This morning I was playing around with communities on the Beta site some more.
I've come to the conclusion that everything you know about Steemit.com will change completely.
When communities (and later SMT's) are out the experience we had for the last 3-4 years will be gone forever.
And it will never come back because something better will take its place.
It's gonna be awesome and surprise a lot of ppl and the STEEM token will be king of all of it.
And for me, as an investor that has everything to do with RC's that my Steempower provides.
This is what my BBQ & Beer Community looks like.
Anyone will be able to set up a community like this for just 3 STEEM.
You can assign roles to accounts and moderate the community the way you want.
It's extremely easy to join/get invited to a community and switch between communities on Steemit.com.
Even though (STEEM) downvotes can still be cast from outside the community this will never affect the visibility of the post inside the community.
This is what 
STEEM downvotes will affect STEEM rewards. But if the community uses its own token (SMT: BBQBEER) none of this will ever matter moving forward.
If a post makes 50 BBQBEER tokens and 2 STEEM and someone downvotes your post with STEEMPOWER from outside the community you will lose the 2 STEEM but still get the 50 BBQBEER tokens (Steem-Engine tribes work in a similar way).
This post can be about anything. It can just be a photo of you, next to a warm fire and a grill with a rack of ribs where you smile into a camera with a nice Barrel-Aged Stout in your hand. The title: Good times!
BBQBEER community will understand that feeling of grilling in the cold with a heavy beer to keep you warm. You might receive 50 replies of ppl saying 'CHEERS!'. So this post is 100% worth 50 BBQBEER tokens but a person with STEEMPOWER from outside the community might feel differently about it and downvote it. But who cares about that. The post is perfectly visible in the BBQBEER community and has plenty of engagement.
This is also the reason why I encourage you to use the APPICS apps now and don't worry about any STEEM downvotes. Your fear of downvotes in STEEM is literary preventing you from earning APX tokens in the app itself. And if there was ever a time to earn APX token, it's now!
Now imagine hundreds of these communities on Steemit.com/eSTEEM/Steempeak.
The car's community.
The Holiday community
The Brexit community.
The Gaming community
The Crypto Community
The Bitcoin Community
The Dash Community
The (temporary) "street party 31 December 2019" community.
There is room for everyone. All on Steemit.com. All separately moderated and all very easily created. Long term and Short Term.
Will every community be for you? No. But you can find the ones you like.
And if you think the community owners do a bad job, you can make one yourself and do it better.
Will every community be successful? I highly doubt it.
But some of these communities will most likely become big.
The role of the STEEM token
I'm not 100% sure what the plan is for the STEEM token.
It might stay a common reward token but when this place indeed has millions of users how much STEEM will you still able to earn by then. Just MicroSTEEM most likely.
But there is one thing I do know.
Everyone (every Steem account) that wants to do anything on the Steem Blockchain will need to have access to RC's.
Without RC's, besides a few things, you can't do much.
Only staked STEEM provides RC's.
Communities will most likely use RC pools where community members can tap from.
When the community grows they need access to more RC's. Aka they need to lease or buy more STEEM.
For me, it's the one true use case for STEEM moving forward and it's the only thing that makes sense and the only good reason to invest in STEEM today.
Hundreds of communities will hopefully mean millions of 'eyes' on Steemit.com and for them a chance to monetize it with advertisements. Maybe even in agreement with community owners.
When the BBQ & BEER community has 100k members (let's think big). Big Green Egg might want to put a nice advertisement in that specific community. What a way to target an audience.
I have no idea if this will all happen but it's fun for me to think like this.
It gets me pumped about STEEM again. And this time it's not just words, it's actually being built and in closed BETA being tested.
It also coincides with the vibe and the posts that I read surrounding Steem on Steemfest4. All more real talk than before and less empty promises.
I like it.
And when you know these changes are coming worrying about things going on the platform today is completely pointless.
I would highly recommend not getting involved in any of the politics regarding good content and votes and just have fun and post as much as you like with all the apps this platform has to offer and earn all the tokens you can earn.
Because that is where we are going anyway.