1. Fast and cheap DPOS - beyond the miner's compensation monopoly
DPOS has a 3-second block time (1 to 2 seconds is possible, but slightly unstable). In the past, it was 10 seconds for BitShare 1.0, but it decreased to 3 seconds when it came to 2.0 version. Fast block times are crucial to the user experience. Compared to other SNS with 15-second block time, you will probably notice the difference.
Also, the maintenance cost of DPOS which is the base of Steem is low. In 2016, it is said that the electricity bill that went into bit coin mining is 400 million dollars. Steem is less than $ 400,000 per year.
In this situation, Steem had two choices. One is to keep inflation very low. What this means is that almost all coins cover network maintenance costs through inflation (increase in coin volume). Bit coin is currently issuing an additional 3% annually, while Etherium is about 14%. If you lower the inflation rate for Steem, it is possible to pay witness server maintenance even at 0.5 ~ 1%.
But Steem made another choice. It will increase inflation to 10% per year, and give the author and curator 7.5% per year, 7.5% per year. In fact, authors and curators have no help in maintaining a Steem network. It may seem silly to give out so much money for almost free. But they are believed to expand the Steem ecosystem and increase the value of Steem.
That is, if the bit coin has 100% of the coins mined, the Steem will only take 10% witness (similar to the miner's) and 90% return to the community. (15% is paid to the Steem power holders) There may be disagreements here, but most agree that it is an interesting structure.
2. Free Fees - Knowing Shareholder Rights
Another feature of Steem is a free commission. Strictly speaking, it is not free. Instead of receiving a commission, Steem grants network access in proportion to its Steem power, or its long-term stake in the company, Steem. If I have 2% of the Steem power, Steem will give me 200 kbytes per block. Anyway luckily nowadays Stimit assists constant Steem power so we can start for free.
The free fee system is enormous, especially in social networks. @leesunmoo 's article has more good content. (Link) One thing to mention is that the barriers to entry are much lower and you can use it like a regular internet site. If you write a letter from Amastimit and say 500 won each time you make a boat, Stimit will close the door in less than a month.
3. They will reap in the pool
The title may sound strange, but this is related to number one. Steem chose to spend money on a large number of community members without choosing low network maintenance costs. Here we have the advantage of being hard to realize easily.
Perhaps many readers of this article would have received a reward from Stimit. Most of the time, you will be able to cash in on the Steem or Steem dollars you received as rewards to buy something. But if this continues, the change will happen little by little. Anyway, I get almost free, I do not want to bother with cash, I just write in Stitt. They also buy latte, commission work, ask for help ... As the community grows, the number of places that can be used increases.
The reason why we use the Korean won is because it is the Korean won. If we get paid in dollars, we might spend more money selling things in dollars. Cryptography is the same. It is the money you make. But other coins have barriers to entry too high. At least $ 1 million worth of mining computers must be borrowed to earn a little coins. Steem does not need anything. Spreading money on Steem ... But this money will start to spin around, and later it will be collected into a larger ecosystem.
Thank you for reading.