A Late Introduction

As I am sometimes inclined to do, when I found Steemit, I jumped in with both feet, and without a parachute. I've found that if I don't just get started with something, and make my mistakes along the way, I tend to get stuck in analysis paralysis. 

If I had spent my time trying to understand Steemit, I might never have gotten started.

However, in the process of getting started, I seem to have skipped over introducing myself.

So...

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Hi,

I run scramblebot.com, and write the blog there, as Ethan Eggs.  My offline identity is unimportant. If you don't already know me offline, chances are, you wouldn't recognize me anyway.

Although I don't go to great lengths to conceal my identity, I'm not famous, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. 

However, if you really feel the need for a mental picture of me, imagine Fat Bastard (from the Austin Powers movies); without the sexy Scottish accent.

I have not yet decided whether to my posts at scramblebot.com/blog/ over to Steemit, or to keep to the two separate.  After having caught the attention of a cheetah, I'm leaning in the direction of keeping them separate, but that might change. 

Although I don't consider myself to be a world class programmer (compared to what, right?),  I have an idea of what  would have to go into building Steemit, and have to say that @ned and @dan have built an impressive platform. (There are probably others working on it, but so far, they are the only ones I recognize by name.

I don't anticipate being in the position to help work on building Steem or Steem tools in the near future, and since the platform is still in beta, there are a couple of suggestions I'd like to make. 

I have not yet read the Steem whitepaper, and am fairly new here, so it's possible that these have already been addressed, but I'll make them anyway.

What I've learned about the platform so far, comes from the interview @dollarvigilante did with @dan and @ned, some poking around the site that I've done on my own, and some information sent to me by a friendly person who is both on my email list, and a Steemit user. (Thanks.) 

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Without further ado, here are my suggestions:

1. It'd be nice to have an easy way to create an alternate identity or second account. Had I realized  it was not so easy to create an alternate account, I wouldn't have used an ID that can relatively easily be tied to my real-world identity.  

Not being (relatively) anonymous is chilling, because I'd hate to be made unemployable for having the audacity to express an unapproved opinion on the internet.

2. If it's still possible at this point (and I'm not sure why it wouldn't be), it might be worth considering tying the value of the Steem Backed Dollar to gold instead of the U.S. dollar; or perhaps giving people the option to choose one of the other. 

Although, the relative value of cryptocurrencies tends to be volatile one of my reasons for using them is a lack of faith in the long term viability of government currencies. I'm sure I'm not the only one here with that concern. Having the ability to tie the SBD (Is that the correct acronym?)  would help alleviate it. 

3.  Ads.  I don't yet know how the Steem community feels about ads on websites (although I could guess), but selling ads in Steem, and then allowing Steemit members and content producers to receive a portion of the ad revenue would enable people to continue to benefit from posting; long after the initial 24 hour voting period has ended; while also creating a sort of natural demand for the Steem cryoptocurrency. 

I don't know if any of these suggestions are good; relative to the existing structure and the direction Steemit is heading, but I though't I'd list them here anyway.