The Human Factor - thoughts on strategic approach by a minor Steemit lover

Luckily, I belong to those people that have joined Steemit after the big party was over. I never earned thousands of Steem dollars, I’ve rarely earned hundreds, but I’ve earned millions expressed in the intangible value produced by the ability to socialize on a blockchain.

Before I go on, allow me to say that despite my artistic side when it comes to business and money, I am not a romantic. So when I talk about the intangible value of something, the good will so to speak, I am talking about true balance sheet inputs. The Blockchain paradox is that each one of us can have his own Steemit enterprise and can allocate different value on its good will based on his own business plan – that is his own assumptions and vision for Steemit.

On the other hand, despite the air of decentralization blowing among us, Steemit Inc does belong to certain people, and on top of that Steem is not evenly distributed, allowing the aka whales to alter and affect each and every business plan. Some people call this anarcho-capitalism, some people want to baptize it as freedom, others may call it oligopoly, I just call it the consequential structure of an unregulated environment.

It Is What It Is.

We are indeed free to decide if we want to be a part of it or not, but let’s face it, by definition there is no freedom in any sort of pursuit. We are bounded by our desires. And that’s why we see so much drama around here. Flags, downvotes, complaints, goodbye notes, geek wars, we’ve seen it all. Behind every bot’s act, there is a human being driven by its own desires and rational.

And that is the Human Factor

Perfectly imperfect as we are, we are able to dream and materialize ideas, to create and destroy our very own masterpieces, not intentionally or because we act in bad faith, but because when we are caught in the turmoil we are unable to step back and think strategically, detached from our own emotions and inapplicable ideas.

From the platform’s creators that may be working night and day to make a better platform, to the developers that spend their lives debugging, to curie curators that read 3000 posts a day and to the average user like me who spends a couple of hours to vote and create a decent post daily, we are all acting in good faith but maybe a little bit too consumed in achieving our goals - to the extent that collectively we are acting against our best interest.

I’ll give you a small example, on principal level. Let’s say I am a gold miner. I bring gold out to the market, I create a certain client base, they come in buy the gold, I make some profits with which I can chose to give out as a dividend to myself or expand my operations (invest in capex) or both. I do a market sounding and decide. This can prove to be a good or bad decision. So there is a 50-50 chance to fail or succeed. Now imagine I mine the gold and before I close a cycle of operations (a year let’s say) I am selling 50% of what I’m mining to pay opex (operating expenses). What does this mean? It means that I am cannibalizing my assets to finance my short term liabilities. This of course implies that I have put no tangible upfront equity to finance the costs of the first cycle of operations.

The only reason why this strategy would work and maximize the potential profits for the enterprise’s shareholders is the product being unique. The demand has to always be greater than the offer and my sudden mass selling of the product to pay the utilities bill and my salary, not to affect the price.

So is Steem Unique?

It is to us, but which one of us has the purchasing power to maintain the Steem value at the necessary levels so as to establish it as a Gem among cryptos?

Which are the Steem characteristics that make it special and we need to enhance, and which are its weaknesses that we need to correct, in order to attract more demand and increase our net worth?

I’ve heard some people say, the problem is we are not ready technically for mass adoption. Obviously, but when you are forming a business plan you do set intermediate targets and a next step approach to reach them.

So what are we ready for?

What is the maximum capacity of users?

Who are these users?

What would they require from Steem?

How do we approach them?

What will be the end effect on Steem price when we do reach the milestones set?

At the same time we have to maintain the existing base happy.

I am sure all these questions have been set many times before, people on the blockchain are unlimited times more clever than I am, but having worked in the Greek banking sector for the past 13 years, I do have some experience why sometimes great ideas fail, but mediocre ideas can produce decent profits even within a distressed macro environment.

Blame the Human Factor…

It is who answers those questions that ultimately defines the outcome. So, a developer with 145 IQ may not see the necessity for a simple photo uploader or an editing tool, but a manager may see the necessity to approach less smart people but with purchasing power. A miner or a witness or any other whale may not see that reason for initiatives like Curie to exist, but a strategist knows that a reward scheme to small accounts may be the cheapest marketing strategy there is. A shareholder may see Steemit as a short term investment and may not see merit in not selling, especially if his textbook says sell before others do, if his stake is big though he will be reducing the value of own assets unless he agrees an en bloc sale deal to existing investor base.

Having said that, for everyone’s sake Steemit should, is and could be partly high jacked by the small stakeholders too. Small or big, this social media has and does attribute value to its users. Everyone is free to decide whether the attributed value is good enough to stay around, but no one can deny that it does improve our cash flow even if it is with one dollar per year, but it also improves our self worth giving to each one of us a place in the sun – everyone in here gets the chance to communicate their own ideas and work and claim a chance for something better.

The pure essence of the blockchain is being experienced in a personal and collective manner, and if we all put our egos aside, and help each other with constructive feedback to reproduce our best selves, we will be recreating the good will of Steemit and hopefully our own net worth.

I would like to close with a wonderful video @liondani sent me, because I think it encompasses perfectly the last two paragraphs of my post.

Thanks for reading.