RE: What's a Valuable Steem User ? And how to retain a valuable user base on Steem ?
I have many mixed feelings about this post.
I think I understand where you're coming from and how you want those who create great things to be well supported by the community here, but I also hear a bit of the "Utopist" thinking you, said you're not doing. It's possibly I'm misunderstanding you (and also possible the language differences play a part in that), but it kind of seems like you have an entitlement mentality where everyone should have access to value regardless of what they contribute. To me, that simply does not work.
I have some more thoughts on that here and here. Expectations are powerful, and if we don't control them properly they can make us angry, sad, frustrated, etc.
I think @arcange is a fantastic person who can charge whatever he needs to in order to be motivated to provide the service he provides. Others may disagree and do something similar for cheaper. Or maybe it will just go away and people will use other options such as MongoDB. The point is, the markets will determine how to price things because no other system out there can without threats of force (i.e. government). I'm okay with that. I also think those who provide value should be rewarded. Those who just want to take value without providing anything, well, they are what I consider a moocher. They aren't helpful.
I think you're asking a lot of good questions and they seem to come down to a core question:
How do you define value itself?
Many people get confused by this. To me, financial value is determined in the moment of transaction. It's subjective. Just because SteemSQL was previously "free" doesn't mean it wasn't valued. People don't often pay for free things. I think SteemSQL is valuable and I, personally, will pay something to use it. I only run a half dozen queries a month currently, so I'd personally prefer to see a pay-per-use model. Or, at the very least, cut off the people who are over using it. Give everyone a unique login and those who are using it too much have to pay. The rest, well, they aren't the ones driving up the costs of the infrastructure.
Agreed!
The community should come together for things of value to the community. We don't even have to send money! Our voting power can help, same for the comment or the resteem.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Those people that put in their time here, regardless of payment, deserve the hats off for what they do. It's really the necessary mind set to be a long standing member in the steemit society.
The flip of this is that it's then up to this creator how much time and effort (and sometimes cost) on whether to continue. Like you said, the market/community decides the value. Sometimes even superior products can fall by the wayside for those that were simply first, adopted by larger users/businesses, or just a better UI. (I've not used the SQL products much myself, so I'm by no means stating a judgement between steemSQL or mango db here.)
Sorry for the babble. Lol
Tl;Dr
Yes, market sets the price... And the creator can choose to stop their service or product to focus on other things. Regardless of any luck or timing, we've still always got our choices to make. :-)