What we could do to fix the value of STEEM for real

I just read a thought-provoking post by @denmarkguy about the future of Steem. It's really good read and I recommend you check it out.

I started replying to @denmarkguy with my comment but it became too long so I'm publishing entire post about it.

@denmarkguy is right, if we all stopped draining the reward pool, then selling pressure could be reduced somewhat. But of course Steemit Inc sells it's liquid STEEM at a rate of 500k-800k per month. We can't control this. We still need more buyers than sellers. @denmarkguy writes that his friend funded entire vacation through Acorn program while never investing more than a dollar at a time. This is really nice. But what happens when we all want to have a vacation from our earnings and investment on Steem? This would be also tremendous selling pressure.

OK, so maybe we need more businesses who would invest into Steem ecosystem. This is closer to reality but again, at some point these businesses will want to see ROI and cash out at least part of it. You see, whatever we do, if money leaves the blockchain, we have selling pressure.

OK, we can find more people, more users, more investors. A game of numbers. Sure, but sooner or later we will run out of new users and demand for Steem could diminish.

But what if we created a real ever growing Steem economy? Where you didn't have to cash out? Where you could buy products and services for Steem? Where you could go into a restaurant and pay for coffee or a meal with an upvote?

I think we (community of authors, curators, investors and developers) should be working towards this goal which is sustainable in the long run.

Just like there is dollar economy, euro economy and various other economies of separate countries, we could strive to create a global Steem economy.

Then the price of STEEM wouldn't even matter because this economy would be self-reliant.

You think this plan is too ambitious? I've heard that the problem is insurmountable if you can't think of the first step.

What is No. 1 step towards the Steem economy?

I'd say more and more partnerships. More and more businesses which would accept STEEM in real world for their products and services. More and more integrations with platforms that are already working.

I'm sure our developers are already working towards this. So it's just a matter of time.

PS But for now let's try to patch the holes in our ship so that people wouldn't be compelled to cash out without actually growing their SP. Here we need to think about a way to communicate this idea to people from struggling economies who look at Steem as cash cow.

PPS And don't worry, at some point Steemit Inc will run out of STEEM to sell and all this STEEM could be distributed in the hands of dedicated members of the community.