The Blockchain Paradigm Shift - a Discussion Proposal
Earlier this week, I - just a Newbie Steemian - published an article called A Conceptual Guide to Make it Big on Steemit. As of now, it received 277 upvotes totaling $131.69 on rewards, was viewed 714 times and received 91 comments. Remarkable as that may be for an utter Steemit N00b like myself, what's even more remarkable is that among those comments were a number of Whales even commenting on whether the article did or did not deserve so much attention or rewards. I am truly humbled by that attention and I hereby thank you ALL for your thoughts and expressions. I've learned a lot from that.
Brainpower == The Blockchain Paradigm Shift
In my previous article I mentioned the ownership model of Steemit to explain (to Newbies) where the Author Rewards on Steemit come from. Yet from the Whale and Dolphin comments later on, I suddenly realized the importance and relevance of that exact ownership model. It represents a completely new and very fast emerging type of economy. One where raw brainpower is valued as the highest form of human capital and convertible into universal exchangeable property, at the speed of thought.
That also means - I argue - that ideas, in a community as Steemit, are to be perceived as transferable Open Source Capital just like open source software code is. Unlike traditional social media, on Steemit anybody - new or established, wealthy or poor, is able and free to express themselves and be rewarded a piece of ownership by the platform's shareholders.
That is indeed a remarkable Paradigm Shift!
Technological Innovations >> Social Adoption
Expanding on that let me hereby quote two extremely relevant and opposing thoughts, which are from their own perception both correct:
What about this is “open source?” It’s yet another “Steemit guide” and is actually written by a new user who knows about success on Steemit...how, exactly?
and later on...
Steemit !== Utopian
On top of that I explicitly told
to bring this in Utopian because I thought this post is of a good value for the Utopian feed. Maybe not for steemit, but we are not Steemit.
The Blockchain World moves extremely fast. What I think is happening here is that both 
Technological innovations are simply moving so fast, that social adoption cannot keep up. As is the case with new promising technologies (such as Ethereum vs EOS), combatting eachother for capital and attention via ever-expanding ICOs. ICOs are simply valuations of possible future market capitalization in an Open Source World of Thought. An new idea is equally powerful as a century-old company in the world which is The Blockchain.
Crypto Assets meets Online Communities meets Freedom: SecondLife++
On Steemit great minds become united and new rules are applied. Be it technological brainpower, financial power or communicational power: the ones combining all those skills are the ones that will prevail. I've read a lot of discussions on Steemit where new members disagree with a disproportional distribution of ownership / capital on the platform. A world where Whales dominate the rest of the users on what is to be rewarded and what is not, is perceived by many as unethical. I disagree. I think the current "centralization of Steemit capital" is indeed logical because the Whales were the first thought leaders in this new Paradigm. I think we are merely experiencing the beginning of the re-ordering of that exact ownership distribution amongst this community. Because at the platform's Genesis Stage, the Steemit Vests were worth not more than "Game Credits" as in any online platform / society. But what is truly remarkable and utterly new is that those Steem Vests, unlike regular "Game Credits" or "Baseball Cards" are now valued equal - and transferable and exchangeable - as fiat. This is SecondLife++.
Because of the Author Rewards I was given on my articles, I can now both own a piece of this community, and I can freely choose to exchange that property - via exchanges of course - to buying a Cola, or a new MacBook Pro, or a new coat. Just by Open Sourcing my thoughts and being recognized for just that. That is utter freedom. That is "Utopian".