What if the people who made social networks great owned those social networks? Would it make the internet better? Or more annoying?
We recently reported on Heidi Chakos, the Steem user who has funded her travels around the world by earning virtual currency on the network. Not only is Chakos earning cash by using the site, she’s earning a stake in the company. Users’ posts are awarded with virtual financial products called Steem Dollars and Steem Power. The former works like a futures contract on the actual token, steem (its answer to bitcoin). The latter works somewhat like equity. Chakos told Observer in an email that she won’t be touching her Steem Power for a good long time.
So does user ownership result in a better social network? We spoke with Ned Scott, a co-founder of Steemit, the company that created the social network and the cryptocurrency, about that question via phone recently.
He says it gives a new power to users of the web. “For the first time, Steem has come into the sphere as a model, where giving their time and their attention actually yields rewards for them,” Scott said. “As soon as there are rewards on the table, people will do everything they can to maximize the rewards that they they get.”
