If You Feel Strongly STEEM Needs Something, You're Probably The One To Do It

BAT Takes The Lead—For A Bit

So, this happened late Saturday night (April 20, 2019, PDT). I'm sure this isn't the first time that the Basic Attention Token (BAT) has overtaken STEEM in price, but this is the first time since early February of this year when I acquired some BAT through learning about them on Coinbase.

At the time I earned/received them, BAT was trading between $0.110 USD and $0.115 USD. At over $0.47 Saturday night, it briefly quadrupled that initial dollar price.

Good For BAT

I suppose so. At present, STEEM and BAT are both neck and neck trading here:

As far as Coinbase goes, the advantage is still to BAT. It has a higher market cap at a little over $500 million, and it's one of 12 tokens Coinbase currently lists as available for sale/trade.

Thanks For Rubbing It In

Seriously, I'm not trying to do that. What I am trying to do is point out the fact that while STEEM has increased roughly 50-55% off it's February lows, BAT has hit 350%-400%. Why? It's not earth shattering change, but BAT seems to be showing a decent amount of interest, while STEEM is at least lagging behind.

What does BAT have that makes it valued similarly to STEEM? Is it better press? Better founding pedigree or history? Better token distribution? Better marketing? Greater utility? The fact it's based on Ethereum, an older blockchain?

Ease Of Use

I've tried to use BAT, but for me so far, the use has been pretty limited. I have some other BAT sitting in the Brave browser wallet that's intended to pay publishers who accept BAT. Accept, I've yet to run across any who are authorized to receive BAT. I am now aware that there is a pretty big list of publishers and just need to take the time to go through it.

I know I could be in the minority with this experience because there are others here who have been doing more with BAT. I just find it confusing to figure out, which is annoying, since I feel like I've spent most of my life figuring out things a lot of people can't. Now, in this instance, I'm one of the folks technology is leaving behind.

The Concept

I like the idea behind the BAT, which is why I wanted some in the first place. Getting rid of third party advertising and being able to reward online content directly. That's amazing. From the other side of it, to receive some kind of payment from anyone directly for what you've posted is a dream come true. Your audience doesn't have to be enticed to click on an ad, that's going to take it somewhere off your site, or click an affiliate link (same thing), or purchase some item you've designed (T-shirt, coffee mug, jewelry) in order to monetize your content.

It's a great idea, isn't it? Kind of like STEEM. Which has been around longer. That has an assortment of social media dApps sitting on it, where people have been posting, commenting and curating for over three years now.

So? What About It?

Recently, @llfarms asked in a blog post for users to define what STEEM is. Then, @whatsup went a little further along with @paulag to make posts out of their definitions. Undoubtedly, more have been spawned that I'm not aware of. I think those are all very good questions and answers. They're being asked and given so that there's a starting point that eventually leads to action.

But by whom? In the past, I would say these questions are being asked to come up with something to propose to Steemit Inc., where it would probably get lost in whatever Steemit Inc was trying to do. Now, there's any of a number of alliances and councils, initiatives and proposals getting together to put forward projects of all kinds. Most are concentrating on building out STEEM, but some are also considering marketing, while a few are actually doing it.

Any one of them could probably take up the mantle of bettering STEEM's position in the cryptoverse.

Or, maybe there will be someone new emerge and just start doing it, while trying to attract as many people to the cause as they can. That seems to be the way, if not the preferred way, of a decentralized system.

Just Do It

A quote attributed to Balaji S. Srinivasan has been sitting on my desktop for months. I like it a lot, and apparently, others have already bought into the sentiment, without even needing the quote, since the quote actually names folks who have done it. It reads:

I think rather than using the term argue, I might amend it to say, "Don't wait around for regulation to change, or monetary policy, or whatever. Build the alternative."

Who knows how much expertise the guys behind Uber or Bitcoin had when it came to coming up with their life changing ideas. They probably needed to be educated in something they didn't know at some point, or have someone onboard who did. The fact is, they figured it out. They went around the existing rules/tech/system, or even smashed their way through them.

My thought is, if you find yourself concerned about some aspect about STEEM, and would like it addressed, see what kind of attention you can bring to it, collect some opinions/data/information—there's no time like the present.

Be aware that it's probably not going anywhere if you don't end up leading the charge, or guiding it along to its final destination. This might be your cause. You might be the one who needs to pick up the mantle.

_{Images source—Top images from Coinbase. Bottom image originated on Twitter.}