Great video! I think he really hits his stride at about 4:33 where he talks about giving money to people who don't need any more money!
I think the Steem blockchain could potentially be a way to help give people around the world - both in the US and elsewhere - a hand up.
But I also think it risks replicating the economic models and societal attitudes that have led to the existence of extreme poverty in places like the US.
If I had even a fraction of the Steem and/or SP that some whales here have, I could afford to not work. I could afford to teach for free instead of needing a university to pay me, meaning I could reach the people on the margins of Australian society who will never ever set foot on a university campus.
I'm not saying I necessarily want some massive grant from a uber-rich steemian (I'd be paranoid about the strings attached anyway), but you get the point, right? There's a lot of Steem sitting around making money for the small number of people holding it, when it's debatable as to whether or not they actually really need any more money. Until we deal with that attitude, not much is going to change.
Barring any massive change that I don't think could even happen, I don't think that's a risk, tbh.
The mechanics of steem haven't really kicked in yet, but when it's fully ramped up I honestly think that there may be so much money flying everywhere that everyone's getting what they need. The thing with Steem is that it's a positive feedback loop. Basically it's trickle down economics if they actually worked.
Also don't forget that a huge amount of that money sitting in whales accounts has been given to everyone around the account... fully 25% goes to curators. Could you imagine if the real world worked like that? If 25% of your bank's money went to people who used that bank?? Do the math; it get mindblowing real quick-like.
I'm still getting my head around the economics - but I'm not sure that the 25% thing is as you say. There's the reward pool created by inflation - it's not 25% of that going to curators, more like 18.5%. And remember - most of the curation goes to those with the highest SP.
As far as I can tell, 93% of all Steem is held by about 100 accounts. The top 1% of accounts ranked by Steem hold about 96% of all Steem. The top 1% of accounts ranked by SP hold about 75% of SP, and I think if you rank account by SBD, it's about 87% of held by the top 1%.
Unlike the wider economy, I'm not sure that the rich are getting richer. But the economic pyramid comes to an exceptionally sharp point in the Steem world. I don't think inequality is automatically a bad thing, but we should ask how much good it's actually achieving.
I genuinely hope you are right about the future of Steem, but I don't think that future is guaranteed.
Yeah a lot of what you said is true, but I gotta emphasise again: 25% GOES to curators. IRL that doesn't happen. Negative money goes to the poor IRL, because they use their gains to sabotage the system.
Numerically speaking a tiny kick in the opposite direction is all that's needed reverse IRL trends, and this isn't a tiny kick, it's a complete inversion.
Just my opinion, but I don't think there's anything wrong with classification. I think there should be poor, and should be rich. What I care about is whether or not being poor ruins your life, and if you being rich means you can ruin other people's lives. On a base level in steem having lots of money means 1. You have to create valuable content; 2. you have to give away a significant proportion of it through.
I might be crazy here, but I think that eventually a psychology shift may happen here where people stop identifying what they do for them and see only what they do for others, because you posts are valued based on how much value they provide. But that might be crazy...
Oh and another key point: IRL the rich make money by exploiting the poor. Obviously that's not good. Here the rich make money by working for the poor and providing content to them.
Like I said - I hope you turn out to be right.