Okay, so there are a couple of ways to earn on Leo Finance including writing and posting for reward, staking and tokens and voting, as well as taking part as a Liquidity Provider - and of course, speculating and trading tokens on the DEX. These are all well and good, but there is another value that many are taking advantage of, yet I am not sure how many recognize it.
Leo Finance is a community built around a niche topic, Finance. This includes a range of content buckets like trading, economics and plenty of "coin price" and "coin shill", as well as the regurgitation of public news releases. Yes, there is also a heavily supported "LEO content" segment, which is natural, considering that those with stake are interested in supporting the platform, though my warning would be of course that we have seen where too much support for inwardly-facing content leads.
For me, I stay away from most of these areas, other than for using them as highlights to point at other factors that interest me, which is mainly human behavior and how it is affected by environmental conditions. In regards to Leo Finance content, I do what I normally do, which is to observe and analyze the way people operate from my perspective, in regards to the economy and personal finance factors, with perhaps obviously, a heavy crypto and blockchain perspective. Personally, I don't read that much as I prefer to think for myself and while I might be wrong at times, it makes what I learn and the lessons carried, far more valuable and applicable to my own life.
Before communities were introduced, communities existed, it is just that they were less formal and more centered around initiatives and projects of various kinds, with the most successful of them having one thing in common - Stake. Stake gave incentive for people to post into the content niche in the hope for votes, which also meant that people who might not be interested in the area, would still participate. If there was a whale who wanted to support Haikus, the amount of Haiku poetry on the platform would explode - in the same way "translation" of technical content exploded under Utopian back in the day, yet who does that now?
This is not a bad thing, it just illustrates how incentives drive behavior and it is natural that on a crypto platform, people are interested in earning crypto - though many convert it into fiat. It also shows how people may not actually care about their preferred content genre as much as they say they do, as many are very, very willing to change what they write for money. Again, natural behavior, as we act on what is important to us and what is important can be affected through the incentives on offer.
With LEO being about 3x the value of HIVE currently, it has obviously attracted a lot of attention within the Hive community and is starting to get a bit of traction externally as well. Not only this, the Leo Finance team is not focusing solely on the tokenomics of their platform, they are also thinking about the User Experience (UX) through the way they order their content and the introduction of the Leo Lightning Database layer, to speed up the usage on the frontend, by stacking transactions into a queue at the back. Leveraging attention on the token price to build usability and enduser support is a smart play and something that Hive needs to do, as Steem failed quite miserably at this. The value of Hive is the userbase, but that means UX needs to be a focal point.
But, this isn't the added value I mentioned at the start.
How many syllables in a Haiku?
I know - because I Googled it.
This is the value. Because Leo incentivizes finance content, it means that people who might not have spent that much time in this area earlier, are now roaming the internet looking for content that they can use as a basis for their posts. As a result, they are learning far more than they were earlier about finance and economics, because they are spending more time surrounding themselves with and writing about these areas.
Normally, we spend our time and energy on the things that we enjoy, even if those things don't have much value or are even detrimental to our own well-being. Rather than disincentivizing these behaviors, it is possible to create change by incentivizing better alternatives. In regards to finance and economics, it could even be the case that once a person starts learning about these areas, they will recognize the cost of much of their current activity and take the opportunity to change their behavior. This means that the change is not only incentivized, but also an internal shift in mindset that can have real-world implications on personal finances.
Essentially, incentivizing economics and finance exposes people to areas that are generally disincentived culturally, as they are not integrated well into education systems and are made a taboo topic to openly discuss. Plus for many, they are made to look complicated and boring. Yet, they affect us all and affect us heavily, personally and as a society as a whole.
The more exposure people have to the theories and practical application of economics and finance the better and of course, when there is also the intertwining of blockchain and crypto into the mix, the more chance there is of making significant change to the global economy, one person at a time. As more get involved, the chance that they will start looking longer into the future than the payout window, as well as start becoming advocates both online and on the ground at the local level.
In my opinion, this is highly valuable.
As mentioned multiple times and likely from many sources, what needs to happen to the crumbling global economy is wholesale replacement, but in order to do so requires a paradigm shift in the minds of the participants. This has to be an organic process where people take what they learn and make it their own to the point that they act differently in the economy itself.
While people focus heavily on the earning potential of Leo Finance and LEO, the greater value to the industry is the support it offers as an incentivized point of collection, distribution and learning for people who might not otherwise participate in this field of study, eve though they are in need of the information to support their daily lives and improve their own well-being and that of their immediate community.
What this means however, is that from a content perspective, Leo Finance could look to support the continued growth development of the userbase in ways that help them change daily behavior. This comes through incentivizing the development of knowledge itself, which is through content distribution or the encouragement of creating content that requires learning to create, the immersion into information that can shift activity toward a better outcome, which means that which drives long-term thinking and behavior over the short-term cash grab mentality. As people start to make the mental transition, they can move further from a hand to mouth mindset to one of an investor, owner and facilitator of the future, where they themselves become instruments in the decentralization of ownership so more people at all levels can take ownership themselves.
In a world that incentivizes instant gratification through the consumption of low-grade content, the process to shift the paradigm is slow and laborious. It is because of this that the economy as we have built it thus far, is so hard to change, as most participants just can't be bothered taking the time to learn how - let alone help others learn along the way.
This was estimated at a 7-minute read. How many do you think made it this far?
Everyone wants better life conditions in some way, most spend very little time learning how to direct their activity toward the outcome they seek. When it comes to personal finance, in the long-term, it is less about what you earn and more about the way you use it. How you earn also has an impact, especially if what you do helps others grow for the better as well. Platforms can facilitate, but it is up to the users which behaviors are incentivized.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
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I had never really considered this angle, but it makes perfect sense. I know from personal experience that in researching and building my knowledge and understanding of a project, with the primary purpose of having something to write about, I have ended up really invested (not just money invested) into the progress and success of that project. In looking for something to write about, I learnt something much more valuable than a few LEO upvotes.
This is a hidden impact of LeoFinance, but it is definitely something beneficial.
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I am glad I am not the only one who thinks there is value in this. I have noticed in myself when I have created "tailored" content for some purpose, which is rare, but occasionally I have been asked to do so. It means I have to explore and learn.
And absolutely. It is the invested with more than money that is valuable here. Our understanding of the world and the narratives we hold direct our activity, and there is the "make them think it is their idea" approach with the way we consume, for better and definitely, for worse. So much of the consumable content on the many platforms is to drive activity for shareholder profit, while users themselves never become owners. Hopefully, we can change the model a bit so we are all owners and what we share has value to us financially and for our well-being.
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Speaking of behavior... I just wrote a post this morning about why I am jumping on the LEO bandwagon. The funny thing is after I posted it, I was kind of questioning what value it actually brings to the chain. After reading this post, I feel much less self conscious about that.
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I am hoping that more get this from my posts. I know that I take a lot "seriously", but posting should be about being authentic and creating content that is enjoyable for the author, as well as the audience. I enjoy creating my content and I think that if someone else wrote it, I would probably give it an upvote too. :)
Though, I do think that people should also use their own content to further their own skills.
There is the saying - "those that can't do, teach" and it is often taken as an insult. It shouldn't be. When a person learns something valuable, the best way to embed it and make it transformational is to teach it to others. It requires learning more and taking the perspective of the audience, giving a more well-rounded understanding. If done properly.
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Great thoughts! I actually totally understand where you are coming from. Some of my best posts have been something that I learned and am passing it along to others.
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Yep. It cements the core understanding and develops more paths to follow.
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Well, this is one of your smaller posts. One of my main concerns reading your posts is actually the length. You know I love to comment my own perspective, but I feel bad doing so without reading the whole post. Sometimes it becomes a shore to read the 2nd half and I forget what I wanted to comment.
Anyways, about Leo Im quite optimistic as well. I even bought in for the first time for 100$. However I was kinda disappointed when I heard theycallmedan talk the same non-sense about hive that I heard 3 years ago about Steem, yet the UX has been gotten worse the 3 years I was gone (Comparing old Steemit to Hive without Leo)
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I don't mind having a higher barrier to entry than most when it comes to time and effort investment. While everyone is free to consume, it might exclude many by their habits, but that is up to them. What I have found in my years as a trainer is, easy to consume content is rarely transformational, while the content that requires investment from the audience becomes owned by the audience themselves.
The Hive UI is definitely underperforming, but it doesn't bother me too much at this point. The future of Hive is on the second layer, which means the second layer has to develop themselves, rather than rely on the core blockchain team, which we can see through Leo. The more the core team can move to the second layer, the greater the second layer can build.
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One of the many behaviours of users on Leo is to buy and stake in other to take advantage of the coming airdrop. In essence incentivization sometimes is key to improve people's behaviour about a particular project like Leo and hence at the end there's a symbiotic relationship which benefits Leo, it's users and of course the expansion of the project. Beautiful. I enjoyed this one.
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Yeah, whenever there is a drop on the way, the demand will increase.
Have you found through your own creation and consumption of LEO content, that you or the people you read have changed in some way?
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Yeah, in the past people just wants to earn Leo, now they don't just want to earn Leo, they want to buy and hold Leo because it's profitable, they're thinking long-term and thinking the future.
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This is more mid-term. The trick is to go long, to hold it because it is practical to do so, useful and also profitable. A lot of people jump from project to project chasing profit, but not building anything durable and lasting. The projects that will thrive will be those who offer far more than profit.
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Exactly, I don't tend to chase the insane profits, greed is why a lot of people ends up toast. But theb long-term pays off more
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It was long read but well worth it.
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Glad you found it useful mate. :)
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This is just awesome. I have come to realize this as well.
When you are in a place that all you do is chase the bags without any form of self-improvement or increased knowledge then it's as good as wasting your time.
It's without a doubt that we need the money but alongside making that income and pennies, one should really give into self improvement.
Personally, there are somethings I had little or no knowledge about but after reading and making research I learned more, and I improved myself in that aspect.
I haven't really been a leofinance user as I am still new to this space but from the cause of trying to understand a particular thing, you end up researching and finding out more, most times you even discover or have a clearer knowledge about things you didn't know in the last or initially.
So what we do matters as much as how we earn or the way we strive to present our contents
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I think that the way most of the internet is set up, it drives for the sharing of low quality or entertainment content - or outrage. Most people don't engage that much with useful content, many don't think that much about producing it themselves. Once we recognize what is important and affects us personally, we can start understanding what might be worth sharing to others as well. Thanks for stopping by!
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Yes, it's just like finding important information and not wanting to keep it all to yourself
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:)
Right to me when I add 3 plus 3 at times it turns out to be 9.
But one thing that I know very well is how to build.
The foundation is always the most important and in my foundation mixture I have some very strong minded people that are always ready to advise. (Such as the author of this short post) :)
Little effort and quick exchanges for fiat (I still cannot understand why the gave money the name of an Italian car "Fiat) will get nobody anywhere in life and the only solution is to build. Remember the story about the hare and the tortoise?
If the mind is set on building then even small amounts will accumulate eventually, to form a solid foundation for the future!
I call that foundation mixture my reference group. I use it especially in times of need, but have to also be willing to put in when needed and, when it is useful to do so. Just like an economy, it requires circular movement.
Fiat is latin for "authoritative sanction" meaning - legal because an authority says it is legal. :)
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Like I said, experience has made me an authority on foundations in most kinds of soils. To me Hive is also a soil and care has developed our foundation, as it is slowly maturing like strong concrete should.
I like your idea of circular movement, as it's essential for each part to compliment the other.
I tried to get a smile with my lame fiat joke here!
Thanks for the explanation.
You'd be surprised. ;-)
Can't wait to find out what a Taraz microblog looks like. Haha.
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I think I might just put one letter at a time.
I found this post so interesting and useful, I not only read your post but also all the comments of your readers and your answers. I believe that everyone has a particular experience with communities and many have been able to take advantage of them. Unfortunately there are communities that do not have as much power as Leo and are not as appealing to any writer and that is perhaps why we see that no one publishes in those communities. I always recognize my lack of ability for finance, but I like to read some authors who talk about economics, especially those who talk to me about numbers not from their level of experts, but those who do it as ordinary people, with doubts and certainties, as you do. I wish many could read this publication. It is very good. I congratulate you. Regards, @tarazp
Unfortunately there are communities that do not have as much power as Leo and are not as appealing to any writer and that is perhaps why we see that no one publishes in those communities.
It should be remembered that Leo didn't always have a lot of power behind it, they developed from pretty humble beginnings and were still able to get support, because they developed.
Getting involved in the spread of good information should be on everyone's to-do list. :)
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I think I can see a slight shift in the paradigm of the low hanging fruit and grab and go society here on Hive. The length of a piece of content is not so much a factor any more, people are taking the time to read the longer content and to interact and learn from it.
I know I have learned a little bit more about crypto, LEO and Hive mostly from reading the explanatory type post and the educational type post, even from the guess the price game post,(I have to go and look up the token to make a stab at a close guess).
I would think the based on the number of comments that at least 30 made it all the way through the post.
Yep I agree. I think it might also be to do with there being less spam content to wade through and searching communities - people have a little more time to read, as they spend a little less time in the mud.
I always wonder how many read but don't comment. I know that a few do, as they bring up points I made in later comments.
I pretty much read all of the post from you, lately I have not been as active in commenting on yours or other post, just after voting and reading I would move to other "entertainment" got back to playing games, so comments took a severe dive, I even missed making the top 100 in Asher's list for the first time since I joined back in steem days.
I think it was just one of those transitional phases I go through every now and then, when brain dead, play a game.
!ENGAGE 25
ENGAGEtokens.Me I made it this far XP
You would have probably laughed at my "exactly this" expression when I went over the paragraph about how people can't be bothered learning about stuff never mind helping anybody else XD And well you know people don't like doing things that are boring or unpleasant so why bother yolo amirite o_O
Accidental financial education sounds like a good side effect if one is going to be blindly chasing money anyway ;D
I get the feeling that a lot of our education is accidental, where much of what we learn of importance is left to chance. I might be wrong in that, but I might not be too :) I wonder if we can make it a little less accidental, rather than having to struggle through life for every inch.
That's one of many reasons why I'm homeschooling, but I think the way that life goes, most of our education is always going to be accidental :)