I have seen people claim it is and I've seen people argue that it is not. So who is right?
First we have to clarify what is meant by the term 'gift economy'. It seems pointless to argue about something without knowing the definition. Wikipedia claims that a gift economy is "A gift economy, gift culture, or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.". This is the definition we will work with for the purposes of this article.
Right, so in a gift economy you might anticipate that any gift you give may bring benefit to yourself at some point, but no actual agreement has been made that this will be so.
Ways in which steem is a gift economy
It seems clear to me that there are many ways in which steem definitely IS a gift economy. As a content creator on the steem platform, when you make a post, you do so without any guarantee of reward. You could self upvote, or hire a bidbot, but ultimately any potential reward generated by such means could be voted down. So the best way to view making a post here is to realise you are making a gift to the steem community.
Steem is not like youtube, where you are paid for generating ad views. It is not like patreon, where subscribers pay to see content hidden behind a paywall.
Furthermore, when you upvote, you are making a gift to the content creator. When you downvote bad content, you are making a gift to the whole steem community (by increasing the share of the reward pool that goes to good content). As a STEEM POWER holder, you hold a certain stake in the community that allows you to vote on how the reward pool is distributed. The reward pool only pays for content retroactively, so it can be seen as a gift distributed amongst content creators and curators, as decided by SP holders.
Even sharing a post could be seen as a gift.
Ways in which steem is NOT a gift economy
STEEM and SBD can of course be used for regular commerce and barter. There are shops and businesses that allow for payment in STEEM, including exchanges where you can change them for other crypto currencies and fiat currencies. You can also hire a service with the promise of STEEM or SBD as payment in a less formal setting, via comments on a post requesting art or such like, or barter services and good for other services and/or goods, like you theoretically could in any post/comment medium.
However I think such features are built upon the core of the steem economy, and are not central to it, so if anything I would say that STEEM is a gift economy that can allows trade and barter on the side, and with a currency that can act as a bridge into a more mainstream trade economy.
If anyone has any arguments why they think I'm wrong, then I'd like to see them in the comments.
Image credits
Image created by myself, combining the following creative commons and public domain images
- Gift economy by John Mosbaugh
- Gifts from pxhere.