Scarcity and the commodification of talent

Gold, oil, Steem. Limited resources and the greater the demand pressure on them, the higher the price. If any of them were were found in abundance, their price will be close to zero. The diamond market is of such that the supply is restricted by companies like De Beers to create engineered scarcity to make a diamond ring appear valuable. If they release their complete holdings, it is likely they will be little more valuable than their utility demands.

Nearly all things deemed scarce are asymmetrically overpriced, whether it be the paintings of a famous artist or the ivory tusks of an elephant, the impression of 'limited supply' pushes willingness to pay upward. People will hunt an animal to extinction because the scarcer it gets, the more people want it. Quite ridiculous really.

I put skill into this category and, I put it into the endangered category. Although not critically endangered yet, society's push for a continual dumbing down of abilities and ramping up of consumerism means the pool is shrinking.

There are many reasons for this from the increase in competitive cognitive artifacts introduced and marketed heavily, to the desire for leisure and entertainment activities over the action of work. But, in this there is opportunity to be gained, as there always is with a shrinking pool. Those that are pushing to increase skills as others are diminishing will be in high demand as long as the skills they develop have utility in the future.

When it comes to skillsets for future employment and revenue stream activities, if not useful nor value adding, it will have very low demand unless one is highly specialised, very talented and can attract a dedicated niche market. The low-talent, high demand skills will have flash in the pan success, like Yo-Yos or Tamagochis.

Many of the first users here who now enjoy high support will also somewhat struggle in the future as those with much higher talents come onto the platform in various fields. We can already see this happening to some extent as the ecosystem changes. If they have sold their stake instead of buying Steem Power expecting that the support will always be there, they are going to find the future tough and likely, emotionally rough.

The reason is that even those with stake or who can buy-in are going to be attracted to support those with talent or mainstream potential and audience pull which means, they will slowly remove their support from those without. It is human nature to a large degree, support what the masses support. Listen to Justin Bieber and you will witness this.

It isn't that there won't be space for many, but definitely not much for untalented or ubiquitous content. Scarcity of talent requires skills higher than those surrounding and even slight differences matter. There are many, many good football players in the world, not many of them will earn millions, play in a World Cup match or in a champions league. Is this what is best for the platform in the long-run, for the price of Steem, yes.

What I am hoping however is that the highly supported will not be so because of their fame like Justin Bieber, they will be supported because of their talent. But, my secondary hope is that people from a very wide and diverse set of talents and levels have the ability to earn something, as long as they themselves are looking to increase their talent and support others doing the same.

At the moment, we are living largely in an attention economy where it is a 'Grab attention at any cost' mentality, even if what is placed in front of eyes is harmful for the long-term view of society. Perhaps if rather than paying attention to the attention grabbing content, people shifted their attention to the talented, yet less engineered contributors, the world would be a better place to occupy.

At Steem, we have a golden opportunity to develop a spiraling platform that creates a habitat for talent to develop and thrive and rather than be manipulated by the promoters on what is valuable, we can become sensitive again to our individual tastes. With diversity of individual interest and support, there may be less high peak earners but the spread will be much wider and at a greater depth.

If those with stake are looking long-term, they will support others looking long-term also by using their stake to develop users who are talented and looking to make this place a home, rather than those who use it as a cash cow to be milked. In the past, I used to think that the big, early users cashing out was a bad thing however I have changed over time.

The more those higher up the pecking order but devoid of community spirit sell their stake, the lower their future stake will be and the more opportunity for large smart investors and smaller users like myself will have to influence the system. The more this happens, the more decentralized Steem becomes and the more powerful the community is as a whole. This will also increase the overall reach of Steem and the potential for it to do localized good will attract more users to invest themselves in.

My goal besides increasing my own talent levels here and in real-life, is to build stake to have a voice and help others to find theirs. My way to build stake is through offering support in various ways and hoping that some long-term investors see the value and support me to push wider and further. Other people will hopefully use their skills and talents in diverse ways to support in a wide range of methods.

In the long-run, whether it be here with Steem or in the real-world, it will be the talented who offer utility of skillset that will likely be valuable to society and have the range and possibility to work, earn and help many more than just their localised circle. Those that are offering nothing more than entertainment value will slowly be throttled as what they offer will not be able to keep up with the changing trends and levels of competition, nor be deemed valuable enough to support as the market is overrun with the knockoffs willing to do it better for cheaper.

We all have the opportunity to improve at what we do and, we all have the opportunity to help others in some way. This does not mean that we all have the opportunity to be trending or consistently get high levels of support as no system can maintain it. There is a balance point somewhere though where the maximum amount of people get the maximum amount of opportunity. Finding it is the challenge.

One thing must remain consistent here in my opinion, the spreading of wealth cannot be done through charity and rules only, a significant amount of the wealth should be earned by talented users working for it by helping others build their talents. I think that as we move forward, we will see more talent both develop and come into the system and hopefully one day, there will be no question as to who is deserving of support, as it will be obvious by how much support they give.

One thing that I didn't mention when it comes to building skills. Yes, they can be leveraged as a commodity to earn with of course, but there is also a personal satisfaction and quality of life value associated with improving oneself and likely more so when that growth improves the experience of others as well.

There are so many pathways here. Experiment and find yours.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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