RE: Proposal for New 'Promoted' Function
I think this is a great suggestion.
In my opinion, intermixing promoted content into feeds is the killer app that will make Steem worth thousands. It's the killer app at the heart of Google & Facebook's revenue. At the same time, this suggestions makes strides toward improving some of the other things it Steem ecosystem that may alienate newer users.
With a committed, dedicated user base and the ability to target posts (advertising) toward specific users or types of users the sky is the limit. What is the market cap of Google? What is the market cap of Facebook? What is the market cap of Steem?
Successful implementation of this proposal would make great strides toward narrowing the gap (and it does not require hard forks, as it's all in the UI display algorithms on Steemit, eSteem, and other platforms).
Wow! Thank you for the strong vote of confidence on my proposal! I do have the exact same thought on the matter. I feel like thus far, the Steemit developers have been focusing on deriving profit and value from the the increased price of the Steem token as is.
But having an additional revenue stream which can then provide additional growth for Steemit all while solving an intrinsic issue facing Steemit as a whole could be huge. Not to mention, like you said, it is not just any revenue stream.. It is the revenue stream that has brought google and facebook billions. I
I do not see why an adaption of a proven platform would massively benefit Steemit as well.
While i 100% agree with the idea and concept behind it, I would argue that it is against the idea of steemit and there are better ways to achieve similar goals. steemit's idea is to be decentralized and allow people to do what they wish, even if it is at their detriment, such as creating upvote bots. if the steemit dev team is collecting internal ad money, then they will feel they are getting richer on our money. They are a particular group of individuals who might feel guilty accepting this money since it centralizes power into their hands.
The communities features is something that is a much better way of allowing curating to occur in specific fields and not violate the idea of centralizing fees.
Outside of that, i think what you are suggesting is exactly a current real world model that works. And as much as people say steemit is a social media environment, it is actually more of a economic environment, which is why i think your idea will 100% work.