I recently read an exchange between two millennials ( on Steemit). They engaged in mutual reassurance regarding the monetary value of their respective posts. The underlying premise was that the value of their work was by definition directly proportional to the time and effort involved in production. It therefore seemed only just to them that this work be rewarded with the proportionate monetary reward. Steemit encourages this mind-set by allowing people to spend "money" that is not theirs ( and that has been newly created for this purpose).
Now my intent here is not to criticise Steemit. For all I know this cryptocurrency may well find a place in our daily lives. It may someday function as something other than an alternative token, not much different than a "like" on Facebook.
However the self-centred premise that any effort or time spent "deserves" to be monetarised immediately is so out-of-touch with reality as to be frightening. We all expend effort doing things that are of no monitary value to anyone and is often of no value ( monetary or otherwise) to anyone else. Any attempt to monitarise such activity is contrary to the idea of a free market....and things that do this always end badly. Indulgent parents who pay their children to clean their own room do not (yet) know this of course.
Something has monitary value only when someone is willing to pay (real) money for it.
Real money may include Bitcoin. It may even include Steem when spent outside the confines of Steemit. The argument that spending "currency" (that is created daily within the rigid framework of the Steemit cryptosphere ) somehow validates worth seems to me a shaky proposition.
