Good day STEEMers ..
Just food for thought .. in suggesting this I may be missing something OBVIOUS, but I'm NEW, ok!? Seeing things from a new users perspective is important, if there are to be design changes meant to make it easier for newcomers to fully-participate.
Here I am trying to wrap my head around STEEM, STEEM Dollars, STEEM Power, Powering down, Powering up, while watching the value of STEEM and STEEMDollars on Bittrex - STEEM is looking good of course, Dollahs not-so-much. My uneducated conclusion is that this is too complicated, and has a terrible feeling of very limiting artificiality to it, which I fear will substantially jeopradize wide-adoption. Of course, these things are designed to promote sustainability and control behavior, as all such-things are in the crypto-space; perhaps there is a way to simplify this 'and' make the value in the system 'real', while better achieving sustainability and growth?
Can we get rid of STEEM Dollars?
Why would we want to!? .. only because they have no value in the external marketplace, and add a level of unnecessary complexity which is always a turn off for soccer moms and wrestling fans. :-)
There really has to be more incentive, or rather absolute necessity, for people to bring real $$ into the system. Rewarding people with a little boost in "Power" when they do is fine, but not so much as to dilute real value. So people use 'real' money in the form of BTC, which they then use to buy and bring-in STEEM.
Bring STEEM in, directly to STEEM POWER, and use this for posting, voting and 'interest' earning. When you want to GET PAID! (cash out), move whatever amount of Power you wish to a STEEMOut wallet (at 1:1), and begin the power down period to cash-out over-time into an increasingly healthy marketplace. If there is enough growth, which I believe this would bolster, then it should be a win .. win .... hell, add another .. WIN!
People may ask, but where does that interest come from? Directly from the distribution of micro-posting fees, lost bets, and perhaps from mining (a portion of block rewards distributed to all, proportionally) .. mmm ..thinking about this while I'm typing ... yes yes I know, you can tell .. :-)
The more you have banked (STEEMPower), the more you receive in 'interest', incentivizing the 'holding' of increasing amounts of STEEM, which will help boost/maintain STEEM price in the marketplace. The extended "powering down period" also makes sense in this respect, boosting sustainability by slowing-down those who wish to exit.
Only through maximum, well-received participation can one gain / earn more than they brought in - hopefully MUCH more. Rewards for upvotes, giving some STEEM and getting 'a little' more in return when you 'bet' correctly on (soon to be) popular posts, makes sense - this is work done to improve the quality of the system. If you bet incorrectly, or systematically support nothing but mindless crap, you lose that 'deflated' portion of your bet (something I believe is already in-place?). It should also cost some STEEM to post (but not to reply), the STEEM from which is distributed to all, proportional to the STEEM Power held.
If your participation is not well-received you will lose, over time, but I believe people would buy-in regardless, in order to support their favorite contributors, and will also use the platform for their own personal reasons. There will be much more to offer, over time, even when not earning big $$ from posts - we see many great ideas being mentioned - planned development by STEEMers for STEEMers, attracting EVEN MORE STEEMers!
Of course, those who start out losing can keep on trying to develop quality material .. keep firing away at it .. hell, everyone deserves to have at least one MAKEUP DEMO-level success!!
Cheers!