I'm curious. Do you create content for some intrinsic reward (it's fun, it teaches you something)? Or do you do it for the money?
Why do I ask? As part of my research on decentralized companies, I'm reading a fair amount of academic literature on the economics of open source projects. The literature is fine and good, but I want to make sure I stay well grounded in reality: how do actual users on actual innovative platforms like Steem.it really act and think?
One of the seminal papers on this topic was von Hippel and von Krogh's 2003 paper, which asked the following question:
Why should thousands of top-notch programmers contribute freely to the provision of a public good? (empasis added)
The open source phenomenon seemed completely at odds with traditional economic theories of innovation, which largely focused on monetary rewards (intellectual property) and controlling free riders. How could open source projects -- which offer no monetary rewards and is open to contributors and free riders alike -- produce innovation like Apache server software and compete against huge companies like Microsoft?
Well, as von Hippel and von Krogh pointed out, the phenomenon was not necessarily at odds with economic theories. The economic incentives were just a little less obvious. Network effects. Quick diffusion of ideas. Reciprocity (i.e., I give my ideas away for free, but so does everyone else, so I often get more than what I put in).
Of those non-obvious economic incentives, perhaps the most interesting to me were the intrinsic rewards. Von Hippel and von Krogh note that for many people, the award for contributing to open source projects is simply the enjoyability of doing it. This idea rings true to me; I'm sure many of us have those friends who get off on editing obscure Wikipeda articles for fun (or maybe that's you).
Enter Steem.it. You write an article, and you can immediately start refreshing the page to see the direct monetary payoff that the content gives you. Obvious economic incentives are back in the picture.
This is where I get curious. To what extent are you (Steemit users) just creating content for enjoyment and learning, and to what extent are you doing it for the money? Is Steemit changing the way we weight pleasure vs. rewards in our decision to create content? In other words, if Steemit's reward scheme went away, would you still keep blogging as much as you do now? Will Steemit make us greedy and less willing to post content for free on other platforms?
I'm guessing the answer is somewhere in the middle. The intrinsic rewards are definitely at play, but the money sure is nice too.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!