"Where does all the money come from?"
I missed something in the discussion. I think it is very important to understand that the stories and upvoters get paid by the all the network's users. There is a 100% inflation rate on Steem. If you lock your Steem in Steempower you get 90% a year., 10% go to authors and upvoters. So basically you lose 5% per year (this is a simple explanation of how I think it more or less works). This is where the money comes from. The game is like this: can you make more Steempower than you lose every year by upvoting or posting stories? For populair authors this won't be a problem. Also someone could become a professional upvoter; shouldn't be a problem either. But the "every day average user" will probably lose money (of course there is a possibility that Steemit rises in value, but that will only happen if the system proves to be sustainable I think). What are his/her incentives to use Steemit above for example Reddit?
Could be:
- It's decentralized, so content is always visible on the network. No censorship.
- Everyday users like the game of voting and try to make money.
- Something else?
I think in the end the "every day average user" will make the platform or break the platform.