RE: Trying to Get Beyond Monetary Rewards
Thanks! I'm still brainstorming, formulating and clarifying.
I think PATIENCE is key. Gradual organic growth. It's tempting to go after "the numbers" and start to indiscriminately recruit from Facebook and Twitter and Instagram... but the mass market is (a) not a good model (b) very fickle and (c) not really money makers in a "per user" sense. Let's face it, twitter is 11 years old and they are STILL trying to figure out how to make money.
I won't get into details YET, but I think there's great potential in "fee services" being attached to the Steemit umbrella, be it a crypto-based crowdfunding platform, or a crypto-based peer-to-peer marketplace in eBay/Etsy style, back when those were cool. We have a huge advantage in the decentralization... we can charge way less for the same thing, because there's not a staff of 2000 and a fancy office campus to pay for.
Let's say (just ONE example) I put my art on the peer-to-peer market (Let's call it "SteemBay" because I'm tired and have no imagination left) and offer it for STEEM to buyers. Let's say I sell it for 1000 Steem... buyer pays 1000, I get 980, Steemit, Inc gets 20 which goes into the "bucket" that replenishes payments to contributors through the social site. It's all just another transaction on the blockchain; just another form of "mining," if you will. I'm thrilled as a seller, because I'd have to pay eBay 10% or more, PLUS 3% to PayPal or a credit card processor. Buyer is thrilled because they can buy and pay from ANY location on the planet without currency restrictions or fees, and they can even "trade" their content creation efforts for art, all under one umbrella. eBay enables over $250BN in commerce (10x the total market cap of ALL alt coins combined!) per YEAR... we can nab a little slice of that, under the slogan "Towards the NEW 21st Century Economy!"
Basically, cherry pick the best of other social sites, adapt them for this platform... and make Steemit what people LIKE about other social sites, but without the interference, censorship, high cost and whatever.
That is a great idea!
It's seemed rather tough to make more use of the actual currency for things. Honestly, I was rather surprised at first to not have seen an embedded item listing come up for people selling items on peerhub for SDB to put into their posts here. (I understand the why a bit better now, I think. Lol)
It's a very compelling pitch for that use case with everything you included in here. I think the only things that we'd need for this would be a 'seller reputation system' (that's independent from our blog reputation) and them just some process for when to disperse payments (unless the escrow functionality came around and I forgot.)
I guess an additional bonus on this would be on the tax side of things too...at least up front. (I'm sure the tax collectors would take notice if large transactions were taking place.)
Thanks! I have a wad of notes sitting on my desk now with ideas, as they come up-- I will be developing the "bones" of this one for a while, in hopes of creating a meaningful post that-- hopefully-- "the powers that be" might read and think "we could DO this. It has value."
In my short tenure here I have come to see the potential of Steemit... but it needs to deliver real world applications to truly grow into something of widespread interest to the general population. That means developing and implementing "features" that real people can use.
To echo your sentiments elsewhere, I am also encouraged by early adopters and influencers like @abit reading and interacting with these kinds of discussions around the site... makes me feel that there is broad community interest in building a long-term future for Steemit.