Is Steemit a scam?  Let me start out by saying that I have read the white paper.  From what I read, the implementation and accounting principles seems to me to be the work of geniuses. It really is a very well thought out experiment in crypto-currency and in blogging and coding, in my humble opinion.  I have also compiled a node and been experimenting with the code.

I followed a link from the original bitcointalk.org thread discussing Steemit and there are some disturbing accusations in there; I'm not sure if they are true or not, but would like some answers from the founders, if they are not too busy, or from anyone else involved that can share some more info.  Either that or just send me, and any others that are interested, a link to any existing article(s) that would answer to some of these allegations.

I would think that answering these allegations would only strengthen Steemit, assuming everything is above board.. nothing better than to answer your worst critics, and come out shining right?

I have also watched a number of videos created by Jeff Berwick touting how great Steemit is (after he made a lot of money from Steemit, including $15,000 for a paragraph), but then he goes on to say that he didn't read the white paper, that he is "not technical", he is just an "ideas guy"... uhmmm, the white paper was not a technical paper, it was mostly financial, and I would think that with Jeff Berwick giving everyone advice on what to do with their money on http://thedollarvigilante.com , he may want to take another look, as the white paper is full of ideas.  Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Berwick and enjoy his spreading liberty through interviews on Anarchast, but I have seen some questionable things on some of his judgement, even from himself, admitting that he was picking penny stocks (with a dartboard? out of a hat?) and then lost $230 million of clients money in one year, but somehow came away with a sailboat that he then crashed.. hey nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as you aren't stealing or scamming anyone, right?  Then something about him being responsible for losing investor's money in Galt's Gulch.  And if he was so good at picking penny stocks, wouldn't that skill still be valid after the crash?  That is a side topic for Jeff to answer.

Granted any attempt to do something new can have critics, but these accusations seem like they at least deserve some researching to see what we are all getting into by participating in Steemit.  There may be nothing wrong, but there sure seem to be a few people that were upset:

First Post

There was this from  jwinterm 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466593.msg14800629#msg14800629

 I guess you'll probably lock this thread in the not too distant future  and move on to the fourth or fifth thread for this, right? Gotta keep  the information spread out and difficult to cobble together how you  launched this "currency" I guess. Maybe you should try changing the name  too, I hear that's a common tactic of worthless penny stocks and crypto  snake oil to lure in more sucker...err...investors. 

Second Post

Then this from  traumschiff 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466593.msg14801694#msg14801694

 Let's not forget how this is the 3rd (or 4th) thread for this  instamined/premined shitcoin which has launched with lies in the OP  (calling no premine/instamine) and lack of instructions and wallets so  99% of the people can't mine a coin that is meant for the people (?).  They even relaunched once after their miners crashed claiming a bug.

Huge  additional red flags that the developers still go on with opening new  topics, specially after the 4 week long (extreme short pow) is over now  (only 1 out of 21 blocks is a pow block) and they mined 80-90% of the  supply, which stakes for them.

Noobs please be aware that if you  try and buy this coin on exchanges you will keep getting dumped on  (mostly according to the funding needs of the developers since they  control most of the supply). If you are really interested, play their  game and get it for free on their website, but supporting this is like  supporting XPY.

"The way social media is meant to be...  decentralized" yeah, powered by a currency that has been almost  exclusively mined by a central authority, the developers in a short  period with shady tools to obtain most power. Funny. 

I don't have a crypto background so some of this was confusing but there are a few terms in there like supporting XPY... I looked that up and looks like that was something called PayCoin, which went apparently went from being worth over $161 million to just $64 thousand dollars.  Not sure what happened there... anyone have any info on this?

Third Post

Then this from  DecentralizeEconomics 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466593.msg14801727#msg14801727

 Yeah, that's the first thing I look for too in a Larimer thread.  "Is it  moderated?"  I guess junior isn't as savvy as Pop Larimer when it comes  to pulling the wool over peoples' eyes.

I love how the Larimer  Gang launched their new scam.  It's hilarious.  First they attempted to  dominate the mining and then when they didn't due to "technical  difficulties", they invalidated all the previous miners' rewards and  relaunched it so they could have a second try at it and they succeeded  that time.  What type of a messed up joke is that?  To those of you who  were around when the Larimer Gang first entered the crypto scene with  Protoshares, you'll remember the Larimers did a similar trick then too.   I mined Protoshares from the first few blocks on the chain.  There were  numerous complaints on the PTS/BTS forum about people having connection  issues and having their miners getting booted off the network.  All the  while, the Larimer Gang was happily mining away and denying that there  were any issues.  To this day Stan Larimer (aka Daddy Larimer, aka The  Ringleader) claims this isn't true, but anyone around back then knows it  to be fact that the Larimer Gang and their Chinese Communist associates  were mining the heck out of PTS.

Now, they have this Steem  garbage, which is a blatant ripoff of Synereo.  The Larimers don't have  an original idea in their body and can only poorly mimic others'  creative concepts to hopefully scam a few suckers into giving them their  money.  Just like they ripped off NXT's PoS algo and poorly implemented  it as DPoS in Bitshares, they are now doing the exact same thing with  Synereo.  Heck, they even chose a name that is very similar to Synereo,  "Steem".  I'm sure they're hoping that people get confused, because they  both start with a "S" and purchase their poorly implemented scam. 

Now that is interesting... "Pop Larimer"... "Larimer gang"... I looked up this and sure enough Dan's Father, Stan Larimer working worth Boeing, the US Air Force Academy, etc... not exactly the resume of someone you would want to design a decentralized currency to help rid the world of the gangs of government... someone who made all his money from them.. research Boeing, they get something like $800 million a year for doing nothing. See How Elon Musk exposed billions in questionable Pentagon spending http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/elon-musk-rocket-defense-223161

Found this article on Forbes about Dan hiring his father to be the CEO of Cryptonomex, http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2015/10/12/meet-cryptonomexs-dan-larimer-and-his-four-horsemen-of-crypto-economics/#7a567c4e483f

None of it really proves anything as far as I see, and maybe they wanted to wean themselves off of the governments giant teat of stolen "tax" money, but if anyone has any more information on this, it would be interesting to know.  Usually people that are profiting from government wouldn't really have a reason to quit... why do people just up and quit heroin or cocaine?  Maybe they were never addicted to it, maybe they were working from inside the system to help fund ways to not use the system? I mean crypto-currencies, the main reason people use them is to not have the government gangs steal a portion of every transaction... people want to trade freely, without some giant parasite sucking the juice out of life.. go figure!

Then there is the mention of the Chinese... not sure what that is about... Chinese are just people, but their gang may not like the US gang... not sure if that is good or bad... doesn't crypto get rid of these imaginary borders, called countries?

Then Protoshare miners being locked out of mining that doesn't sound good.  Looks like Protoshares became BitShares, and looks like they also started out with over $30 million and that tumbled way down too:

Then something about Steemit being a ripoff of Synereo... had never heard of that, so looking that up, looks pretty interesting, although the founders are from the Isareli Air Force, and Microsoft... so vomit, gag, gag... now doing crypto... I guess they don't like government and companies in bed with government now, having worked for them... that's plausible: 

https://www.synereo.com/about/

As for not having an original idea, that seems pretty crazy... isn't the original "original" idea from some mystery man named "Satoshi" that is either an alien from outer space, or some CIA/NSA spy?  I think just about everyone in crypto is building on the ideas of others, some doing it well and some not so well.  So was it just taking something and making it better with Steem, or was it just blatent ripoff?  How close is Synereo to Steem, and did Steem add many more things to the equation, and is doing it better?

 It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a  phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important  thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others."  
  - Mark Twain,  Letter to Helen Keller, 17 March 1903. 

 

I write software for people and some people will come to me and just ask me to copy something else, some successful product they have seen... they don't have an original idea at all...  I always turn down these jobs, but I do know there many people, especially in India and China, that probably need to eat, that will take the work of just stealing others ideas.  Being a voluntaryist/anarchist I understand clearly, that stealing, in all its variations, really is the only immoral thing in the world.. murder is stealing someones life, etc.

Then something about ripping off "NXT's PoS algo and poorly implemented it as DPoS in Bitshares".. I looked that up and it stands for Proof of Stake, and Decentralized Proof of Stake... seems like an improvement to me, not a ripoff, so anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... I found this from Dan Larimer:

 Regular POS:   Bad Share Holders can still mess with the system *some* of the time.
DPOS:  Bad Shareholders have very little influence over operation of the network assuming the majority are not deceived.
DPOS: Can be attacked by deception of majority, but easily fixed with a quick hard-fork to new delegates.
POS: Can be attacked by deception of majority (leased forging) or by one large actor. 
Assuming  large actors are benevolent I guess the systems are equal... but DPOS  provides an easier way to reach consensus on change where as large  owners effectively control regular POS.   
POS: Controlled by large minority share holders
DPOS: Controlled by majority of shareholders, large minorities have influence but are not sufficient to control.
POS: effectively turns into DPOS in practice, DPOS just streamlines the system 

My Verdict

At this point, regardless of the allegations of ideas possibly being copied and users thinking they are going to get a windfall like Berwick, I really don't see any blatant uses of force or theft in either Steemit creation or using it... you don't even have to pay to start using it.. seems too good to be true!  However, at the end of the day, even at operating at its best, Steemit seems to be more a lottery system than a blogging platform right now. And with the whales making over $20,000 a week just for having bots promote articles, some of which don't even have complete sentences, the whales sure do look a lot like the casino owners... giving some payouts to people to have them keep coming in, but consuming people's time in the process... it is addictive, and even now in the back of my mind, I'm thinking will this article may get a few thousand dollars... even after only getting 50% in Steem Dollars, converting those to Steem, converting that to Bitcoin, and then that to fiat US Dollars. Even if I don't make a cent, I had fun researching and writing this article, and would love to see some comments... I hope the bots don't just flush this one down the "Black Hole"

I still have more questions than answers, like is this really decentralized with the whales having so much steam power?  And having it tied to Facebook or Reddit?  Is it just a lure for anarchists that don't use facebook to come out and put all their details on the block chain... just another Zuckerberg CIA/NSA information self reporting system?

And at the end of the day, what has Steemit produced in the world?  There are many problems that need to be solved, people both needing the work done, and others willing to work... will this system just tie up both sides and have them writing useless blog articles in hopes of making a quick buck?  We really need a dedicated crypto work site to match up the people that need work done with the people that can do the work.

Please feel free to point out where I am wrong, anything that I am missing, or add your comments.

Thanks for reading!