Stake holders v stakeholders and what happens when the Steem stops printing

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Steem 1% and how poor the middle-class spread is but there is something else I was thinking about when I wrote the first sentence which I don't think most people would pick up on immediately.

...about what I see is of supreme importance, building a middle class of Stake holders.

I found it interesting the way I wrote it because that is correct for Steem in the case I was using it for but, isn't correct in normal usage. The word stakeholder without a space has overlap, but is something a little different.

A stakeholder is:
a person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business.
denoting a type of organization or system in which all the members or participants are seen as having an interest in its success.
modifier noun: stakeholder
"a stakeholder economy"

At the end of the definition in quotation marks is an example suggestion of "a stakeholder economy" which is defined as:

An economic situation in which everyone is affected and concerned with its success

Now, do you see where this is leading? Most likely and this is the overlap because a stakeholder here is not necessarily a Stake holder here or, more accurately going on the figures I reported, not much of a stake holder here.

Holding Stake in Steem (in my opinion) is more than just owning Steem,it is having it powered up as it is a Stake on the pool which is essentially a pin in a piece of the pool that say, this is mine. Someone with 1000 SP has 10x more stake than someone with 100 SP and 100 times less than someone with 100,000 SP. No matter the amount, they are all Stake Holders and Stakeholders as they are interested in the outcomes of the Steem platform. These people are invested and in another business, would be considered more shareholders.

However, Stakeholders include everyone here even if one doesn't believe in the system or cares what happens to it as there is more at stake than just the economy and, future potential is also included in that value. No matter if one believes in the platform, they may still benefit (or be harmed) by how it performs.

For a real world illustration, a mining companies pollution run-off into a river is going to affect everyone upon that river, no matter if they have shares in the company or any say over what that company does at all. For another example, my daughter is a stakeholder in my business because how it performs is going to directly effect the opportunities she has in her life.

How I see it though on Steem is that we are all invested in some way for this platform to perform well, otherwise we wouldn't be here. We may want monetary value out of it or, we might want a place where we can anonymously express ourselves without fear of censorship but, we all have a stake, we all have a pin in something, even if it is not the pool directly.

Of course, the Stake holders who do have a access to the pool are further tethered to the outcomes of the platform as there is direct value to be gained, lost or wielded through upvotes and flags. Ho the stake is wielded has an affect on all stakeholders but, not all stakeholders can have an affect on how one wields it. As they say, it is your stake, do with it as you choose. All stakeholders can voice their opinion but, it doesn't necessarily mean it has influence.

Holding stake is having influence, it is having the ability to choose how and where that piece of the pool is used and, who it is used upon. If everyone just uses it on themselves, the platform dies, if people only use it on extractors, the value will remain low through continual selling but, if everyone holds, it doesn't get the distribution it needs to spread. There are obviously many other combinations and factors too.

There are some complex issues in this economy to get it all to work where stake holders and stakeholders can benefit. Factoring in the future detriment caused by failure, we should all be pushing for success in the ways we think best. And what we think may not be best.

What is going to drive prices of anything though is scarcity of a resource that holds value. When that comes to coins, the largest gains will be made when all the coins are distributed. If I remember correctly, there are about 17/21 million bitcoin mined. What happens when they are all mined?

I was thinking about this last night and asked someone in chat but they didn't know for sure. Steem is mined from a limited pool each day through posting and upvoting, witness as well as interest earning but, that pool is limited not only each day, in total. The current pool is increasing slightly but ina few years will start decreasing at an accelerating rate until sometime around 2038, there will be no more available. Yes, that is a long way away.

My question is, what then? with no more in the pool, what good is holding SP. I am hoping that someone can actually answer this accurately for me but as far as I can tell SBD doesn't have a production ceiling which means, that when the pool is dry, 50/50 is no longer possible, it will be 100% paid in SBD.

The pool drying up also has another implication as the only way to earn SBD is by having powered up Steem which then means, the only way to Power Up Steem is, to buy-in from the exchanges. In my basic thinking ability in this area, this should put pressure on Steem as it is a coin that can earn other coins without selling. Factor in all of the airdrops that the various SMTs will deliver and the potential of that earning is not just limited to the ability to generate SBDs, it is also going to mean that the SMTs that are successful will also drive their own prices up whilst also driving Steem price.

I want to mention again, this is really not my area so would love to learn more about how this works from someone who does actually understand this. It is all very complex and hard to get a grip on.

However as Stake holders and stakeholders, it is in all our best interest to think where all of this leads in the long run. I estimate the average age of this platform to be early 20s which means 2038 they will be early 40s. They potentially have the ability to do a little bit of work here, have fun, learn, engage and be a real part of the community and if they power up, almost guarantee not only early retirement but residual incomes by continuing to be a part of a community that they have been a part of for 20 years. If powered up.

That is a pretty damn good opportunity considering it will come added benefits of being decentralized and something that might become very, very important in the future for many, the ability to move. This is a revenue stream that doesn't need to be run from anywhere in particular. That is another post though.

This is already much much longer and offtrack than I had intended however this is how I am able to get my head around things, by thinking some parts through and finding the holes that the community could answer.

So, to repeat the core questions:

• What happens when Steem stops printing
• Does SBD become the only way to earn
• How much is potentially at stake for you

We are all stakeholders, many are also stake holders. 20 years from now, it is likely that those who hold both positions are in a very strong financial position, no matter where they are today.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]