The reason i am buying Steem is cuz of its consistant passive income.
When the price rises the income would be greater as well.
I am not a writer so the curation rewards are a big thing for me and for the most people that arent writers.
I think i am the only one who thinks that a 50/50 reward distribution is a great thing.

> "I still don't see how there is value to owning STEEM or why I would want to buy any."

Are you implying that Steem has no value? Advertising makes it clear that people's eyeballs have value. Bringing people's eyeballs to Steem has value. 

People would buy Steem to increase their influence on people eyeballs and mind which are all very valuable to even the biggest corporations and governments.

The original whitepaper states:

> "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."

https://www.docdroid.net/0TuBFv2/steem-whitepaper.pdf

I could explain how 10 measly content producers could generate enough demand for consumers to buy 2.5 million STEEM.  The problem I have with explaining it is the fact I've tried what feels like a million different ways of saying it.  Maybe it's my wording?  I don't know.  I have these two recent posts:
https://steemit.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/curators-hello-where-the-hell-are-you

https://steemit.com/steem/@nonameslefttouse/how-much-have-you-spent-on-entertainment-in-your-lifetime

I left a good comment somewhere else where I actually break down how 10 content producers could create so much demand.  I don't know what to say anymore and I'd have to hunt for that comment, and I'm so tired.  Writing it out again just seems like a waste.

*Edit: Found the second time I used that comment I speak of under this post
https://www.palnet.io/palnet/@midlet/on-50-50-for-steem-you-ll-never-beleive-what-the-real-problem-is

Combine the wisdom from everything I've said within these links, plus I can find more links, just read my entire blog and every comment; you'll eventually find some answers.

The tokenomics of any project is the magic part. When it works, no one can really say why. When it doesn't work, everyone has an opinion why it failed. Ultimately, all financial value is a form of speculation on story telling. I think Steem as a blockchain and a cryptocurrency could tell some really compelling stories which investors and speculators will value. I think it's had this opportunity for quite some time. I hope that story develops. This post here is the primary reason I was so excited about Steem: <a href="https://steemit.com/steem/@dan/steemit-s-evil-plan-for-cryptocurrency-world-domination">Steemit's Evil Plan for Cryptocurrency World Domination</a>.

I still think it's possible.

If content is actually valued in a way that is perceived as fair/valuable, that is a big deal. It means that the inflation being printed isn't just dumb dilution and there is genuine value being generated and rewarded appropriately. It means that others will seek to come in and participate in the exchange of value for whatever it is that they are creating on this platform. Others can come and participate in continuing to contribute to rewarding value, and be rewarded in the process (the motivation to buy-- influence within a fair system of value generation). A positive feedback loop. 

And even if we aren't thinking along those lines, good content and engagement attracts users, and the platform's total networking power is what is valuable. If the system is perceived as fair then more people have reason to participate. Going the mass adoption route legitimizes the platform as a currency system in its own right.

I think there's a few holes in my argument / avenues for exploration here, but I can't quite figure it out right now.

I see STEEM or mainly Steem Power as a way to be able to engage actively in one or more communities on the STEEM blockchain. Also yes that gives you more weight on rewards as well, but in general you are earning by helping build the blockchain and communities.

>"If you take away speculation, why would someone want to buy STEEM?"

This is something I've been asking for a long time and aside from curation rewards, there isn't much. 

But for two years, I've been talking about advertising, revenue, and profit-sharing for website/interface owners. I even spoke with Ned about this two years ago and he had zero interest in it at all. Then he realized that capital appreciation from the "ninja-mine" can't pay the bills forever...or even a couple of years. 

The added value that most people are looking for can and should be added by businesses running *on* the chain, not the chain itself. Taking my advertising example:

1. Interface owner implements advertising.
2. A percentage of revenue is distributed to *their* active users (people who are logged in and interacting with the blockchain via their particular interface). 
3. Revenue is distributed based on the STEEM Power of those users. 
4. Users can opt-in or opt-out to the advertising and revenue sharing. Non-users have no options.

What would this do for the blockchain? First, it would entice visitors of those interfaces to create an account in order to turn off ads or to opt into the revenue sharing. Second, it would entice users to purchase STEEM and power it up, or hold much of the SP that they accumulate in order to compound future ROI. 

What would it do for the interface owners? It would entice more people to use *their* interface, which would increase their ad revenue.

What else could it do? It could attract better content creators who want to get their work in front of more users...the user base that is potentially growing due to the better incentives. 

Worried about large stakeholders soaking up all of the shared profits? You can cap the distribution. 

Want to further entice popular content creators to use your interface? Share another percentage of ad revenue with those popular creators through an entirely different ad program. 

Concerned that your site is just being gamed by people looking for profits? Congratulations! That's what basic human behavior essentially is: *economical.* That's the foundation of commerce. And if you can get some steady commerce going on your site with legit businesses, value will continue to grow. 

This is the kind of thing that many of our "developers" can do right now. And there's no hard fork necessary to do it either. They don't have to wait on anybody at all to get started. What are these interface owners doing instead? How are they making their money as website *businesses?* It seems most people don't realize that running a social media site is a business operation, first and foremost. They should start treating it as such.

We're not going to have much luck finding better value or more investment in(to) the Steem blockchain by simply hoping that our scheme of giving away inflation tokens will suddenly see huge demand shifts. There's only so much you can do with the internal blockchain economics - which have been severely broken and won't be fixed by the EIP alone. We need more developers focused on actual business models and adding value to this blockchain via those businesses and we need to give less attention (and money) to those simply looking to milk inflation rewards via vote/delegation buying and renting schemes or with outright ponzi/scam "projects."

For the record: I don't believe the SPS will give us different results, as much of the voting will be done by the same people currently allocating rewards.

@yabapmatt I hope you read y reply because the answer to your question is very simple. 

Basically what you are looking for is to give STEEM a sink. A strong sink that makes it scarce and valuable.  

USE EYEBALLS.

Content (written, audio, visual, etc...) and games bring users. People pay to get ads in front of those people. On the steem network, they pay bidbots to do that. 

USE BIDBOTS TO BURN STEEM. 

You are the father of bidbots. You obviously thought of this. Delegators to bidbots wouldn't mind cutting their APR by 2% if it meant that the steem was burned instead. And people who promote their posts to get them on rending wouldn't mind getting a bit less in upvote value from bidbots. 

BURN 20% of all bidbot profits. This is the best sink steem can get. You have the influence to convince the whole steem ecosystem to follow this rule. If a bidbot doesn't burn, then mark him as unhelpful to STEEM on steembottracker.com.

> My issue with the EIP (and the whole concept of rewarding content just for the sake of it) is that even if it works out perfectly - i.e. the highest quality posts always end up with the most rewards or however you define the perfect "proof of brain" system - I still don't see how there is value to owning STEEM or why I would want to buy any

I'm not going to entirely disagree as I've been making this exact same argument since 2016 as many are well aware, especially regulars on the old steemit.chat #price channel.

However, I do want to make a counterargument which is that EIP and better voting generally may allow stakeholders to coordinate to pay out not necessarily the 'highest quality' content (which is a poorly defined concept in any case) but on content which brings value to Steem. This can happen in many different ways including:
1. Being externally popular (the best example of this I can easily recall is Dan's early post "Will the DAO be DOA" which was covered in popular media when The DAO was in the new first during its enormous fundraise and then during  its hack. The steemit.com post was widely linked and discussed and probably helped give Steem a big early boost in attention and growth)
2. Being part of a process that evidences virtuous cycle growth, for example, externally-successful influencers with an audience being successful on Steem and inspiring more to join in turn
3. Contributing directly to growth by attracting users, but this only works if churn is also under control. This probably requires there being enough other "stuff" of interest on the platform/ecosystem beyond just free money, which most new users won't get much of anyway.
4. Supporting organic Steem influencers who develop their brand and attract a new audience to Steem.

There are probably others.

I don't know whether EIP will actually do this and if so I doubt it will do it right away, but it is possible that a stronger voting system will eventually allow more of the reward pool to be directed to these sorts of specifically value-adding content and not just content for its own sake or even just 'quality' content.

>I still don't see how there is value to owning <STEEM or why I would want to buy any.

>but being able to earn more STEEM is not a reason to buy STEEM in itself.

Why not, though? Let's say it's 2016 again, there are no bidbots, and the only way to earn STEEM is through upvotes on steemit.com. Let's say there's a culture on the site where users who buy and power up are rewarded. Why wouldn't this culture encourage buying?