| 1) A quick glance at the Steemit "front page" today (https://steempeak.com/) pretty strongly counters this assertion. Lots of art, photos, travel, music, etc. Not at all what I would classify as "self-referential." Perhaps you were only looking at the "Trending" page?
It's far better to see Steemit raw. Steempeak is a nice interface. 2) To understand the business model for any functional currency (STEEM, BTS, Bitcoin, etc.) you need to understand that the true source of wealth is not something external. Wealth derives from the human soul. Jesus said "What would a man give in exchange for his soul?" Much later, R. Buckminster Fuller observed that wealth is our ability to "live into the future" and it is entirely based on the application of human thought/ingenuity to raw material resources. Steemit (as any other viable, useful currency) is a "wealth magnet" that transfers existing human capital out of corrupt, inflationary fiat currencies (e.g. $USD) because it is a superior store of value and medium of exchange. One of STEEM's greatest claims to fame is that it is a (reasonably) stable currency that is free to use and frictionless. Built on a Graphene blockchain, STEEM enables any holder to transfer wealth anywhere in the world, in a matter seconds, with no fees, no hoops to jump through, no questions asked. What other financial instruments can claim as much? And STEEM is tradable on major exchanges, decentralized and otherwise. Furthermore, as a social media platform, Steemit provides a potentially perpetual free internet archive for content creators. You don't have to secure a domain name; you don't have to pay perpetual fees to maintain your work. The fact that the blockchain not only holds your content, but is the basis for a financial ecosystem, makes its self-perpetuation far more likely than your "average" public site (think Geocities, etc.). BTW, I am the author of the Chicken article and I would be happy to address any specific questions about the machine and how I created it. Furthermore, you can see an example of what I mean by the archival nature of Steemit by visiting my Steemit Library: https://steemit.com/a/@creatr/b I hope this helps explain the present and ongoing value of Steemit. It most assuredly may not be trivially dismissed as a nonsensical "Ponzi scheme" that "suckers" buy into. |