HI and welcome to Steemit, my name is Dylan. I am a food & travel journalist, fiction writer, and new Steemian. I published my first article on Steemit 25 days ago entitled “Hello and welcome to the unreal world of steemit."
Since then I have (as I imagine many newcomers to the site do) been spending a lot of time thinking about, and exploring; Steemit.
As a writer, a social media / blog platform that rewards creative content producers is of course extremely interesting, and so far in the first few days on this platform I have found more creative individuals, posting great quality content, than my entire time on Facebook. It’s a breath of fresh air. But what exactly is Steemit all about?
Like any other blog platform, the basics are essentially the same. Create some content, put it online, follow some people you like (and hope they follow you back), comment on and share stuff you like. And if your making and publishing good content get paid in Steem! (whatever that is). Simple.
But steemit, it would appear, is much more than that. It’s a silky jazz-smoking-jacket, a steamy, rabbit-hole, crypto-thriller (watch this space). A maze of strange and wonderful characters, ideas and intriguing plot lines. A decentralised, creative, socio-politico-economic thought experiment in the making. And we’re all part of it.
But before we get into the nitty gritty of things, such as what is a whale? Are voting bots ethical? And what’s the deal with @GrumpyCat? Is he Steemit’s Batman (surely that should be Catman?) or a facist steemian bent on steemworld domination? Let’s take a moment to put aside the hyperbolic conjecture and go straight to the source itself.
So, young steemians, without further ado, please welcome in her (or perhaps that should be his?) first ever interview, the one and only Steemit!
Steemit interview #1 - 28.1.2018.
@dylan007: “So, Steemit, I know many of our readers are dying to know, are you male or female?
@Steemit: Well dylan007, wouldn’t you like to know?
@dylan007: Err yeah, that’s why I asked the question.
@Steemit: Is that 007 as in James Bond? Or were you just the number 7 Dylan to join me?
@dylan007: Err…
@Steemit: Come on don’t be coy, it’s a Jame’s bond reference isn’t it?
@dylan007: Errr yeah, it’s a James Bond reference.
@Steemit: Hmmm…
@dylan007: So?
@Steemit: So what?
@dylan007: Are you male or female?
@Steemit: Well personally I don’t like labels, they’re so limiting, don’t you think? But if I had to pick one I guess I’d have to say that I’m androgynous.
@dylan007: Ok, so what is Steemit?
@Steemit: “‘I’m a fabulous incentivised, blockchain-based, public content platform!”
@dylan007: For someone that’s new to Steemit, can you put that in layman’s terms?
@Steemit: Nobody likes a lame man darling…
@dylan007: Errr, I said layman, like…
@Steemit: Yes, yes I know, god don’t be such a drag my love, life is too short, don’t you think? Hmmm… Well… I guess I’m a fantastic, online, socialistic, crypto-currency community. A place where beautiful, creative, crypto minds are rewarded for their contributions to our marvellous steem-based society.
@dylan007: Great, thanks! So, is Steemit your real name?
@Steemit: No, it’s John. Not really, that’s another joke. But no, seriously Steemit is my psuedonym, or my artist name if you will, like Prince. I’m like the Banksy of the crypto world. It’s better that way. The only way Steemit can work is if it’s truly decentralised. Of course as we grow it kind of get’s hard not to manage, but that’s the idea anyway, to give power to the people.
@dylan007: In your white paper you talk a lot about the interconnection of steem, your personal crypto-currency, with social media and user generated content saying that you “aim to support social media and online communities by returning much of [your] value to the people who provide valuable contributions [to the community] by rewarding them with cryptocurrency.”
@dylan007: This is an interesting concept, but I know many people will be wondering where does the value of steem come from? Your essentially creating a crypto currency from nothing, doesn’t that make it worthless?
@Steemit: Well aren’t we getting serious all of a sudden? I guess your not just a pretty face after all @dylan007. I think that’s probably more of a question for @dantheman (Dan Larimer, co founder of Steemit). He has an interesting article where he talks about the value of steem.
@Steemit: Dan says: “All value is perceived value, and people will buy anything they perceive will have more value in the future than it has today.” In a nut shell he says that there are many reasons people will buy steem and this it what gives it it’s value. It’s no different from bitcoin, gold, silver, diamonds, salt or pepper. We subscribe our perceived value to it. As such, who’s to say steem won’t one day become our main global currency?
“Steem has the potential to build a much larger user base than Bitcoin and provides financial incentives for liquidity. This combination means that Steem could become a better known currency than Bitcoin and thus become easier to transact in than Bitcoin. If market participants perceive this possibility they will buy.” (Dan Larimer)
@dylan007: So the value of steem comes from our participation and contribution to Steemit?
@Steemit: Exactly you bright little spark. The more people engage and contribute to our community. the more we secure it’s value.
@dylan007: So, would it be fair to say that steem is the daughter/son of bitcoin? And does that mean you are related to Satoshi Nakamoto?
@Steemit: Well in a way I guess you could say that. I mean, I am born from the marriage of blockchain and bitcoin, and Satoshi is obviously their father, so I guess that would make him my grand father.
@dylan007: Who are your favourite Steemians?
@Steemit: Wow, that’s too difficult to answer. There are so many cool steemians. Obviously I love me papas @dantheman and @ned (Ned Scott, co-founder of Steemit). Personally I am really into photography, art, fashion, technology, electronic music, poetry, travel and free thinking. Some of my favourite trending steemians at the moment are @velimir, @larkenrose, @adsactly, @d-pend, @jerrybanfield and @sweetsssj. Your gonna be on my list too now Mr @dylan007. Maybe after this we can grab a Martini? Shaken, not stirred, of course.
@dylan007: Haha, OK, I'll play along, so if we were to go out on date where would we go?
@Steemit: Oooh, well I'm a sucker for a good Chinese, or maybe Thai?
@dylan007: What would you order?
@Steemit: “Dumplings my dear. Steamed, obviously.
@dylan007: Nice. Getting back to Steemit business, there’s been a lot of talk lately about so called whales and their influence on the site. For example @dineroconopcion recently posted a popular article accusing @grumpycat of abusing It's SteemPower? after Grumpy voted @dineroconopcion down for not being “Grumpy Compliant” and using voting bots to promote his post after Mr (or maybe it's Mrs?) Grumpy Cat posted a new rule stating voting bots should not be used more than 3.5 days after a post is first published.
What’s your view on this? 
@Steemit: Well now your getting political Mr Bond, however it’s an interesting question. For those that don’t know there are these things called voting bots, which currently allow members to buy votes from accounts who have a large amount of steem power (whales). Essentially it’s a bit like the sponsored posts you get on Facebook accept you pay the individual account not Facebook (or me in this case). Steemit does actually have a promote post option, but paying for votes essentially gives the user the option to get a high-value user to give them an upvote, which carries a certain steem dollar value [determined by how much you pay them and how much steem power they have].
@Steemit: The question is; is this ethical? And that’s really not for me to say. I’m a decentralised community, as such it is the members who decide what is or is not ethical, and what should or should not be allowed on the site (not the few all mighty powerful overlords such as the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world) but with this comes the potential for early adopters, who now have a lot of power to curate content and use their steem power to manipulate what get’s seen and rewarded, and what content doesn’t.
@Steemit: It’s a tricky question but I have faith that the community can self regulate itself. If enough people believe that something is wrong they will join forces and correct it. Is @grumpycat right to enforce his grumpy compliant law? That’s for the community to decide. We believe in the power of the people. That’s how Steemit works.
@dylan007: So what does the future hold for Steemit?
@Steemit: That’s the billion dollar question my inquisitive little friend! Right now it’s hard to say where we will be in 5 or 10 years time, heck it’s hard to say where I might be in a year or even tonight! That’s the beautiful thing about me. I’m a living, growing organism, it’s up to my users to write the story, but there are some key principles that will hopefully always guide us.
The most important principle is that everyone who contributes should receive pro-rata ownership, payment or debt from the venture. This principle is the same principle that is applied to all startups as they allocate shares at founding and during subsequent funding rounds.
The second principle is that all forms of capital are equally valuable. This means that those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash. This is the sweat equity principle 2 and is a concept that prior cryptocurrencies have often had trouble providing to more than a few dozen individuals.
The third principle is that the community produces products to serve its members. This principle is exemplified by credit unions, food co-ops, and health sharing plans, which serve the members of their community rather than sell products or services to people outside the community.
The Steem community provides the following services to its members:
A source of curated news and commentary.
A means to get high quality answers to personalized questions.
A stable cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar.
Free payments.
Jobs providing above services to other members.
@dylan007: Well, many thanks for taking the time to speak to me and share your world with us today @steemit. I hope this will be the first of many great interviews.
@Steemit: Oh your very welcome my darling. Now let’s get some dumplings!
Have a comment or question for @steemit ? Post it below and we’ll ask her/him (lets just say them) to get back to you!