You mistate value. Value is not merely a reflection of demand, but relative to demand and supply.
Steem can be converted to BTC. Steem has value outside BTC, or Steemit, in myriad ways that are beyond this discussion. However, in the basic sense, Steemit is the justification and creator of the value of Steem.
That value is not only that it can be disbursed through voting, but that Steemit is incentivized, which makes it the only supply of incentivized social media platforms at present, and there is a demand for this. As long as Steemit is the sole supplier of this market, it will create value in Steem. This is a far greater driver of value in Steem than voting. It is not that Steem only has value as incentivizing votes, but rather that as votes incentivize creation and curation, the underlying currency gains value.
Competition in this market is coming. This matters because the silly games that Steemit potentiates to concentrate wealth are widely and rightly perceived as unfair, and people like fairness.
Platforms that are more fair will succeed at Steemit's expense, should Steemit not rectify this problem. This is the supply side of value, because as Steemit fails, Steem will fall in value.
I supposed supply and demand was implied when I wrote demand. I agree that both are important, and right now, supply is being held low, because many authors choose to keep the steem which they earn. I would guess that the amount of steem which is for sale outside of steemit is fairly small compared to the amount of steempower.
That being said, I agree with you that perhaps better systems which are perceived as more fair might exist.
I am following you since this exchange: it would be interesting if you could write a slightly more elaborate post (as a stand alone post) on how you see equal voting power work for the good of steemit, and how you think people will feel motivated to keep their steempower in such a system.
Because that is what makes it incentivized, the fact that you can be rewarded for good content. If everybody dumps their SP, because they don't need it for their vote weights, and new users don't buy, because they don't need it to increase their voteweight, I believe the value of steem will crash. If 1 steem has a value of 0.00000154$, no-one will feel more incentivized than by a like on youtube.
It's great discussing here though. THis kind of discussions would have gone to the stage of a shouting match 3 posts ago on other social media.
"THis kind of discussions would have gone to the stage of a shouting match 3 posts ago on other social media."
And THAT is why I care a great deal about Steemit. I very much believe in the power of conversations like we are having to expand understanding, and create a foundation on which is built a better world.
Apparently all my doom-saying on HF19 is FUD, and I could not be gladder about that. I'll have to continue to watch over time to ensure that things are actually more fair, but that seems presently to be the common perception.
This will be the most important test: author rewards diversification. Author rewards are the vast majority of all rewards on Steemit, and, because of how wealth impacted votes, were concentrated in a mere handful of accounts before now. If that number increases dramatically, I might even completely accede that the problem of perception of unfairness is gone.
Not likely, but conceivable.
Thanks for the follow! I hope I am worthy of your attention.