RE: Embracing Linear Equality on Steem: Unlearning the Sucker & Maximising the Arsehole in Me
that's deteriorating our investment
I mostly don't buy this part. There was a theory that voter-allocated rewards would help grow the investment, and despite its imperfection we can't prove that it hasn't. After, there are many users here, the market cap of Steem is within a factor of 2 of all-time-high (which is pretty close in crypto volatility terms).
However, even if that theory turns out to be false, it doesn't follow that not distributing rewards (instead reclaiming them) will actually deteriorate the investment. There are other paths to growth and even just having a very functional blockchain (no direct transaction fees, 3 second confirmation, etc.) is already worth a lot. How is this not a very competitive offering in the blockchain market, even if all the reward stuff were completely removed?
Yes, this is just a hard disagreement
No way to know how well or poorly Steem would have done with less imperfections to make a point of comparison
And while I suppose it's not unreasonable to think a fast, inflation based blockchain may do well as a pure currency, I think Steem's competitive edge and ultimate value lies in its ability to attract user numbers through its social media interface. A lot of stuff you can say either way on this matter, but in the end, our gut instincts just don't converge here.
STEEM is only minimally inflationary long term. The planned inflation rate at 20+ years is 0.9%. While the inflation is nominally supposed to be used to reward users at this point, it could also be viewed as an initial distribution phase (with inflation declining by 1% per year) not unlike Bitcoin's halving schedule.
But can it do that? So far this has not been shown to actually work...
I'm not really a strong partisan on the matter at this point, more being open to different approaches. Let's say the voting-based social rewards just doesn't work out, then what? Curl up and die, or pursue other paths to growth and success?
Anyway, I'm certainly interested in your ideas and others' ideas how to improve the effectiveness of voted rewards. It is just the part about it being a definite choice of that or a deteriorated/failing investment that I don't necessarily accept.