One thing I’m fascinated by is value creation. More specifically, how value creation weaves into the fabric of the Steem ecosystem.
I think we can all agree that earning money and gaining wealth are largely dependent upon how much value you can provide to the world - if you make money as an electrical engineer, your value proposition is to help people with their electrical problems.
If you make money as barista, your value proposition is to help people get their caffeine fix. If you make money as an uber driver, then your value proposition is to help people get from A to B.
If however, your desired job is to make money on the Steem blockchain, then what is your value proposition to the world? Is it good content? Is it the creation of a Dapp like Steem Monsters? Is it development on the blockchain itself?
I think creating a Dapp or otherwise developing on the blockchain has a very clear value proposition - you’re building a Dapp that will provide people with some sort of entertainment (like how Steem Monsters provides people with entertainment) or some other form of value.
If you’re developing on the blockchain, then you’re literally responsible for the blockchain operating smoothly, inventing new features, bug fixes, etc.
It’s the creating content and looking for wages that’s the tricky part.
What value are you adding exactly? You could say entertainment, but we’ve all seen that being super entertaining isn’t necessarily going to lead to a big pay day on the Steem blockchain.
You could say sharing advice, knowledge, etc. is your value prop, but then again, we’ve all seen first hand that sharing knowledge isn’t always going to lead to a big pay day - no matter how knowledgable you are.
So you see, good content is only a part of the Steem equation. If you want to make a living on the blockchain, you can’t simply make posts and hope that the whales will recognize you and throw money your way.
You have to take some other forms of action in addition to your content. At least, this is how the blockchain operates right now.
The Future of Content on the Blockchain
I still see a huge market opportunity for content on the blockchain, but I see it as being incredibly profitable in the future. Right now, people profiting on the blockchain will be whales, developers, investors, etc. Content creators are at the bottom of the earning curve.
When hive mind and SMTs and similar features come out for the Steem blockchain, I see a much greater opportunity for making money as a content creator, here’s why:
In it’s current state, there is little incentive for anyone else to upvote your content. Now, there are of course some outliers and manual curators who, out of the good of their heart, wish to upvote other great content on the blockchain.
BUT you’re kind of playing the lottery if you’re hoping that some fantastic manual curator will begin to pick up your posts and start upvoting you regularly.
With such little incentive to upvote others (curators are averaging less than a 20% return on the value of their upvotes), there is little external voting going on. And thus, people who don’t invest in the blockchain have trouble making a profit as a standalone content creator.
I definitely think that the Steemit, inc. team is not only aware of this, but they are actively trying to come up with a good solution for it.
I would imagine that they think a mixture of SMTs, hive mind and communities (and possibly 1A1V) are the keys to our multi-million dollar problem. This at least is the “vibe” if you will, that I get when I read the update posts on the steemitblog.
I tend to agree with them. These features - IF implemented properly - will likely evolve into something that is beneficial for everyone looking for an opportunity to make money on the blockchain, whether you’re a content creator, a content curator, a developer, an entrepreneur and so on.
