YouTube is monetized as a result of ad revenue and money is paid to users as a result. This is the case for many, many social media platforms.
Hive/Steemit, on the other hand, whether intentional or not, has become a mix of:
- Paying yourself with your voting power, a power defined by the blockchain itself, which is proportional with your stake in Hive
- Tit for Tat voting, where the minnows upvote the whales or dolphins and comment in hopes of getting noticed and paid
- Some legitimate upvote purely as a result of interest in a given article
Can that work? Does power corrupt?
I'm starting to think that #1, by its very nature, will corrupt and bias a person to vote for themselves or come to an agreement with another equivalently staked person to vote for each other. #2 has created an echo chamber of yes men on these social media platforms, something that is its own form of censorship, despite the alleged core values of the platforms. #3 is great, but how common is it? I don't have the time to study this closely, but one could probably check the top 1000 accounts by voting power and see if they have a trend of voting for people who vote for them of similar value or vote for themselves more often than not.
Now, the price increase of HIVE/STEEM too, will rely, essentially, on people not selling what they earn... aka, it relies on people not being paid for what they do as a creator on a social media site. The price could hypothetically remain stable if people cashed out steadily AND there were buyers who believed they could make money utilizing one of the 3 methods above who were willing to buy it. This could potentially happen, but is this social media platform a better place to make money than if you are successful on a site such as YouTube, Instagram, etc.? If not, would those willing buyers continue to come? Finally, if they don't come, if further buyers don't love this platform and see its value, then unless no one sells ever (aka no one makes money), this is by definition doomed to become a worthless crypto, as a result of a mix on inflation and sell off.
Yeah, decentralization is great; less censorship, also great (although I pointed out the artificial censorship caused by point #2, where people hold their tongues for fear or a desire for some pennies), but are those important enough for creators and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, viewers, to flock here?
Additionally, one of the final potential horrid problems is that everyone wants to cash out eventually. This would only ever not be the case if Hive/Steem was accepted as a currency for every day goods and services, which is what people use currency for. Noting that, unless someone perceives their ability to continue to make money as a result of the 3 reasons above, they have no reason to continue stake and have every reason to sell. NOTE, INCREDIBLY IMPORTANTLY, that this is not the case for ad based sites, such as YouTube. They will always be able to generate revenue for themselves and authors because outside advertisers are willing to pay them in a consistently accepted currency (AKA US Dollars, or whatever universally accepted currency they are paid in) to advertise their products, a payment they WOULD NOT make unless they believed they would get a return on their investment in advertising. It is not a 'generosity' transaction. It is a business transaction for a business, as it is between businesses and consumers that an economy moves and currency switches hands.