It was a good night tonight, I watched a movie with some friends from chat. I can't actually remember the last time I have watched a movie and that was the first time I have ever watched one with a group of people I have never met over the internet. It was kind of cool and a lot of fun. Except, they didn't know it was me.
It has been a pretty quiet day as far as comments have gone on my posts which happens from time to time and I have to apologize to 
I found this interesting, the 7 day volume of Drug Wars is almost double that of Steemmonsters and has about the same number of daily users. Of course, Steem monsters doesn't sell cards at the same rate every day and things but, it is pretty incredible considering that Drug Wars is less than a week old.
https://www.stateofthedapps.com/rankings
It is also interesting that 6 out of the top 10 top Dapps on State of the Dapps are Steem applications. I have no idea why this community isn't getting more attention than it is when you look at the actual numbers and, where those numbers are coming from as blogging is still dominating on Steem while EOS seems very "dice game" heavy.
It doesn't really matter though as there are going to be so many different chains in the coming years that most won't even know what they are using anymore. When it comes to the tokens associated, it is going to come down to usage which have value and in my opinion, a coin backed by a community will offer more value than one that has a narrow use case. I think that Steem has a lot of potential because while the community can be very diverse in topic and the chain can be utilized in many different ways to serve and manage content, the coin transfers across them all seamlessly.
This is what is a massive strength as it means that no matter what ones entry point into the ecosystem is, a person can move and change as their own tastes and interests change and, that can happen while keeping a wallet and follower base connected. People don't think too far ahead in most cases but someone who might play a game to earn Steem now might have vastly different interests a few short years from now. In the normal world of internet, time invested into a community doesn't ravel well across platforms and very rarely can be leveraged in other ways. I was an avid gamer but, it didn't help me build a business or get a job.
On Steem this is different a person can grow, evolve and the platform can adapt with them, as they also adapt with the platform. 
Through content creation combined with engagement with the community, it is possible to keep expanding knowledge, skill and increases the likelihood of staying fresh. Too many people get trapped into their box, myself included. Narrow topics, interest areas confined, preferred medium only and eventually, stagnancy and stale content that no one is willing to spend their attention on. Our personal evolution, our journey through life is driven by attempting new and even in failure, the value of lessons learned far outweigh the loss if utilized well.
Again, Steem is a long-haul investment vehicle and the people who are here now are going to change drastically in the years to come as life conditions change, people get older, change jobs, have kids, retire, lose loved ones, get married and for many, likely become much wealthier than they currently are. As life shifts, the way they utilize the Steem blockchain will shift too, as will their tastes in content and who they are willing to support.
We worry about the future here which is of course good to do in regards to the technology and its ability to serve and scale but, all the community has to do to be successful is act as a community. This isn't about agreeing with each other, it is about having the discussion, leaving comments as well as laughing and crying together. But it goes beyond that too. It is about connecting the blockchain to the tangible world, the real lives we live each day in as many ways as we can. Community is about our ability to affect each other and while some might be negative, the evolution will generally trend toward the positive.
Don't you feel the changes already? The minute shifts in attitudes and content, the types of initiatives that are growing, the way people are talking about the future? The Steem blockchain is evolving and it is slowly growing outward to be able to provide for more and more people. This isn't just about the earning potential, it is the value in the connection between people and when people comment how they have had people reach out to them and support them on Steem i ways that not even their friends in the real world have, this is important.
It isn't just Steem, we are evolving, we are growing and one day the egos of the past and the ongoing arguments will fall into irrelevancy as people change with the system and the system changes with the people. As I see it, Steem has the potential to track our interactions without it actually encroaching on our behaviors. It can just flow beneath us recording and distributing while we go about our days doing what we do, having our discussions, playing our games, selling our products.
While the witnesses protect the chain, the chain witnesses us and in so doing, pulls us together into a common thread, ties our lives forever and immutably into a digital world that is going to increasingly spill out onto the pavements we actually walk. The more the chain flows below and the more we find ways to use it, the more integrated it becomes in our lives and the real life events that change our behaviors on the chain, will also be driven from events catalyzed from interactions on Steem.
On steem people will find new jobs, new interests, new friends, new revenue streams and of course in time, people will fall in love, no just with the Steem blockchain, but each other. One day, there will be a generation of Steemians coming through who were born free and, born with a Steem owner key awaiting them.
With each generation we improve and Steem is the part of the next step in our communicational evolution.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]