Rambling around the block

Someone mentioned they believed Steem should provide "adequate compensation" for user content and I asked, "what is adequate?" It is going to depend on many factors isn't it, the country in which you live, your skills, your history and of course, your expectations. What do you think is an, "adequate compensation" for your work?

Most people have come here to earn something but there is no guarantee of earning at all, there is just the possibility to earn and for many, the chance of earning what is considered adequate is slim. Well, at least as far as a current salary is concerned. This is how much Steem is currently in the reward pool and the value at current price feed in US dollars.

It is a weekly supply that continually is filling and emptying but if there are 15,000 active accounts currently, an even distribution puts it at 50 Steem per week, per account. If when price is up there are 30,000 active accounts it is 25 Steem a week. This doesn't include interest payments or witness costs.

Yesterday, there was 19,329 top level posts and if each is looking for an "adequate compensation", what does that mean? Each user wants adequate right? Each user evaluates their work and says, I deserve x amount but of course, x amount is going to depend on personal factors. Now, that pool size doesn't change much whether there are 10 users drawing from it or 10 million, the value of the Steem in there can change significantly though.

January 4th of this year the price was at an all time high of 7.30ish which means the value of the pool was closer to 6 million dollars, not 600,000. Depending on price, there is a future value of what is drawn from that pool. 1 Steem today is worth 80 cents, tomorrow it could be 8 dollars and next week, 80 dollars. When it comes to "adequate compensation", which value are people calculating at?

When people power up 1000 Steem they bought for 800 dollars and get a vote of 0.05 (50 cents a day) do they work their investment out on Steem being 80 cents? 5 cents? 20 dollars? That 50 cents a day vote now at 20 dollars is actually 25x higher in future value, 12.50. 12.50 a day on a 800 dollar investment is not too bad is it? Not to mention the 1000 Steem bought for 800 is now worth 20,000 dollars. But of course, what is adequate is still the question and, it can all go to zero.

Youtube is a monetized platform but every minute, 300 hours of content is uploaded. What are the chances of the average user monetizing their work there? Some people will earn from Medium, most will never. As far as I know, you aren't able to buy into those platforms to passively earn upon and if you can, there is not a chance of your investment appreciating 5x, 25x, 100x over time. If anything, it will depreciate in value due to currency inflation.

As far as "adequate compensation" is concerned, it is going to depend heavily on how one views the platform and, when one is looking at what the value of Steem is going to be. Some people assume that on Steem it is all about quality of content as if that is what monetizes talent. It is not. What monetizes content is the relationship and networking effects of the provider or there ability to hire someone to do the selling of their talent for them, like an agent.

As far as I have experiences, unless one has already made a great deal of money to passively invest, there is a lot of hustle required to earn on talent. Of course, this isn't necessarily the case if you work for a company but on Steem, no one is an employee as here, everyone is a freelancer of some kind looking to earn. Some are better at it than others, some get lucky by meeting the right people, some fail miserably. Expecting all to survive in a talent economy is ridiculous but the sphere of what is considered talent is continually expanding into gaming, fitness, search ability...

Perhaps it is the way people see content? People might consider content as the post they create, maybe extend it to the comments they write. Is that all there is to content delivery? What about the personality, the heart, the soul? What about the ability to network, the willingness to help others or, support others? Is that content too? Most definitely. There is a lot more to content than writing on Steem and to limit it in some way is based on personal expectation and opinion about what has value and unsurprisingly, everyone believes their content is valuable enough for return.

Value is market decided always and although the market is not working well when it comes to placing value on posts, in other people's opinion it is working well when it places value on passive return from vote selling activities etc. For some, that might actually class as their content as after all, they see themselves as investors. An investor's earning potential is what they can put in economically, the money. If every investor had to pass a writing style test before they can earn, what happens?

My rambling point is that there are nuances and complexities that people do not consider when standing in their shoes, but they are unable to ever stand in the shoes of others. Some people will use "we" when they actually mean "me" as they are projecting their bias and pulling in others with potentially falls claims to bolster support. They don't really know what the "we" truly thinks, especially if they are echo chambered in confirmation biased groups.

This platform is a very large ecosystem even with so few users because there are so many differing opinions and expectations about what it is meant to be and what purpose it is meant to serve. Combine this with people's approach to timelines of value and expectations of returns and it sets up a great many conflicts and a vast array of behaviors that will range from good to bad, if good and bad were able to be evaluated.

This is place is very risky to invest in because it is highly unstable but that is where the opportunity lays for those willing to do so for a potential future. Those who are trying to limit the instability by creating a limited system that provides an adequate return for them are limiting the opportunities of potentially millions of future others. They may not of course consider this as they are looking to satisfy their position now.

With so many complexities created by so many positions, there is very little chance that anyone here is in a position of stability, even if they currently are enjoying high support or their business is doing well. Those who are willing to accept the risk that to can all go to zero and still working, are also likely the ones who will ensure that it doesn't in the future as, they will still be here investing themselves into it, creating regardless of whether the Steem they get today will satisfy any of their needs whatsoever, now or in the future.

What I think people need to consider is their personal timelines and work out what they are willing to put in, not what they are looking to get out of it at this point. Again, if everyone is a freelancer here there still needs to be the background work done to ensure that next week there is a new job coming, they have to sell themselves and unless already well known with a strong network, there is a lot of legwork involved. Some are willing to do it, some not, some can do it for a week, a month a year, some ten. Some are talented, some not. Some have a style people connect with, some not. Some have hopes and dreams fulfilled, some have theirs crushed and work in a job that pays a set salary instead.

All want an adequate return on their work but, the market decides. Would you prefer the government decide what you are worth? Corporations? Well, according to the centralized platforms so far, we are not good enough to return earnings to. We are monetized as both the consumer and the product to draw value to the core, and only those they choose have a chance of any return. Slaves.

Yes, we can do a lot better than we are currently doing at Steem, but I will risk my time and effort here for now, thanks.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]