Selling rooms and hotdogs

Yesterday we took our daughter to a local amusement park for the first time and she rode the pigtrain, the ladybirds, some old cars and the carousel on a white horse. She loved it all and would have been happy to stay riding those until the park closed. However, there were other rides like the one pictured that caught her eye also and, she wanted in.

When people go to amusement parks like this, they mostly do not care about the engineering, they don't care if the food is great or whether the park has paid its bills. All they want to do is have some fun and be able to use some rides that make their time enjoyable. As much as the early adopters of Steem are buried into the blockchain side of things, they are forgetting that for onboarding, being interested in the engineering and infrastructure can't take precedence.

If we look at Instagram as an example, even though there is money to be made in various ways, most users are just that, users who do not learn about all of the systems that could monetize their content. Most understand that in order to do so, it is going to take a great deal of work and effort that they are most likely unwilling to actually do. The work it takes to make a cent on Instagram outstrips Steem 100:1 I would predict.

But to attract users, Instagram populates itself with influencers who have some reputation and visibility and who will spruik their various products to the audience. Many of these are celebrities of course but, there are many self made digital nomad types who have built up a following both organically and through engineering like buying fake followers.

The success of a few attracts the masses to either view the few or, for the more entrepreneurial among them, attempt to do somewhat similar. This is a massive driver of content itself as people load their feed with whatever they think will attract an audience and, get them to a point where advertisers are willing to send them products or actually pay them to sell products. It is a platform for monetization of users, just like Facebook is and the users themselves are the ones driving themselves as the product.

If you think that in order to get to that critical mass point where someone will pay requires looking like someone who is able to be an influencer, the person unless already famous must turn themselves into a product, a clothes hanger to hang other products upon. What this has eventuated in is that the platforms that sell advertising to their users, have users who will self-perpetuate that same advertising. Everyone is advertising their purchased products, their holidays, their music tastes, their clothing tastes their everything, for free.

This is why advertisers are willing to pay so much for access to the pool of users and why they look for influencers to perpetuate their products. It isn't just so other users will see some celebrity wearing this or that, it is so other users will mimic the celebrity, purchase the product and advertise it once again to their circle of followers. Products fractal out from that one paid influencer to the multitude of others who want to get paid and, the even larger group who know they won't get paid but want the social acceptance of being 'in'.

This is why fashion houses make dresses that are so ludicrously expensive that no one can actually afford them. They give them to a star who wears it, mentions the price and then the crowd goes out and buys one. For example, this 6950€ Dolce and Gabbana dress that no one (very, very few) are actually going to buy but, people based on the driver of owning luxury will go and spend 30€ on a pair of underwear. They advertise the expensive with the aim to sell the cheap at exorbitant prices. People buy the hype.

It is because of this that there is a need for content to be attractive, just like the amusement park. There are the rides that are for my daughter like the pigtrain and, the screaming rollercoasters that are out of her reach but she feels that one day she will be able to have a chance to ride, just a little more growing to do. The screaming users are the attractor, the hype that pulls attention to the ride but, it also means that people will spend their time making purchases that are smaller but, much more reachable.

For example, for the last few years there has been a hiphop festival in my city with international stars and local performers. It attracts people from all over and even though it makes a reat deal of money itself, most of the money generated is actually spent in the city on hotels, restaurants, drinks, nightclubs, ice cream, clothes and all the other things that although not directly related to the draw card, benefit from the draw.

Right now at Steem, content takes a backseat to the technology and the self bought nonsense that appears blindly in Trending. These aren't attractors of users other than nerds who like blockchain (fine) and people who want to self-vote their own nonsense. the circle doesn't include the opportunity to create actual influencers driven by actual advertisers and businesses as there is no chance for visibility and, it doesn't provide the same effect that Instagram provides as there is very little desire to build upon the engineered success of others. The people and rides that get supported are often not those who produce anything of any value to anyone other than the people they purchase the vote from and, themselves.

It goes around and around in a big circle that makes a lot of value on content that is not actually attractive to people who are interested in valuable content. Value isn't the price, it is the value it brings to the audience. For an amusement park, it is the screaming crowds and the smiles on little kids faces as they ride the ladybird ride and watch others at fairy floss and ice cream.

Steem doesn't have much for people who are interested in consuming which for a social network that has a currency attached is a problem because a currency needs consumers to drive distribution. If an investor comes in and there is no real consumer other than a small circle with resources, they are unlikely to consider it a good investment because it doesn't have reach, it doesn't open up new markets and, it doesn't develop new customers.

Most people do not publicize their activity on Steem because to do so is to put a personal stamp of approval on the platform and, that is a long reach for most people considering that those who come in are going to face a litany of behaviors and circumstances that they have never seen on other social platforms. It is not that it isn't there, it just isn't as visible to average users.

At the end of the day, how many people are actually willing to put Steem articles on other platforms? People find out about platforms and products through word of mouth but, most people treat Steem in public like Fight club, What's the first rule?

At some point, Steem has to shift from being a place that attracts earners and become a platform that attracts experiencers, those who want to experience something new and different, a new ride, new thoughts, new opportunities that they can't find from other places.

What this means is that while Steem is building infrastructure to replace the old, content is onboarding people who want to welcome in the new, a place where even though there is potential to earn, the precedence is on the content and consumer users who move about exploring and enjoying what it has to offer. When people start exploring content it opens up the possibilities for commercialization, which is where the investment opportunity lays.

Focusing only on the tech will send it all the way of Nokia, promising but without content, useless to the average consumer. Apple took another route and offered a platform for individual, users and consumers but tied the hands of producers. Steam can offer a point between that can empower and reward users to be creators and, give consumers multiple places to hang their hats of attention.

However you look at it, no matter how much value there is in the tech, it will be the content that draws people in and builds the commitment to the platform in the long term. The content will evolve and change, just as the infrastructure will but, it does require real producers to keep producing. If they don't get support, eventually it becomes a closed circle and no matter how much Steem is generated, by them it will always have a low value.

We need the run off effect of the concert that sells hotel rooms and the new ride that sells hotdogs.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]