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RE: Everyone seems to be making money, can Steemit survive long term?
Think of Steem Power as shares of a company like Facebook. You can either keep the shares of an early stage Facebook or sell the shares for dollars. Right now the market capitalization of Steemit is $200+ million so it allocates about 10% or $20 million in value to contributors every year or roughly $55,000 a day. Note: Of course Steemit is not guaranteed to be the next Facebook which currently has a value of $360 billion or 1,800X the value of Steemit right now. It can be another Myspace and flounder. That's the risk and reward. You just have to decide. But if Steemit does grow to be the size of Facebook why would you want to sell out so early? And even if people did sell out investors that believed in Steemit would happily buy in.
The problem people have with thinking of it a shares is that companies are expected to one day pay dividends to their investors. Steem Power never pays dividends, it just mostly protects you from the huge dilution rate of Steem and provides you with perks within the system.
Since companies are expected to pay dividends eventually, people ask 'can it be profitable?'. While there are many ways for an individual to profit within Steem, the 'entity' that is the Steem system itself will never make profit. Instead it is an asset with an upkeep cost, paid for by investors via dilution.
Most people have no problem with assets that have an upkeep cost. Cars are the most obvious example, they depreciate very rapidly in value, cost fuel, insurance, tax to own, yet most people own them anyway. But the formally collectively owned model of Steem is something new and unique. It remains to be seen how people will value the benefits of ownership in this new social and economic network, and if it's enough to replace the prospect of dividends for investors.
Sure I understand the concern and blockchain ecosystems are not a traditional companies so all this is new. Most companies validate their value from revenue/earnings and ultimately dividends. However it is not necessary for a company to validate it's value using dividends. It's the potential dividends that are important. Ultimately I assume companies will buy Steem to get exposure and reward consumers as a form of advertisement. Another example is real estate. Yes real estate is valuable because of it's potential dividends, but a lot of real estate does not cash flow. Bitcoin & Gold are other examples of commodity/assets that are useful and scarce, but don't have dividends. Steem Power are shares of an ecosystem that is not only a content-based & advertising asset, it's also similar to Bitcoin as a money/payments rail because of Steem Dollars.