A problem faced by the millennial generation is the problem of being cash poor knowledge rich. We know more than any generation ever before but then instead of using our knowledge to build a higher quality of life, a sustainable self sufficient cash independent lifestyle, instead many millennials would rather use their knowledge to dis-empower other millennials rather than to empower millennials.

Compare Steem to Facebook and the philosophy of the Steem developers to the philosophy of Facebook. Steem empowers us and so we get rewarded for what we contribute. Facebook on the other hand pretends to be free while monetizing us to sell our data to advertisers. It's data which rightfully should belong to us, and it's content which we create that gives Facebook it's market value.

It goes to prove that data is a commodity but more importantly it's the process of turning data into knowledge which creates value. It's not enough to just collect some data but it's also necessary to apply algorithms to deduce meaning and useful knowledge from it. ()

Perhaps the best thing you can do to empower yourself is to use Steem. Instead of letting Facebook or another company monetize you and sell you to advertisers maybe you should monetize the aspects of yourself you feel comfortable monetizing and sell yourself directly to the world. The same algorithms which Facebook is applying to create knowledge from our data can also be applied by ourselves to create self knowledge.