I think that Steem targets an audience outside of cryptocurrency, and for this reason, I don't think it is a Ponzi scheme. No one is trying to sell this as a product, it is simply a social media platform that rewards you for joining in.

It is true that If you invest more you can earn more. But in saying that, you can start with nothing and if your content is good, you can still earn a lot.

The other thing about Steem is, there are a group of people who call them selfs the Steem cleaners, these people make it their job to find bad content or people exploiting the system, and then downvoting them.

Downvoting

If you get downvoted on this platform it can do a couple of things.

• Lower your reputation
• Make your posts disappear from the feed
• Cost you money.

I think with these things in place, It is hard to call Steem a Ponzi scheme as there are measures taken to ensure that it isn't that. This platform isn't making one person rich, rather it gives everyone the opportunity to earn money for content that they create.

The other thing about Steem is, it is inflationary. It works very much like a current form of Fiat well at least SBD does anyway. So with that, there isn't a finite worth of currency here, which sort of gives it more of a value, and should keep the price fairly even and stable.

Fun fact

Originally SBD (steem based dollars) was meant to be worth $1. However, the market did impact that, there has been talk amongst the witness's to force this $1 rule. I don't know if that will actually happen and personally, I think the price should be set by the market, considering the community is really what runs this platform.