Well Steemit - another day, another top trending article where someone new to Steemit has made $10,000 and is telling all their friends. In the few short weeks I've been on this website this seems to be the #1 recruiting model.
"Hey, there is this new website that PAYS YOU to write content!"
Now I don't have any problem using this model to recruit new users, in fact since coming to the site a few weeks ago I've already recruited a dozen+ people with that exact selling point "a website that pays you." But what concerns me is how will Steemit be able to survive long term if a overwhelming majority of their users are here to pull money out of the site?
For the sake of estimating lets say Steemit's user base has around 50,000 users today. If we are able to grow this user base to say 1,000,000 by 2017 - I would assume 900,000 of the 950,000 new users (around 95%) will invest $0 of their own money and simply pull out any/all available SD/SP/STEEM. Now I'm no mathematician but if we treat Steemit as it's own economy and agree that 95% of the population within the economy is pulling money out of the system and only 5% is putting money back in... well the numbers don't look good.
Now I understand that is where Steem Power comes into play - but really I only see this as a 'kick the can down the road' solution. It doesn't actually change the fact a overwhelming majority of users are pulling money out vs. a very small amount is investing money back it - it only delays this process over a 2 year time frame.