I've been thinking recently about how Steemit will succeed or fail as a platform, and I think there are two interlocking obstacles to conquer: the pyramid effect and the tragedy of the commons. I'm planning on talking more about what I mean by the pyramid effect and what we can do about it later, but at the moment, I want to talk about the tragedy of the commons.
For anyone who hasn't heard about it yet, the tragedy of the commons is a thought experiment/metaphor that helps people understand why shared resources are over-exploited to the point of destruction. Basically, imagine a village with a shared field where everyone keeps their sheep. For any individual, it makes the most sense to use the field as much as possible. Their greatest benefit is in getting as much value for themselves as possible, so they keep getting more sheep and keeping them on the commons. The problem is that the commons, like any environment, isn't infinite. It can't support more and more and more sheep, so the quality degrades until it's no use to anyone.
Depressing! Here's a pretty picture:
Okay, so what does that have to do with Steemit? Much like the commons, it makes sense for every individual user to try and get as much Steem as possible. That means that a shorter post that gets X likes makes more sense than a longer one that also gets X likes. It means that it doesn't make economic sense to upvote other people except as alliance-building, since that takes away from the Steem you might earn. Unfortunately, it becomes something of a zero-sum game. And if we view it as a zero-sum game, we become locked in a spiral where value goes down and down and down for everyone.
Now the important part: How do we avoid getting locked in this spiral? I think there are two parts to the solution. First of all, we need to look at this collaboratively. We need to realize that in the long term, trying to keep the commons for ourselves (a.k.a. hoarding value and not encouraging others) is bad for absolutely everyone, and we need to life other Steemers up to lift ourselves up.
Part two: We need to grow the commons. More about how to do that later.
Cheers everyone! Keep on being awesome.