The digital evolution of ownership

@theycallmedan asked in a post:

What would you do today if you knew steem was going back to ATH?

I know that a lot of people have very little faith that Steem will ever return to anywhere near the highs that it once was, but I obviously believe that it can and not only that, it will surpass those highs. If I didn't think it would, why would I keep powering up earnings?

Why I think that Steem is going to do well is that it links activity to ownership in a digital world. Pretty simple, isn't it? We are increasingly looking at a world where the costs of ownership of traditional assets is becoming more out of reach for the average person, and even more so for the younger generations yet, ownership is something that is hardwired into us for security, or at least the sense of it. A house, a car, a tool... On top of this, we are status-driven, social animals and ownership feeds social function.

Agree or disagree whether this is a good thing or not, but I would predict that whether you have a little or a lot, you have an attachment to what you own and have a sense to nurture, grow and protect it. It is also highly possible that what you own and value, you could over-value and believe it holds more worth than it actually does, because it is yours.

In a world of weakening job opportunities due to automation and therefore lowering earning potentials on average to earn, the cost of owning those traditional items like the houses and cars is going to get much too high, but that sense of wanting to own will remain. With more and more value being pushed to a narrower few and nearly all asset classes being concentrated in fewer hands, new assets classes need to form.

This is where I see digital assets coming into their own with blockchains to mark, verify and trade ownership backward and forward. Not only that, they will be able to be created, earned and spent without having to engage in the race of the traditional economies, so those who have no chance to buy a house, can have opportunity to work, earn and own digital real estate, houses and artefacts that could eventually have as much importance to people as a house or car. They could also hold a much greater amount of significance when it comes to social status.

It has started well before crypto though where people have continually turned to online entertainment, socialization and the building of digital lives through blogs, feeds, photos and playlists. I think that part of the reason people are so emotional online is that they can feel that their real estate is being attacked. What has happened is that people have extended themselves into the digital realm and feel that they own their space.

This is also going to play into the reformulation of the centralized models as they are increasingly proving to the "new owners" that on their platforms, they are not owners at all, they are subjects. At some point, people are going to be looking for their place to own and they are not going to find it in the tradition arenas, because to own there, another has to lose and only a very small fraction of people are holding. Remember that the 8 richest people on earth hold as much wealth as the bottom 50%, and none want to give up ownership of what they have worked so hard to obtain.

So the next expansion of asset class has to be something that doesn't encroach on the physical asset classes that are already owned, but still can hold value through demand and scarcity. There is a reason that Bitcoin is called by some as Gold 2.0, because it holds attributes similar, without having to take away from what already exists. The demand factor is what is going to separate the wheat from the chaff.

What we are currently creating is an asset class that ties social action and interaction to earning, owning and goods and services. It is far from perfect, but it is also very early in the development process and industry lifecycle, yet we are witnessing how the sense of ownership of an asset that many people who use it think is worthless, can generate so much emotional reaction from those who have it, those who want it, those who sold it. The good, the bad and ugly of ownership can all be seen here.

It is because of the decreasing potential to own in the real world that I believe that digital assets will keep increasing their traction, and I think that Steem will benefit heavily because it is able to leverage the social identity ownership already developed on other traditional platforms, and marry it to tokenized ownership. It won't be the only one to do this of course, but Apple is not the only phone and BMW is not the only car with market share.

As demand for ownership increases and the paradigm shift moves away from traditional asset classes, value of various kinds will start to stream into where the attention has moved, and that includes the traditional asset class value also. How @theycallmedan has visualized this is "be where the ball is going to be" and this is where I think Steem is now. Bring in SMTs and ownership and management of communities and there can be a massive amount of movement of emotional ownership value onto blockchained experiences that ride Steem.

When we generally talk about ownership, we think the most important part is the monetary value of it, but the emotional value of ownership over our experience is what compels us to keep going, to working, to trying and coming back for more. Just like any asset, some are better at handling their value than others and this includes those who can detach their emotional response to things like criticism over what one believes holds value.

So, while my answer to Dan's question is to keep doing what I do daily and powering up, I have a question of my own.

How would you feel if all of your feeds on twitter, the videos you uploaded to YouTube, your blog on WordPress, your Instagram and every other digital content you have created was suddenly taken over by someone else who posted as you, chose the words that you would say to all of your audiences and be your voice?

Would you feel hacked, violated and like your home had been broken into?

ATH or not, there is value in owning experience.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]