Has The Engine Outlived its Value?

Steem-Engine has been a powerful learning tool for me

The most valuable lessons have been:

The Basics of Trading.
Learning how to determine the usefulness/long term value of a tribe and token.

The Basics of Trading

How come 100 marlians and 1 LEO is the same?
Pegging tokens to crypto instead of USD (valuable for "real" crypto trading)
Setting up buys and sells
What is a sell wall. What is a buy wall.
What is a marketcap?
Why amount of users matter.

All of these things seem simple and basic now, and I learned them all using the STEEM-Engine

How useful is a tribe?

I quickly learned that not all tribes were created equal. At first I invested my time in projects I thought were important.

Then I learned to invest my time in projects that had a strong user base and team.

Lastly I learned that if a project didn't have a use - then it was basically a dive down to zero value.

Communities are here, do we still need tribes?

In my opinion. Yes.

If your community is a business, then you most definitely have a use in the tribe-sphere.

Does your tribe have its own webpage? If yes, having a token could split the cost between your users. This would require a user base that gives $$ intead of takes.

Does your webpage have advertisements? If yes, then you are generating an income, and a nice way to distribute that income is through token holders.

Does your tribe have a use/incentive/product? It needs one to give your token value.

Was this "just" a hobby, to see what would happen? Then you are better off turning your hobby into a simple community.

Many tribe owners and token holders are angry at the development team

I don't know if it is the lockdown. The fact that I have a California income (which I understand is inflated meaning my pay days feel bigger than most and my mortgage payments are even that much more ridiculous than those of others. My understanding of how expensive small businesses are. My thoughts that tribes are small businesses, or what.

But the level of aggression towards the development teams have been astounding.

The response of the development team hasn't been very professional either.

I care about what the Engine Development teams think are fair in their personal posts where they are also sharing about what they ate for dinner and what their kid drew last night. BUT - in the post that tells me what you are doing and what the costs will be, I don't CARE, what you think is fair. I care what the bottom line is for me.

Had this been my business I would have charged a flat fee to move a tribe over, and I would have swapped ENG and ENG-Miners 1:1. But it was not my decision, so oh well...

But now, we had to learn about someone's lawyer's opinion instead. This made me want to know the ins and outs of the lawyers opinion, which I did not get... hmmm.

Aside from the drama, the reality is that if a complex goes out of business, and the owner of the complex decides to build a new complex at the other end of town, it won't be free to move

And although "first months rent" would be nice if renting from the same person, aside from not having to do credit or background checks, these are not offered by all landowners.

Sometimes, all you get is knowing that there is somewhere else for your business to live.

To me, the Engine has not outlived its value

Although I was buying up STEEM-ENGINE tokens slowly to start my own tribe and am annoyed that their worth has tumbled. I understand the why of it. I invested in something that moved its value. My STEEM-ENGINE tokens are still there, and can choose to build something on STEEM.

I am not mad at having STEEM and HIVE now, so that little cushion should be enough to start over.

To those tribe owners who don't agree with me, they can simply turn their tribe into a community, or leave the token earning on STEEM. STEEM does still exist after all.

I WILL be investing in my own tribe.##

But first. I will make sure my team is strong. I will make sure my webpage has plenty of spaces to advertise. I will make sure my token has a use, I will make sure my token has a use.

AND - I will make sure that what I build can move BEYOND the Engine.

This mama is not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water.