The downside to tokens, pirating assets, and greedy nickel and dimers
purposefully pilfering this copywritten cartoon to make a point
A little less than a month ago when I created cookie token, I wasnt hoping to do much other than to make people happy by giving them cookies. I hoped that I'd eventually gain back my initial investment, (which ive just about done). Once cookies became a thing, I hoped to see a little extra capital on the side to invest in other tokens.
When I went on Aggy's show a few weeks back, he opened the door to the possibility I could do more... if only I had some capital to invest and a bit of creative thinking. I even opened an alt account for the purpose of having a token "storefront" for such things as pizza, chocolate, tacos, etc.
But beyond the initial rush of a few big investors, who soon dropped out of sight once they filled their order, the cookie market fell flat. I was sad but ok with it being an occasional thing. I don't have the technical know how to bot tokens, even tho I have the coding for it. I was going to do an airdrop, but thats another investment that might not pay off.
Cookie has been prey to a string of traders, who have the spare steem to buy up the token cheaply, then use diverse tactics to resell it. For a while I had cookies up at .03. Now they sit at a little over .01, because I had to drive down the price not only so people would want to buy, but so my friends wouldnt buy thinking they were supporting me when they were actually trading to whomever undercut my price. I has to get the price down to the point that there was no profit.
At first I had it under control, or thought i did. I was undercutting one of the undercutters to the point that I think he lost interest and left or sold off his tokens. Then another one popped up. And another. And literally, these guys are only making one steem selling people 100 cookies at .01. That's right - less than 25c, that's going into their wallet, and not mine. And I wondered, if they are doing this with my token, who else are they playing?
I bet you're thinking, oh well, maybe these people are really a bit desperate, not well off and a quarter is a big deal for them. Think again. One guy has a steem wallet worth more than 200k. the others are untraceable sock puppets that can afford to buy a few thousand cookies or any other token, and hold them, or trade them, and apparently have no scruples as to who gets hurt by their actions. It's like that film proviso: Piracy is not a victimless crime. No one believes it, because Hollywood film makers are all rolling in the dough, right?
Conveniently steem explorer has been down for days, so I can't even go in to offer you the evidence that this has been happening, nor find out who else is buying and selling at present to undercut me. I'm sure to them it's a lark, playing billionaire where they take a nickel here and a dime there and laugh at the poor suckers who dont have the ready cash to play. Plus I dont dare name names because their downvote would fry my reputation in one go.
The long and short of it is I am no longer selling cookie token except by special request. I've take all of my offers off the market, because it's a waste of my time trying to keep up with the jerks who want to steal any possible chance of a profit on my investment. I've watched so many timed out links when I try to view cookie transactions to find out if whoever is trying to buy is a legimite buyer or a schemer.
I've lost the joy and happiness of gifting cookie to people who I value. If you really want some cookie tokens, call me in chat or direct message me and let me know your interest. I'll probably give it to you for free in a small quantity, if I know you. If you want to trade me in kind, great, if not, no biggie. Anyone who wants huge quantities i'll ask for a fair price.
I've ceased caring beyond the point that I want everyone to know whats going on and to give them the choice where to buy. I'd rather people not pay these petty market scammers to play the market so they can add another nickel to their horde.
What did you expect in a free market?
I didnt expect anything I guess. I'm an innocent noob, I dont mess with market much beyond the buy low sell high. It just didnt occur to me that someone with that much money would want to mess around with something that has such little value. would you work for 20c an hour? would it be worth your time?
A further answer to that is I expect people to act ethically or at least empathetically, even in business, until I am disappointed. I guess thats old fashioned and naive to want that, but I still do. Just because someone can abuse power or money doesnt mean that we should need to expect it, like so many terrorist attacks each year to remind us that people are insane assholes.
It makes me sad to read something like this @torico, and yet it also doesn't surprise me. I guess I first shrugged about the true nature of people and opportunities when I first came across (accidentally) Amazon's "Mechanical Turk" many years ago. What was shocking to me wasn't so much that there were "desperate" people willing to do "work" for less than one cent per task they were doing... but the fact that there were thousands of them(!) actively competing for those tasks.
Whereas I love the idea of all these new "tribes" and tokens, I've also come to realize that the only reason I'm going to be part of any of them is because the tribe/token and the people behind them sincerely represent something I am interested in or value.
I guess it will always be the "dark" side of free markets and capitalism that the only motivating factor is profit and anything else (ethics, doing good, etc.) is simply considered a distraction from the profit motive.
=^..^=
I question whether humans in a "free market" need to be that way tho. when i was growing up, I was instilled with values, and learned that even tho we live in a capitalist society, the profit factor should never come before kindness and compassion. Many people today shrug their shoulders and act as if there isn't a choice, because they don't see they are making that choice automatically. They don;t have that same values, or it's been corrupted by a society and government that pits us all against each other in order to obtain the material goals of "the good life". but when is it ever "enough"?
If a homeless guy and I both see a dollar on the ground (hypothetical), will I let the homeless guy have the dollar, because he needs it more? IRL, most likely. Yet you take away the social stigma in a free market. When we put that real life situation in the virtual world, somehow all of the constraints become broken because it's just a game to us. We don't see the people behind the numbers, just "how can I win the game?"
I question why we arent instilling values in the marketplace. If, as aggroed keeps telling me, there is a system of abundance here in the blockchain, even with the price of steem dropping daily, why do we still have a scarcity mindset? Why is it ok to be a dickhead when you have a free market in the equation?
If we don't solve this equation correctly, all these notions of tribes and building a better system all become fancy wallpaper on the fact that we are creating the same goddamned ecostructure of cut throat capitalism that we rail against in real life.
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Unfortunately, the world is full of scammers. it seems to be part of the "human condition" as cope would say. Not all humans are like that, but enough to give the rest of us a bad rap by association.
I'm sorry that this had to end badly, it started as a fun thing and a good idea. I guess it's just another example of "no good deed goes unpunished"
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