The Stars and HeartssteemCreated with Sketch.

in #steem5 years ago (edited)

Reward is of course a big thing on Steem but it is not actually true that the other centralized platforms don't pay users, they do. In actual fact, it is very similar to the way an SMT might work if SMTs had the value of digital stars, hearts, claps and thumbs up, while the hosting platform itself earned Steem.


Just because something doesn't have monetary worth, it doesn't mean it doesn't have value and the platforms leverage human emotions to trade what we value for what they value. When people think about the attention economy they normally think about the viewing consumer being leveraged for marketing purposes but the contributor is paid in attention through the various types of like buttons.

There is a reason that Mario collected coins as it essentially trains us to value representations of value, even if there is no value in it. Farmville and Words with Friends are tokenized already too, just not in the same way we might think about it here.

Getting paid in digital icons that can buy other digital icons is a pretty good form of employee payment for an employer that is taking 100% of the profits in actual money that it can spend on yachts, mansions and trade for real-world products and services. Work performed for peanuts. Digital peanuts are low in calories at least.

All types of games are made with various point systems and rankings and the social platforms are no different as they count likes and numbers of friends, messages, shares, and impressions. Out of curiosity, how verifiable are impression numbers on twitter or Facebook? Who are we trusting to feed us that data? Opensource and auditable?

People are already rewarded on all social platforms, and in an attention-seeking society, most are happy with the emotional value of a few likes and hearts, some comments saying "nice picture!" or "awww!" Others do want spendable value, and they will shill all kinds of things for a chance to make a dollar, often including their bodies and dignity, if dignity was still something that held value that is.

Even charities to raise money for cancer are somewhat tokenized, donate, get this pink ribbon to display on your chest like a badge of honor, a public display of being charitable for a little more attention, perhaps a picture on social media for a little more virtue signalling.

It is interesting what humans find valuable in this world, what they are willing to pay for and what they are not. We will pay a great deal to be entertain ourselves but not to build a school or to clean up the environment. That is what should be gamified and tokenized and in someway, it already is.

Who doesn't like trying to minimize their fuel consumption reading on their car? If only we got paid publicly for our good deeds - help an old lady cross the street, 5 tokens. Walk instead of taking the car, 10 tokens. Tradeable for a new pair of runners or a set of sushi. Sure, it would be a bit of a strange world but it would definitely get people out and about dong whatever the game said was good to do and, connected to social platforms can also bring all kinds of attention.

Is it really more dystopic than the current state of affairs where 8 people control as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion, where we will go to war of oil, enslave children in sweatshops for a cheap pair of Nike trainers - and then brag about our new bling purchase on Instagram?

People get rich for a reason and it isn't by giving their money away. I understand that Steemit Inc has made a lot of management mistakes in their process but, they also were paying users in more than stars and hearts. What did people buy with their earnings? Most likely, more of the products and services that push a little more wealth into the hands and pockets of a few. We aren't innocent in all of this are we?

What we buy matters and every decision is a purchase of some kind and comes with a host of various costs. Choosing a chocolate bar or a carrot to eat comes with costs to health, emotions and medical systems that are increasingly overloaded with people with lifestyle choice illnesses. Deciding to be patient in a line or snap at a service person because we have had a bad at work makes a difference too.

Every cost adds up, so do all of the tiny little values but when we trade real world action for tokens, we are going to have to increasingly think about whether the purchase decision we have made has any real value at all. The way we decide to spend our time, what we choose to create and of course, the things we buy to consume all impact on our own as well as many other lives around us.

It is interesting, people compare their experience on Steem to their experiences on other platforms and forget that there is a lot more riding in values on Steem that is literally changing some people's lives yet, they make buying decisions on the entertainment value of Facebook, the engineered feedback loops of twitter and Instagram, the claps of Medium because, that is what is important to us. We invest our time, money and ourselves into what we find valuable and that is increasingly what entertains us, no matter the cost to the rest of our experience in life.

Despite price, FUD and all of the bitterness and social panic associated, I still find Steem the most compelling digital experience out there and regardless of the eventual financial value, there is much more value contained within the attempt. Sort this shit out here and we have created a working model that could scale to empower millions with value streams of all kinds, from economic to educational, attentional to charitable. We can choose to participate or not, it is just another buying decision.

Some work for digital stars and hearts, some reach for the stars and touch hearts.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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Yeah it’s trained in since childhood. Like getting a star in primary school was a big deal for most kids. Subconsciously stars and thumbs up and hearts work because of such conditioning. Also here s a ⭐️ for a nice post Taraz ;)

I wasn't one one of those kids who liked the stickers but thinking about it, I guess it has to do with social validation and I had very few friends to validate myself by :D

Thanks for the star 👍

People like to diss Steemit, the private company and demand they open their books to "prove" to us what they've done with their money. Kinda crazy in all things considered, imagine if we started doing that with the top posters and/or witnesses who were earning thousands a week and most of them have powered down and are gone never to buy any back or continue with their overrated/rewarded content they were creating/validating. Even though we don't have SMT's yet people are quick to forget about everything else they've done and developed so far because human psychology in general likes to point fingers and remember others failures more than their successes when times get tough.

Like @theycallmedan once said "when prices go low people start getting weird".

Yeah, it is funny considering that the private company seems to have been relying on price and selling their holdings. If this had been Youtube, what percentage of the value goes back to the private company and how much to monetized users?

because human psychology in general likes to point fingers and remember others failures more than their successes when times get tough.

yep, loss is heavier than gain and people think they are losing out. "You know how much this is costing me?" type of attitudes.

Like @theycallmedan once said "when prices go low people start getting weird".

I like low price weirdness. Dan, you getting weird yet?

I have never engaged in a social environment like I have throughout the Steem ecosystem anywhere else nor did I ever believe I would do so here neither. The engagement through the community and the DApps like @actifit and @steemmonsters have drawn me to the possibilities of what this can become and how I enjoy my time here. For me, that is value...

Posted using Partiko iOS

I think expectation has a lot to do with it as well as real world skills and ability. I get the feeling that many who struggle the most here struggle in the walking world too.

People have no idea nor do they want to know what their actions support. If it in some way comes back to hurt them in some way they are in complete Denial and place blame where it doesn’t belong know matter how defensive their position is, because there is always name calling as a defense.

Name calling as a defense is the domain of politicians with little of value to add to the world. As individuals trapped in the experience of our own shoes, we are blind to so much of what we ourselves do yet still believe we see others clearly.

This is the best line I have read in a long time lol

"Sort this shit out here"

Big thumbs up !

lol, I try not to swear too much online at least ;)

The problem is that a of people have left ; and they may well come back when the shit is sorted out but time will tell.

I would say that the next run on price will bring many new and many back and with each fall, more will stay at the core until it has somewhat of a gravity to it. It takes time but, can be built to be solid.

Yes. Sometimes it seems like there is no gravity with us crazys here at the moment.

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