Is Steemit Yet Another Bubblews?
Some of you might be familiar with Bubblews. Several years ago their site was quite successful with loads of users from all around the world. In short - you were paid for publishing short articles. Quality of articles was not a question because there wasn't any. Number of articles was limited to 10 per day, length to at least 500 characters if I remember correctly.
The trick was to build followers, like their articles and hope that they will like yours. You were paid for receiving likes and comments too.
For many Bubblews users it was a great source of a side income. YOu could earn several hundred dollars monthly. But not all users were made equal. Members from the western civilization received more. The rationale of the owners was that they receive more revenue from the ads shown in those countries.
Anyways, to cut the long story short, Bubblews went down with a bang. The model wasn't sustainable.
How is this related to SteemIt, you might ask? Maybe it isn't at all. Maybe you can tell me right now that I am simply blowing bubbles and that my assumption is wrong.
I am not familiar with the business model behind SteemIt - yet. I am here to watch and to learn and to contribute. I do hope that this platform will grow and be sustainable and profitable for everybody involved!
Good luck, my friends.
PS: I got here from this CoinTelegraph article.
The primary difference between Steemit and all revenue sharing systems is that Steem doesn't share revenue, it simply tracks relative contribution. Any and all economic value attributed to Steem is perceived value of the platform and its potential to be used as a cryptocurrency.
Steem is mathematically always able to reward contributors with something so long as there are people who want to work together to improve the platform. If the market cap falls, it just means the rewards are smaller in dollar terms, but just as large in percentage terms.
The users are directly responsible for building a community people want to participate in. It is the growth of the community that brings value.
Stated another way, you can get away with slave labor wages if the slaves are earning equity in the startup. They know their payout is not the cash they earn today, but the future value it will have when the platform grows.
Revenue sharing systems struggle because the revenue is so small relative to the value added by the network effect.
Thanks a lot for your thorough reply and explanation, I appreciate it. So it is about the community and the participation. I like it.
Your analogy with startup and earning equity is a good one. I am just now finishing the reading of Elon Musk book :)
Revenue sharing systems are not sustainable in the long term. And what is more important - they are not transparent and equal to everybody involved. Steemit is - as my first impression is - both sustainable (by the community) and extremely transparent.
Let's stick around and see how it will develop...
Thanks for your question!
Steemit pays posters and voters similar to how Bitcoin pays miners. The steem blockchain creates new tokens at a set rate to reward the best posts and votes, and there's no middle man involved. It was described differently in the CoinTelegraph article.
Thanks for your explanation. Yes, I had a feeling that the CoinTelegraph article is not so correct when it comes to inner workings of Steemit rewards ecosystem.
i used to be on bubblews it turned out to be a scam. I don't think this platform is comparable although I must admit the first thing I though when I learned about steemit was no not another bubblews . ;)
:) My thoughts exactly. More than a year ago.
Bubblews wasn't a 100% scam. They did pay out a lot. But the concept was unsustainable. And the way they handled it in the dying months turned it into huge scam.
Successful steeming :)
Followed!