RE: Ponzi, Pyramids and Cryptos, OH MY!
I think that Steem targets an audience outside of cryptocurrency, and for this reason, I don't think it is a Ponzi scheme. No one is trying to sell this as a product, it is simply a social media platform that rewards you for joining in.
It is true that If you invest more you can earn more. But in saying that, you can start with nothing and if your content is good, you can still earn a lot.
The other thing about Steem is, there are a group of people who call them selfs the Steem cleaners, these people make it their job to find bad content or people exploiting the system, and then downvoting them.
Downvoting
If you get downvoted on this platform it can do a couple of things.
- Lower your reputation
- Make your posts disappear from the feed
- Cost you money.
I think with these things in place, It is hard to call Steem a Ponzi scheme as there are measures taken to ensure that it isn't that. This platform isn't making one person rich, rather it gives everyone the opportunity to earn money for content that they create.
The other thing about Steem is, it is inflationary. It works very much like a current form of Fiat well at least SBD does anyway. So with that, there isn't a finite worth of currency here, which sort of gives it more of a value, and should keep the price fairly even and stable.
Fun fact
Originally SBD (steem based dollars) was meant to be worth $1. However, the market did impact that, there has been talk amongst the witness's to force this $1 rule. I don't know if that will actually happen and personally, I think the price should be set by the market, considering the community is really what runs this platform.
I see what you are saying. There does seem to be a good amount of control in the quality of content on Steem. It’s interesting to me that the witnesses would want to tie the value of Steem two a fiat. Wouldn’t it just make sense for the market to dictate it?
Yes It would, Now one thing to note that it isn't the witness who created this, the creators of the Steem blockchain had said they wanted one SBD to be worth $1, not the witness's, The witness's just make sure it runs efficiently and to do changes to the blockchain with a majority consensus vote. I agree that the market should set the price.
The other thing to note is, You don't have to invest any of your money in Steem at all in order to earn money. So with that how can it be a ponzi scheme?
Yep, this is the key point. Steemit actually lets you create something of value from nothing at all. That is proof enough that this is not a ponzi scheme for me.
My account actually holds value and using Steem I have been able to build a reasonably diverse crypto portfolio. And this was done by simply writing a few (well many) blog posts.