RE: Thoughts on Guarding the Reward Pool
Excellent observation, meno.
I've recently started sponsoring @o07's gif competitions for just this reason.
Many may consider it 'low value content', but it's an engaging way for regular people, who may not speak great English, to get their hands on some STEEM and actually use it.
Currencies are valuable because they're used.
It took me a while to see this. It wasn't until my wife, who has shown zero interest in blogging here for 2 years, started playing @footytips (also run by @o07), then started entering his gif comps.
Now she's contemplating blogging recipes and progress shots of easy, cheap, tasty, simple family meals.
She's won a small stake, she's kept coming back long enough to get familiar with the place, and she's made some friends.
Give me a million more stories like this, and I'll show you $200 STEEM.
That I think is what things like #untalented and #ulog are trying to do and showcase. There are so many ways and tags to use to try and earn something it hard to keep track of everything that is going on. People just need to look and find them.
Steem can really be the common mans cryptocurrency. You don't need 100k in mining gear. A PhD in coding, or all the other nonsense.
Many times it's just about finding the right community and helping empower those in it to do even better.
Couldn't agree more. The only crypto which pays you to be human. (Like being good at a video game, or even taking great screenshots while being good at a videogame)
Here's one...I can relate to your wife. I was here on Steemit 3 months ago, but only managed to make a bunch of comments and one blog post. I was so worried about how my blog post would be received, that I couldn't write consistently and just became inactive for almost 3 months. That's because back then, I was under the impression that I had to write long-ish, thought-provoking, epic posts.
It wasn't until a few days ago that I decided to come back to Steemit by participating in the freewrite challenges. My goal was just to write everyday, and I made it a point to not be concerned about the length of my posts and to not think about the topics too much. Just get the prompt, set the timer, edit a little, and publish the post. The result: I've been posting one short blog, everyday for five days. Which is great, because I can feel the beginnings of a habit. Sure, my posts aren't amazing pieces of writing. But that's ok.
The skills required to accumulate STEEM are diversifying, too.
It won't be long before steemmonsters players will be earning STEEM just by playing well. They might never write a blog post or even have heard of steemit.
Blogging is where we start.
That would be great for Steem. People can be really competitive when it comes to their games. Dropping loads of cash and spending hours every month. It's no surprise steemmonsters is the hottest thing here, right now.
Its taken me 10 months to see this too, at least this clearly. I guess that's because I had never thought of currency in terms of "philosophical consensus" which sounds weird just reading it after typed.
But as you said, I'm sure just like your wife's story there are hundreds of examples out there.