When looking at what is taking place, it often is best to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Steem is a dominant blockchain today. Many people might not feel that way but if you look at the industry as a whole, you will see that Steem is up there in all the important categories. This is only going to improve.
In the Spring, we have the anticipated release of the SMT protocol. I am here to tell you that this will cause Steem to become a true leader in blockchain. The world will not be able to ignore it.
The bottom line is most sites are going to have to implement SMTs. It is not going to be a choice.
How do I make this claim? Let us look at the reasoning.
Attention Economy
There is no doubt that the attention economy is being created. Tokens allow for incentivization. We are starting to understand our attention has value and the data we create from our actions is worthy.
In the not too distant future, it a site wants people to view it, it is going to have to pay. This goes for news, blogs, sports, and any other content site. When there is a choice of getting paid for one's attention versus giving it away from free, people will opt to get paid.
If it was easy everyone would be doing it
We hear a lot about Steem(it) competitors popping up. Every 4-6 weeks or so, someone posts a now blockchain that is going to compete with Steem. Half the time it is a fork of the Steem blockchain.
For some reason people think forking a blockchain will make it an instant success. The truth is this industry is not easy. Look at the Vice token. Instead of going SMT like they originally stated, they decided to fork the chain and do it themselves. Since they did that, all kinds of problems arose. This from an outfit that has some big players involved and they cannot get it right.
Steem, for all the struggles and flaws, is getting most things right.
Turn Key Operation
What about Ethereum? EOS? All the other places that create tokens?
It is true that one can create a token elsewhere. The question is, then what? What do they have? A token. That is all. A content creation site is then tasked with having to create a reward system and work through the balance that goes along with that. The other blockchains that have activity, at present, are mostly exchange transactions meaning there is very little community activity outside traders. What does a site tap into for growth?
Certainly, this might not always be the case but Steem has a big lead in this area. The content reward system is in place and AND established it's viability. There might be some fine tuning required but the overall system works.
As we are witnessing, creating a copycat is not a simple act.
The goal for Steem is to "tokenize the Internet". This is something that will happen. There is no doubt, at some point, every site will be using tokens. Will they be Steem-based? I would not think all but the position Steem is in now certainly provides a chance that a vast majority of them are.
In a few years, we are not going to do much of anything without being paid for it. As more tokenized options appear, those of us already on here will gravitate away from the non-paying sites. At the same time, the expansion of cryptocurrency in terms of usage will bring more people in. They will follow suit in this.
Those sites that realize this now will get ahead of the curve. They are going to be stuck with two choices: tokenize or lose their user base. This is something I feel will be across the board.
That is why the established entities are in trouble. Their business models are such that they must resist this move. It gives up too much control and profitability. Wall Street will not allow that.
This is the opportunity. There are start ups today which will sweep in and grab people's attention away from the larger, more established outfits. How will it do this?
By paying them.
And that is where SMTs can be such a game changer.
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