.... that was fun... thanks for this! Good value-add!
Yep, so what we value might not be what others value however, we each make our decisions and end up where we end up. The problem is that are our 'buying' decisions ours when a team of behavioural economists and psychologists are working to understand and hijack our programming and install there own from a young age?We feel our decisions are ours and intuition tells us we are in control but that doesn't indicate if it is true, we might have been hacked. I would say that culture itself is a social hack that changes our behaviour and values. This doesn't necessarily mean for the negative but this is the issue when it comes to value.
A person can feel good consuming say TV, will another consumes a course in programming. Whilst both are consumptive acts, one has a higher probability of increasing possibilities while the other tends to generally be dead time wasted. The problem is that we must live in our skin a lifetime but many don't seem to like where they end up or even, the path they are on. In the moment though they may feel satisfied by the many entertaining distractions.
That is super true... more and more people are deleting Facebook off their phones because it is just so goddamn intrusive with it's little notifications. I still have it.. but the end is nigh... because it incessantly notifies me about things that have nothing to do with me... just because they want me back in... and as you said... they've worked hard to ensure that notification system pushes all our right buttons... and ironically it may be their undoing as more people find it way too intrusive.
I do like that social media is creating more creators... on the app Tik Tok teenagers spend hours creating 10 second videos for their peers... but I guess even more just spend hours consuming hundreds of 10 second videos...
Those creators may just find themselves here where they can turn Likes into actual magic internet money.
I think the golden age of the creator is coming and I hope more are going to find ways to leverage their skills to earn.
This could be philosophically explaining gambling, sometimes AKA #FOMO:
Thanks for the chuckle. :D
Definitely a chuckle but it will hit 10 pretty easy :P
Cent or dollars? Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s 10, right? :P
10 cents I sell my body and buy steem with the meagre proceeds
$rewarding 50% 13min
In my case I can feel that the value has been progressive, every day I learn something new even if I am not permanently taking stock of what I have learned or not. I feel this after a while. For example, since I started writing in Steemit I feel that my writing has become more fluid. Every week I propose an educational topic which I hope someone will be nourished and feel that something has changed when reading to me. The same happens when I see a watercolor painting, something I enjoy very much, in general I learn from the experience of others. That's good for me. Although the economic value is currently small, what I have resolved over the course of this year has been important.
I apologize for any inaccuracies in the language, I have translated from Spanish into English.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
This is the thing with value. People look at the pending payout without regard for what a post actually contained. People post nonsense for reward knowing there is nothing of value but, it is easy to consume. We each take our path and create our future through the decisions we make.
It'd just dawned on me that SF3 is one of the best examples of 'positive globalisation' there is.... I mean I can't think of any other 'systems' that have organically brought 300 odd people together from 40 odd countries only after 3 years in existence.
That's the value, right there, and only a tiny fraction of what's to come!
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I was asked a question by @abh12345 last night, who introduced you to the most people?
There is value in network connectors that is largely ignored. I will write about this later but curious of your thoughts.
I also spoke to Karl yesterday about the topic, looking forward to both your thoughts and ideas on this :)
Yes he was chatting to me about the same thing! Must have it in his head atm.
Seriously though, steem is phenomenally connective - interesting to think who the connecters are for sure.
Now it's got me thinking about 'network analysis' - oddly precious little of that on steem..
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Man, getting through this post was depressing. But then, with this market, everything is. To be honest, going through the comments really helped. I mean the idea of you seeling yourself at 10 cents is priceless. (and might even be imminent at this rate) :)))
But I guess it's good in a way it came after SF, at least for morale. SF showed me so much of what community can do and that we as a whole are capable of great things, so at least I've got that thought in my head to brave this.
There is a lot of value here the issue currently is working out what that actually is. Blind choices or narrow views rarely lead on to healthy ecosystems.