This does not make sense at all mate. We are buying Steem its not gifted to us and if there ever was a free market its this one (no restrictions, perfect transparacy, no entry barrier etc). No one can be held responsible unless there is enough Steem Power behind the accusation.
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The reward pool is gifted to us. Steem buys you shares in the influence for how it (the reward pool) is spent. All Steem owners (actually Steem power owners) are responsible for spending the pool. Many can equal the same as one. You buy Steem, but you are not giving that steem directly to others, if you were, that would be capitalism...and nobody would be able to have any say in it.
I do not understand why you repeat that the reward pool is gifted. It's not. Some people we vote for, called witnesses, mine blocks on the Steem blockchain. This is not free. They spent time and money to make this happen.
The last part of the reply is simply gibberish mate, I'm sorry. wiki of Capitalism
With the exception of vote buying bots (which I understand may be a large exception), votes are gifted. That is, you give your content to the platform and users give you votes. The reward pool distribution is based on those votes. There's no contract that says, if you write this post, you'll get this much money, which would not be a gift.
The part you called "gibberish" is simply contrasting Steem's model with a system like micropayments. There's a contract there that says, if you pay this much, you get to consume my content, which is definitely capitalism.
Not sure how witnesses and mining are relevant here. They provide a service and are rewarded. That might not be a gift, but it doesn't mean that the reward pool isn't.
I can confidently say that all the Steem I have was gifted to me. A small amount when I set up my account and reward payouts since then. Yes, I've put time and energy into my activities here, but I never did it with the expectation that I'd get paid a certain amount.
Hey Scott, first off I admire your mentality towards profit sharing on Steemit. How do you relate the current flag war / self upvote campaigns to your first paragraph?
I must admit I also can not make sense of your explanation in the second paragraph :p
With referring to the witnesses I was trying to make the point that there would be no reward pool if there weren't people mining blocks and validation transactions. Since all Steem Power can influence which witness will have the greatest chance of mining the next block, all Steem Power is invested in creating the reward pool.
After your comment I must admit that of course some users are gifted more than others, based on the content they share. However it is my feeling that 99% of users gets paid 'exactly what they deserve' based on Steem Power. As a crude example, have you ever made more then 10 USD on a post? Do you think you content is worse then this one currenty no.1 trending?
Thanks! And thanks for the civil and stimulating discussion :)
It actually occurred to me after I posted that the distinction between capitalist/gift economics is at the crux of this flag war debate. From one perspective, it looks like someone has probably made a large investment in Steem and is taking proportionately large profits. From another perspective, they are abusing the spirit of the platform, where votes are meant to show appreciation to other users based on the merit of their content.
The thing about Steem I'm trying to highlight is that there are no subscriptions, no ads, and no payments of any kind to get access to the content here. It's a gift, and that's actually pretty rare in the larger scheme of things. Holding some Steem Power allows you to give something back. Contrast that to a system where you have to buy tokens to see the content in the first place.
You are correct that there is a deeper relationship between Steem Power holdings and the reward pool than I had considered. However, the value in the reward pool isn't just what's invested in hardware and electricity to run the chain—most of it is based in the content here. So, while there's certainly capitalism at work here, I don't think it's the driving force behind most user interactions.
Actually, I've been pretty impressed by how my account has grown here relative to the effort I've invested, especially considering that I'd be happy to do all of this regardless. Value is a relative thing. Have you ever seen a billboard? Probably a lot of artists make way cooler stuff than what was on that billboard and get paid way less. Bernie says in the post you linked that he was buying upvotes for it. That aside, he's expressing a popular opinion in a debate that's capturing some major attention here. Who am I to say that my content is more valuable, in the context of this platform?
Ok, so it was mined. Then what happened? In capitalism, the mined substance, say gold, is sold or traded for other goods then put into circulation where it is passed from one individual to another in exchange for goods or services directly received. What happened in this case? Who has the coins, and what is the mechanism by which they reach haejin's pockets? Who decides where those tokens go, and does the person deciding give the tokens to the receiver themselves? I know of no system in capitalism by which it is ormal to spend someone else's money unchecked. That is what steemit is.
How can you say something is gibberish yet be unwilling to elaborate on why? Please explain your understanding of how steemit and the reward pool works and why you believe it is capitalistic.