So I've been on this site for a while now, and I'm definitely having a lot of fun. But I can't for the life of me understand how the economics of Steemit works! It seems as though STEEM is being handed out for free, which should definitely drive the price down to zero very quickly.
The origin of most of my confusion is the Steemsports "betting" platform. To be more specific, my problem is the following:
It seems as though by participating/voting in one of Steemsports' posts, you obtain STEEM for free.
These posts are basically generating more and more STEEM, and giving it to users who haven't done anything to "earn" it (e.g. mining it or blogging on the platform). All you have to do is mindlessly upvote and choose a random team, and you're statistically guaranteed to earn STEEM!
Thus, these posts should just drive the price of STEEM lower and lower, and should be discouraged by Steemit, shouldn't they?
Does anyone disagree? Can anyone explain why Steemsports is so well-accepted?