I've seen it first hand with a lot of different sites. At first it's great, then not so much.

They always seem to find a way to ruin a good thing.

For instance, the person who had the most trending post in all categories here today paid to have his post upvoted to around $1000, revealed by a bot in the comments. Clearly abusive, and someone even called it out. It wasn't the worst post but it certainly wasn't $1000 worth. But why even? They didn't really have anything to promote, just for what, popularity? I don't get it.

I shudder to think just how lopsided it could really be if corporations caught on. Like getting a receipt from tacobell and seeing a little ghost on it saying "follow us on snapchat!" And that's not to mention how every damn thing ever has a "like us on facebook" tag somewhere somehow. Like down to city hall here even and kohl's and the gas station. Really? Do people really like these things on facebook? I guess maybe.

Now take it even further and imagine if steemit became mainstreamed in that way, and you had people like Taylor Swift, The Kardashians, or any other empty headed ego show parading on here with their infinite flocks following in droves. It could happen. The whales of today would become microscopic nobodies. Or maybe it won't happen. I guess that's the interesting part, the not knowing what could happen. The promise of a possible opportunity. Seeing social medias in the beginning when they are fresh and cool and open is exciting (not too mention great for spreading music, the old myspace was incredibly great for that until facebook sterilized it). Seeing them become throttled out paywalls and thrones for the hot, trending, and usually manufactured flavor of the minute culture is quite the opposite. And in most cases, if they weren't grandfathered in from an earlier era they paid a lot of money to look like they are relevant. And people buy it. Like the guy with the $1000 post times 1000.

I like to personally think that chaos rules and anything can happen, but I read an interesting article not that long ago that stated that the internet itself works because.... people are predictable.

Ok losing my train of thought a bit, it's late. Catch up with you soon.
-J