All Steem Dollars generated from this post will be transferred to 'the lovely and hyper-intelligent Dr. Stephanie Murphy' if and when she chooses to join Steemit. :p
In the latest episode of Sovryn Tech, Voluntaryist Brian Sovryn critiqued Steemit.
Now I respect Brian. I have listened to about half of his 187 episodes of his weekly podcast. I find Sovryn Tech both informative and entertaining. Sometimes he is right about things... and sometimes he is wrong. But he is certainly not shy about putting his ass on the line.
In a nutshell, this is the stuff Brian said during his rant about Steemit. Some is paraphrased, most is verbatim. (My responses are in brackets.)
Here is the link to the show so you can listen for yourself: https://soundcloud.com/sovryntech/svtep0187
"Dan's ideas depend on people being virtuous."
(Most people are naturally good, and will act good in a free society. Steemit is a free society.)
"Having a blockchain on steemit is just for marketing."
(No, the Steem blockchain is there so shit's on record. Even if Steemit is forced to censor content, that content is still on the blockchain.)
"It is not a ponzi scheme but it is damn close."
(Value is subjective. I once thought Bitcoin was a Ponzi scheme. I refused to buy it at 5$. I refused to buy it at 10$. I finally bought it at 30$ lol. But as @dan says... All of the arguments critical of Steem can be made against Bitcoin.)
"I can't wait for this to crash."
(Brian records two hour shows in one take with little or zero notes. Sometimes he says unfortunate things. This was not out of envy, this was probably just wanting to be right. But we Steemer's want to be right, right? We want Steem to go to the Moon!)
"People are going to get Bangladeshi specials."
(Here Brian means getting fake votes. But he does not know that it takes Steem Power and also a good reputation to make posts rise.)
"White paper is complicated. It feels like central planning."
(I gotta admit that the same thought; 'central planning' popped into my head when I read the white paper. But I guess it was planned, planned in the same way that a game designer plans out his game's economy. I obviously liked the plan enough to join the experiment.)
"I don’t want to pump something that people are not going to be able to cash out on."
(this is a very ethical statement actually. I urge my fellow Steemers to be careful how you promote Steemit to others. I think that my friend @piedpiper does a most excellent job of educating people on this opportunity in an honest and non-slimy way.)
"The guy who posted one picture and 3 paragraphs and made $10,000."
(I think he is referring to Jeff Berwick. But Jeff got paid out that much only because the whales voted it up because they know Jeff will attract thousands of his followers. On Steemit you get paid for the value that you bring. )
"The website says 'rewards' not money. They are just covering their asses because when it crashes there will be no money."
(Correct, everyone could leave Steemit tomorrow and the value of Steem would go to zero. Everyone could leave Facebook tomorrow and the market cap of facebook could drop to zero. But people are, right now adding value to steemit and taking out dollar bills.)
"The early people made the money. Fuck em."
(I think that Brian thinks that the early investors are doing a classic pump and dump. Well, it's a slow motion dump because we all know that the power down takes 104 weeks, so... no. Also, the early people made the money in facebook, twitter, and... Bitcoin! Anyways... (a) it's still early, and (b) it's not just about money... it's about freedom.)
Thanks for producing Sovryn Tech every week Brian. I hope to see both yourself and your wonderful girlfriend Stephanie Murphy here on Steemit.
Fellow Steemians, please upvote!