Steem: The world's largest Choose-your-own-adventure

For user experience, I support simplification of all factors that matter, remove the complication and barriers to entry caused by a steep on-ramp and learning requirements. However, I think that this should be done at an individual application level where the enduser experience is delivered by a smooth and clean interface design and rule set.

When it come to Steem itself though, I believe that there should be some level of complication and learning curve involved as it is the investment layer that supports the global city being built upon it. I see learning curve as skill building and while it doesn't have to be extreme, investing into knowledge development is much like buying into a project and once there is significant buy-in, there is the sense of ownership.

And, what I am getting more and more excited about is the increasing range of pathways one can take and I hope that this continues. For example, the proposal changing the way powering down and inflation rewards could work, would introduce another path that would be interesting to some user - another game to play.

Choose-your-own-adventure

We are all gamers on Steem and we are all gaming the system, but we aren't all doing it in the same way and for many of us, the games we play are beneficial to the spread and support of the ecosystem as a whole. What I like about all of the variations of gameplay and paths to take and it is growing exponentially and potentially infinitely. Steem is not confined by the game design and will continually change through thousands of layers and fragmentations that open up new experiences - Screw Minecraft.

Not only that, because it is a content delivery system with multi-token economic integration, a mutlitude of new layers can be created and owned. Communities can organically develop, formalize and disband without stepping on the toes of other communities, tokens can carry immense value without having to impact on those not interested in them, and there can be so many tailored end user experiences created with overlapping use case, intertwined pathways and interoperable economics that the possibilities of choice are endless.

What this means is that while we are all gamers, the games we play vary greatly as will our results. A person who focuses on earning Steem could earn less than one who focuses on earning LEO or an SMT. An Appics user could gather 100,000 followers and build an off-chain business around their personal brand, an Actifit consultant helps gyms tokenize their client experience and a developer builds a business around integrating SMTs into established websites and communities. There are endless possibilities and the potential for real-world integrations as Steem has economic capabilities that are not confined to the digital landscape and blockchain and can create jobs and markets that are yet to exist.

Steem is much like an organism that can evolve in its lifetime and the driver of its evolution is the innovation through its user base, we the community. There is a very high degree of complexity in the dynamics and potential as every action on Steem has a reaction that influences all other future movements. A single micro action can turn into a macro trend that creates new branches and swaths of digital land to build upon and to fertilize new crops that will bear their own fruit in time.

Yes, there are a lot of weeds and the challenges will be ever present, but through the resistance comes strength and as the ecosystem develops, any individual can enter in and play at the level they choose. They can stay narrow on one gaming interface, spread their experience out to different medias, develop their own end user experiences or invest their wealth into underpinning it all.

Steem is not STEEM. Steem is an ecosystem that has the potential to reshape our online experience, build social capital and question what ownership means and the way we value and manage our available resources - physical and digital.

Your choice. Your adventure.

 

Taraz [ a Steem original ]