How can Steem Continue to Succeed? - A Story by Charlie Shrem

in #steem8 years ago (edited)

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I've spent the past few days thinking about how Steem can continue to succeed. My answer is community and outreach. Steem incentivizes community building and growth. Why does this matter? I'm going to take you back to 2013, London.

Almost everybody who was anybody in Bitcoin converged at 'Bitcoin London'. An Editor with TechCrunch Europe tweeted that Bitcoin London was a “perfect storm of entrepreneurs, VCs (who stayed the whole day), Utopianists and borderline autistic super geeks.”

I’m one of the geeks. Although, there’s no way I’d call myself a “super geek.” My thing is communication. I jump in, bring people together, and solve problems. Yeah, I can be too blunt from time to time. But I’m good at bridging the gap between suits and guys like me who are serious about technology.

Geeks went to London to see what other developers were doing. To ask for help, because many of us were in our twenties and had little experience running businesses. We went to find whatever we needed. Whether it was money. Or advice regarding the byzantine maze of government regulations. Or fresh perspective on tactical decisions.

We went because techies need playdates. At home we eat, drink, and hunt for love in front of our computers. We fart at will because no one is there to object. And, yeah it’s true, we con ourselves that video Skyping is real face-to-face interaction. We went for the sensory experience of getting drunk, backslapping, and sharing awesome meals with good friends. Way different than scarfing down the usual crap alone at our desks.

Many of us went to reminisce about the old days when we, the brotherhood of geeks, the future of great things everywhere, were the only ones who understood what the fuck a cryptocurrency was. Or how to buy Bitcoins. Or where to spend them.

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We went to talk strategy. Should we figure out how to comply with their crazy rules and regulations? But no matter how we split over this debate, we agreed that central banks were a problem. They were printing notes willy-nilly with no regard for tomorrow. It was up to us to give people control over their own damn money.

We went with heartfelt purpose. Because every one of us agreed with Bitcoin Jesus, otherwise known as Roger Ver. He said, “Bitcoin is the most important invention in the history of the world since the Internet.”

Roger was my first outside investor, now a great friend. When he heard about the benefits of Bitcoin—privacy, little fees, no banks to freeze accounts—he didn’t sleep for three days. He made himself sick with enthusiasm and later earned his nickname by giving away Bitcoins just to spread the word.

honeybadger

Bitcoiners don’t have one central leader. But Roger’s unflagging commitment defines who and what we are as a community. The month before the conference, he leased a billboard between San Francisco and San Jose, shelled out $1,500 per month for a prime location, and threw down the gauntlet. He advertised Bitcoin as the “honey badger of money.” His message: We’re here to stay.

The reference is to a loopy video that went viral on YouTube back in 2011, 66 million views and counting. The narrator, his voice a mix of sarcasm and reverence, describes the fearlessness of an animal that chases cobras into trees and devours them. Honey badger was everywhere during Bitcoin London, a constant reminder that nothing could stop us.
No wonder we’re scary to people like Paul Krugman, the economist who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled, “Bitcoin is evil.”

Grumpy old men don’t get us. Which is fine because nobody under twenty-five reads their columns anyway, unless there’s a link on Hacker News. They don’t come to our conventions. They don’t hear our success stories. Like when I texted Bitcoin to China because a family here in New York couldn’t rely on banks to wire money in time for an emergency operation.

shrem

It beats me why anybody thinks digital currencies are evil. Maybe it’s because of the people behind it. We’re brash. We keep weird hours. We’re intense. We get wrapped up in our work. We forget to shower, to shave, and sometimes to eat. We have a hard time communicating with people who don’t have a clue about coding.

You can think whatever you want about us. We’re good. We’re pure. We’re genuine. Or, we’re evil. We’re cultish. We’re a mob of snot-nosed kids, crude, socially unacceptable blowhards who think we know more than we know. You decide.

I went to London for one delicious, irresistible reason: These are my people.

You guys are my people.

What can we do to educate and grow the community?

-Charlie

(Some of the people in the top picture: Charlie Shrem, Erik Voorhees, Ira Miller, Cindy Zimmerman, Courtney Warner, Justin Blincoe, Ashe Oro, David Bailey, Roger Ver.)

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ive been telling all my friends to get on steemit. a lot have but most don't know how to use the site and are all txting me to ask how to put pics up, get help etc.
I believe in advertising because i did a degree in advertising photography and understand how it works. but i feel there is a problem with steemit in that the whales have concentrated on upvoting steem promotion (cos advertising works) and lots of new users have hit the site but are not actively using it, i believe because they dont understand how to work it. so has that advertising power then been lost?. once someone decides to leave a site they very rarely come back. there are lots of users like myself who are trying to help people by posting help. unfortunately help pages and tutorials dont get voted up because the whales dont want new users to see the issues. so less people are prepared to help because they get less rewards. i really think the issue of user ease needs to be addressed

they are working on wikis already! Ned hires people that want to contribute further! Soon it will be easier to find help-content about steemit and it will be much easier to post photos etc very soon..

theyll return a year from now, log into their account and see that the ~$10 in SP has been growing while they've been away. Depending on what the price of Steem does, that could be worth enough to make the opportunity cost too great to simply ignore.

Steem doesnt reward idlers by design. If they do nothing they'll lose about 50% on their steem and gain approx 10% interest, so a loss of about 40% per annum. What may make them comeback and regret is seeing someone just being littlebit active and gain 1000s or 10000s of dollars. While they themself wasted thousands of hours on facebook and get nothing. They'll be back :)

My father has been saying over the past 1 1/2 that bitcoins will be huge, and he has been right. He talks about things like this all the time and tell his family and friends to start because it's like the new way of life... In a way. For me, it's all great except for the fact that I've made no money yet!?

here's 10 cents ;-)

Thank you so much

and 19 cents more ;)

Don't think of time in a linear fashion with the investment until you need the cash on hand. Best advice I can offer there.

I was at a bar last night with 4 steemers. We drank and chatted with people. Explained the concept, showed people the website, explained that there was no risk.

People we talked to were interested but hesitant. They seem confused that there is no risk but a little reward. You rarely get something for nothing. We explained that good content was required. Good content is "something".

I have a friend who writes amazing short stories. I told him, why not just try it out? It can't hurt.

Unlike Bitcoin, with Steem you don't have to buy anything

I've told many friends to check it out. The idiots always say "yeah uhh when I get some time" or "maybe when it takes off." Lol

Tell me about it! I'm so tired & burn't out talking with family members and close buddies. All they do is judge off of your current situation and the material things 0ne has . I'm however am looking for like-minded individuals such as myself, who are visionaries and who understand the possibilities. Listen to what I am saying and do your research based off of what I said so that maybe you(ppl) can use it to your advantage as you may be in a better situation to do so!
You tell them that they(we) can get paid by doing exactly the same damn thing they are already doing on other popular social media platforms and yet still, they act as if they don't care why, because it's not "popular"! If they read and get involved, they will know exactly where this is headed! I always hear ppl saying they wish they won the lottery 0r they wish they had purchased stock@a major company when it was dirt cheap - Well, here we are! If you don't see where this digital space is going, then I don't know what else to say!

Two friends of mine are bloggers. photography and food. they said: "sounds great, but markwhat?! seems to be more work" so maybe an interface for wordpress/typo3 aso would tear down the barrier

You are right. In Steemit, there is no barrier to entry. No risk to the downside. Anyone who writes content should be on Steemit. What Bitcoin started is a whole tsunami of a new decentralized world. Platforms like Steem have created their own digital economy, that self re-enforces itself. In 1-2 years there will be 1000's of coins running in there own digital economy. The world will have no choice but to start using crypto if they want to use any of these killer apps. Investors will come b/c of the money. People will come b/c its useful to them. DAPPS are going to rule the world ;-)

There is also the barrier to using crypto to withdrawal into BTC.

Just need an SBD/STEEM debit card now.

i was working on something like that... i think youre right though, a non-btc-mediated way to get cash is a key milestone.

I'll definitely be awaiting this :)

there is a barrier... it´s just not handy for most people i know. no editor, no app, no upload... compare with wp

i seem to recall a WP type app on steemtools.com

I'm assuming an app is in the works? (I hope)

Upvoting and writing stories is in a way Steem's mining-part. But you have to keep in mind that your Steempower inflates with +/- 5% per year. So there is your risk. This 5% goes to upvoting and authors of stories. It's a battle against other users: vote better and write better stories to compensate the 5% inflation per year. I really love the concept, but I am not sure if it will attract the average every day Reddit-type of user.

I really wish concepts (such as steem which looks promising) would STOP USING the insanity of modeling things after the concept of "inflation" (interest, usery) which is an artificial finance invention which has created so much pain and suffering in the world, to enrich bankers over all others. Surely a team as innovative as steem can come up with a MUCH better model than just patterning after "inflation"! Jeesh...

The Steem inflation is not the same kind of inflation as with fiat currency. In practice it is dilution or redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don't. It's not simple, but there is a great post about it by @hisnameisolllie.

I have encountered the same skepticism. People think it's too good to be true. Even journalists who have been here, and made decent money, they have decided that it's too risky, and they don't really see the value. They treat it like a casino. They are distrustful. It does surprise me when intelligent people decide not to go on Steemit. It's like people are divided into two groups: the dreamers who want something beautiful and who believe in the dream and the rest of the jaded people who are too grumpy to see the dream in the first place. I'm a dreamer, always have been. I refuse to be otherwise.

That's totally right.
The real problem that bring Steem is about equity/fairness.
In a Per-view or Per-click system, the rules are clear and gives an equity for each users.
The consensus in steem is based on whales power (SP), which means your post can have 1000 views / 1000 upvotes, and win like 5$,
when another post with 5 views, and 2 upvotes, can be at 200$.
You can certainly win more money than in the old system for a blogger, (like advertising, or product placement), but this example will somehow build frustration to people who think they deserve more, and just that other people voted by whales do not deserve this value. Some are even auto-voted by whales Bots..
Steem is based on incentive (money), and it's all public on each post, even in the post list.. You cannot avoid the comparative vision, and avoid building frustration to most of the people who does not reach even a few dollars rewards.
I think that's why we can consider Steem as a casino,
you need LUCK, or at least to build relationship, to talk to whales in the chat, or like dollarvigilente, to be famous and have a lot of followers. If you can't afford doing any of this, this is all about luck, and somehow they are not totally wrong about the casino thing..
I'm dreamer too, but i guess we just dream about being in the lucky ones, but this system will still create unlucky guys, frustrated people, and thats why it will not solve but only reproduce the world problems ;)
somehow contribute, a little bit, to a better life for a few more people than the old system. i admit it and thats why i love it and is a dreamer like you are ;)

Hard work pays off my friend! "Pay" your dues and you won't lose :)

It's more than getting paid for blogging! It's an investment vehicle. We have models to follow such as Bitcoin and other currencies who's price shot up very high. Bitcoin floating around the $600's, Ethereum went up past the $20's. Observe how dirt cheap Steem is right now. Buy low/sell high! I dare you to invest as little as $20 dollars (which@current price around $1.44 will get you 13+coins) & see what happens over a period of just 1-2yrs from now! Just think when price reaches $20 - $600 w0w! We can rack up a lot of coins now by adding our own money, the 'interest' it provides, and by getting involved with the community simply by voting, commenting, blogging - GET REAL PEOPLE!

you seems like not having any notion of economy or money ;)
steem cant reach 600$

Those grumpy ppl you speak of ARE the dreamers! The choice of words to use for ppl like you and I would be, believers ; go-getters, visionaries - but I do understand what you are saying :)
I see you mentioned "believe" in there l0l

I see little to no risk (other than some lost time) and am optimistically guessing at the potential benefits. This is a place for dreamers to unite.

What you saw is just a preference for the tried and true, which makes sense in their world. Plus, most people are on their guard when money enters the picture. Overall, it's self-protective: "I'm no fool."

That's one of the reasons why innovations like Steem have a natural rhythm of adoption. Skeptics, understandably so, need time to shed their skepticism. They need time to see that it's not "too good to be true." This is why a plateauing in adoption is sometimes a good thing: it makes the 'get rich quick' less quick, if you will, and therefore more believable.

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Exactly. It's like youtube in a sense. If you make multi-million-views videos, you get paid. Big.

I would be interested in reading more about your evening and steemit word spreading efforts, if you have the time.

@charlieshrem, I think the main things that will improve the growth of the community are as follows:

  1. We need people to join the platform because they enjoy the idea of up voting content to support the content producers, not because they want to make a lot of money. 98.99% of users have to split 1/3rd of the revenue generated on the platform, so enticing most people here to make money is a really bad idea. They won't make money, they'll get frustrated, and they will leave. Retention of new people is critical, and retention is easy of people join for the right reasons.

I've personally have not made much on here so far, but I'm loving my experience since I got my introduction post to generate $116.19:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@nathanbrown/i-m-nathan-mackenzie-brown-chief-architect-of-one-of-the-most-successful-local-currency-in-the-us-a-professional-marketer

Why am I loving my experience after making this money? Because now when I vote on a piece of content that has already earned $200, I move the needle. Not a lot mind you, only $1 or $2, but I love that feeling. I love knowing that all I need to do is vote on something and the author benefits financially from me doing so. As a small SP holder, I don't have the ability to have a significant impact on content discovery, but I can do my little part to help somewhat valuable content become more valuable. Plus, if I vote on something that's already got $3k or more value, then I really see my vote move the needle!

  1. We need to make it easier to get new users to purchase Steem and power up so they can see that their votes make a difference. They don't need much SP, I only have about $50 worth right now, but going from $5 to $50 was huge for my user experience. Before I had this SP my votes didn't do anything. I voted on lots of different content, and the vote number went up, but the $ didn't. It didn't feel great to have no impact on the financial value of the content I voted on. Even though I've purchased Bitcoin in the past, I have yet to take the time to purchase Bitcoin so I can convert it into Steem so I can power up. I know I should, and I probably will soon, but most users won't bother with this annoying step.

In particular we need to make it so people can use Paypal to get Steem. With just a $50 investment in Steem a user can power up and then they can move the needle. Since you will very soon become a Whale on this platform, you have the power to make Steem much more accessible to new users. You personally can sell your Steem for USD through Paypal, and you can take a cut to pay someone to make these exchanges for you. The more you and other Whales engage in this activity, the more users will be able to see the impact of their votes on the content on the platform. This won't do anything to keep users here who only care about making money, but for the altruistic ones who want to support the artists, writers, etc. on this platform, they will stick around, and they are ultimately going to be why Steemit succeeds.

Thanks a lot for your thoughts. You're right in that upvoting (curating) for the pleasure of it is a better way to go than the "you can get rich" hard sell. And, Steem would benefit a lot if a small-amount fiat gateway were set up for it. The trouble is, PayPal has a bad reputation in cryptocurrency land because it allows, or at least used to allow, refunds for anyone who asked for one; they pegged virtual currencies as suspicious (potentially scammy) goods. So, some malicious buyers found out that they could get cryptocurrency "free" by sending in a refund request after receiving the crypto they bought. The refund funds came of course from the sellers' accounts; they got bilked.

Maybe PayPal has improved since it became notorious for that; maybe...

I had no idea. Thanks for the info!

Right now I use 'Circle' bitbank - I link my paypal debit card on Circle so that can buy bitcoins via paypal. Have to first get money to Paypal by numerous of ways. I use Paypal Cash. I just wish Paypal would except bitcoin to make it easier :)

Steem will eventually get there too. Actually, I would like to see Steem get accepted first 0r multiple currencies@the same time

Actually, I take back a lot of what I said above. I just realized that the value of posts I was voting on was changing as a result of factors other than my vote at the same time as when I was voting, and I conflated causation with association.

@NathanBrown - you may want to just make that into a post itself :P

If he made it into a post, nobody would have read it, it would have gotten buried in half an hour...

The problem is I wasn't having the voting impact that I thought I was :-(

Some of the Legends of Bitcoin, now here on Bitcoin's little Brother STEEM. SIMPLY AWESOME! Thanks @charlieshrem
full $teem ahead!
@streetstyle

What can we do to educate and grow the community?

We need an official wiki that has all the important information and is kept up-to-date. Right now everything is scattered around and it's really hard for a newbie to find all the right facts about Steem. Fortunately it's coming, but Steemit hasn't still found a person to take care of that task. If you know somebody who is good at explaining things about blockchain, please contact @ned.

We should start to think how we will let subcommunities emerge. If Steem grows bigger than what we are now, it's really hard to have just one community. There will be simply too much users and posts.

Now we have tags and personal feed, but that's not going to be enough. There should be a way how users can create strong subcommunities in Steem, where they don't need to care what other users are doing in other subcommunities. The existence of a strong community will create incentive to keep using Steem even if somebody can't produce posts that are rewarded well with money.

I'd encourage everybody to think outside the box for a while and ponder how the content feed could be personalized optimally for every user. How would you design Steemit.com if it didn't exist yet (there was only the Steem blockchain without UI)?

Languages are one important factor here. Users should be able to see only the languages that they choose to see. For that to happen, there needs to be a standardized way to indicate which language the post is written in. My suggestion is to use ISO 639-3 for that.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but it's pretty much empty. A little bit more is here: https://www.steem.center/index.php?title=Main_Page

Wiki is mostly a public good. It benefits everybody, but very few individual benefit by writing to it. That's why I think the best solution is to let Steemit hire somebody whose responsibility is to keep the wiki updated.

Honey Badger is Proud to be Associated with Bitcoin and Crypto.

Congratulations on all the work and dedication you have put into the cryptocurrency world. All for one and one for all! Namaste :)

Simply wow man! So great to have you on board! Greets from Bitcoin City Berlin!

I want you guys as my monetary voluntarist hacker overlords! :-) Noob-Power!

Steem reminds me of my mining days but without the investment! Sure I put a few Bitcoins into Steem Power, but that is only a fraction of what I did to get my BTC. Early adoption, care, and participation!

By mining you were participating in the network. With Steem, writing and curating is the same thing.

you are "spending" your precious time to make a mental work... posting & curating

That's a good way of putting it! Steem is like mining, only for content providers. Now, you don't need to be a computer geek to mine cryptocurrency - you just need to know how to write!

From little things Big things grow.The biggest things on Steemit are Ideas and connected community all being incentivized by the STEEM rewards.

I have only been here actively participating for less than a week and much good news has happened already that I cant wait to see what the future hold for Steemit, truly. With so many dedicated people coming together decentralized money and its platforms will eventually have to become the norm. I feel that Steem/Steemit will continue to succeed so long as it keep attracting big names in the crypto space. It will also take off massively if it can adapt the platform to include a commodities market to allow people who create physical things to sell their products. It will also be good if the devs do decide to allow the use of links to Facebook to take advantage of viral advertising.

Each day is filled with something new. new members, new ideas, new projects, etc.. Very exciting times.

You will see an e-commerce marketplace among other things. They will more than likely be separate websites , websites than run on the steem blockchain. This is the late 1990's all over.

I really don´t know anything about this whole crypto thing, but now I´m here for round about 1 month thanks to @cass... education is the key: https://steemit.com/step/@cass/tbd-step-steem-education-program-ideas-welcome share your ideas to introduce the topic for "normal" people like me

@charlieshrem, what is missing in Steem at there moment is a sophisticated curation system. Right now it is too much of a blunt instrument, but has the potential to be something very powerful. Unfortunately, potential is not a foregone conclusion. So people liked you, people with influencer in the community and long standing reputation, need to promote high quality proposals for improving the platform.

One way to improve the curation system is to have a more sophisticated tag system based upon the LinkedIn skill tags model. Anyone should be able to add a tag to a post and others should vote on them. Rewards can be given for adding semantic tags and for upvoting those of others, the same as posting, except weighted less.

Here is a post to explain more clearly: https://steemit.com/steemit/@manipulable/proposal-make-tags-useful-in-steemit-or-copy-linkedin

I believe with the above tag solution that steemit can seriously complete with Reddit.

And here is a post that has curated some of the best Steemit improvement proposals: https://steemit.com/steem-ideas/@beanz/give-steem-ideas-your-love

The best thing you can do for the community is putting your weight behind solid, practical, high quality Steemit Improvement Proposals that make it easy to find high quality semantically relevant posts so that niche subjects can thrive.

What a great vehicle where you invest time and talents, which you have to do in the work world to survive anyway, why not invest those things for a much more lucrative
future and in you spare time. This is a very addictive site.

I agree. In the two weeks I've been on Steemit, I've spent more time on this site every day than any other site I use. I barely even look at Facebook and Twitter anymore, except to do some book promotion. I'm spending all my time here, reading fascinating articles that interest me, upvoting those articles, and writing and posting my own (even when I should be working on finishing by book....I've got a release date coming up). It IS addictive, and I love it. The possibilities of what this site can be are truly thrilling and inspiring.

I think what it needs to succeed is first and foremost a large user base. I outlined my ideas for how freemium economics concepts & strategies can be leveraged in this article.

How we get to a larger user base I think is by getting the word out like this. Most people I talked to there have never heard of bitcoin... but they are hungry, and most have interesting things to say & share.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
-The best thing about Steemit is the community.
That is what will make it succeed in the longterm.

I think Steemit should be used for community good, not self good.
I am part of a network in South Africa whos sole aim to help as many people as possible through technology and self sustainable means.
What steemit needs is foresight, and by using that foresight, will be able to predict to some degree the future. If you can predict the future, you can predict the needs of the people on that future.

My advice, don't tell people to come and join Steemit. Show them why they should join. All the greatest movements and leaders the world have seen have been driven by selfless individuals whos main aim was to debug societies and humanities.
Show them by helping your local communities through steemit. Show them by using steemit to change someone elses life, not yours.

Quote "Roger was my first outside investor, now a great friend. When he heard about the benefits of Bitcoin—privacy, little fees, no banks to freeze accounts—he didn’t sleep for three days. He made himself sick with enthusiasm and later earned his nickname by giving away Bitcoins just to spread the word ". exactly how I felt with bitcoin and even more so with Steem, I can't sleep lol

I appreciate you calling us your people, it really makes me feel like I am part of the steemit movement. One thing we could do to educate the community is by using step by step tutorials. I think alot of the hesitation comes from being overwhelmed by the information. Also personal communication through steemit would help alot.

People have to know that steemit can be fun, and not look at it as another job. Communities grow, only when they can reproduce and in order for that to happen here we have to stop killing each others creativity. One post gets $3,000 another gets $0, we should all try a little harder to help one another feel like what we have to say is of value.

Have you ideas that could be implemented on steem/steemit and increase the probability of success? Will you share us some?

I so agree with you.
and I love your story. @charlieshrem

I think that one of the greates t strengths of steemit is the enthusiasm of programmers and app developers behind steemit. Steemers developers are amazing and Chen apps will reach critical mass, steemit will become unstoppable.

Good to see you back at it in full swing with a smile. I hope to meet you one day and join you in your journey.
I agree that we as a community can make steem continue to succeed.

It wont succeed unless they dump the flag system and hire on or assign real moderators. The site has potential and I like the idea but the flag system is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS and will be the downfall if not changed!

Hells nah! we don't need or want mods. This is why the Blockchain is here bebe! There is no need for mods so pls do not bring this up again lol

Me not a friend also know this website, I also just come soon, to learn from you.

Haha, would love to meet you in real life one day :)

I'll be speaking again soon, def come out!

Great post and pictures!

Steem is boom boom and it will beat the bitcoin as its yearly supply is 300 time more than bitcoin and its main weapons are STEEM and STEEM power holders which stabilize the Steemit while Bitcoin has only one weapon that is miner and in mining they never set the value.

Steem Power is an important aspect, I agree with you. Steem incentivizes long term holding.

... and later earned his nickname by giving away Bitcoins just to spread the word.

Looks like Roger had invented Steem long before @dan & @ned did.

Love this post Charlie, especially the pictures. Up voted, Cheers.

I am very glad that by means of steemit I have got acquainted, with you I read now, your posts regularly

I really appreciate all your guy's hard work and dedication to help build what we have today.

Charlie spent years in prison to help build what we have today. Talk about dedication! So glad you are finally out @charlieshrem and contributing fantastic peices such as this.

Totally agree!

"Steem incentivizes community building and growth." to specific people and specific people only. That's the problem.

How about 'Steemit Jacksonville, FL.' I'd be happy to converge.

Greetings Charlie, I am an old guy, but I am not grumpy, Most people my age (64) that I know cannot stand me because I think very highly of our young people of today. The young generation of today are smarter than I will ever be. They are creative, industrious, and have taken the internet to unimaginable heights. Today's Youth are also our greatest champions of freedom. The generations of the past have truly tried to enslave the world by controlling our fiat currency. Cryptocurrency is one of the greatest inventions of all time. It will allow you to keep your own money, time, and wealth. Gold and silver can do the same thing except there really is not enough to go around because all of the countries worldwide are trying to horde it. Must be because their currency's days are numbered. Every country in the world is using a central bank system just like the Federal Reserve Bank here in the U.S. Because of "Fractional Reserve Banking" all of this currency will fail because it is pulled out of thin air and robs labor of their time and work and their savings. With cryptocurrency, you have none of this "Bullshit". their is no government or central bank getting their greedy little hands in the works. Cryptocurrency may be virtual, but it is pure, unregulated, and will be here holding its value for centuries just like gold and silver.

@charlieshrem you might want to check out the shirt results :)
BTW this isn't clickbait lol... please just check :)

https://steemit.com/motocross/@b0y2k/steemit-factory-racing-custom-shirt-giveaway-the-redraw-results#comments

Simple make bitcoin or cryptocurrency use as easy as sending an email.
However I understand that most cryptos currently can't scale very well because of the block size regardless if cryptocurrency has an artificial limit like bitcoin or not.
Once that issue is resolved then we can see a grandma friendly interface.

Your writing is so good!
Btw i started up on cryptonomicon today on the first chapter --- MINDBLOWN.

Continue spreading the good vibes :)

I love how you described the ethos of the counter-culture punks and geeks.

The original question wasn't answered; for now, though Steem can rely solely on user growth similar to early social media. Once it hits its peak, like social media, growth won't be enough and it will have to look at monetization. The risk I some of us are taking with steem power is that Steem monetizes this platform before the user growth tapers; otherwise, it may be like Twitter, which procrastinated too long and is in trouble.

Still, its economic model is not sustainable without infinite user growth, so everyone has been forewarned and the risk as you say is just a loss of time if a person only takes the risk of writing media.

We’re brash. We keep weird hours. We’re intense. We get wrapped up in our work. We forget to shower, to shave, and sometimes to eat. We have a hard time communicating with people who don’t have a clue about coding.

This is so true though.

What are you really risking on Steemit? You are supplying good content with the hopes of acquiring some Steem power and you do not have to buy anything. Another consideration for me is the free sharing of ideas. We have all seen the recent attempts at Reddit , Facebook and Twitter to shut down the people they disagree with. I love Steemit because we get to share our thoughts without the fear of being shut down by some corporation that has been bought and paid for.

I think one of the keys to success is word of mouth. I submitted a post hoping the community could help craft the perfect Elevator pitch. You can read my draft pitch here https://steemit.com/steem/@shane-loomb/spread-the-word-help-write-the-perfect-steemit-elevator-pitch

I like this article and want to be able to easily access it again.
That's why I've made this comment.

The honeybadger lol !!!

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