Regardless of what he said publicly, in his private conversations with me, he explicitly stated that relying on speculation was the much better bet rather than attempting to create revenue streams via his interface or attempting anything at the blockchain protocol level.

Three main points taken away from that conversation were:

1. Profits from speculation was STINC’s primary funding plan.
2. There was absolutely no desire to create a revenue-based interface or protocol-level ROI or profit-sharing for Steem investors.
3. There was a complete lack of foresight/vision and a complete lack of comprehending how social media is actually monetized in the real world.

Steem was in a unique position to truly innovate in both the blockchain and social media space. Our “leadership” - the people who assumed control of blockchain development and its messaging - not only failed to acknowledge their assumption of leadership, but also failed to produce anything attractive for users and investors while assuming that role.

Advertising was always an obvious option for any social media business (which is what Steemit was supposed to be) that wanted to be healthy. Other blockchains have developed these capabilities at the protocol level. But it was mercilessly shot down for a variety of piss-poor reasons and other nonsensical ideas were focused on instead...most of which will never be delivered.

Meanwhile, Ned is claiming that speculative profits have failed for his company (I told him that it was not a good strategy) and now he is claiming that advertising is on the table. It may be a little too late for his failed company, but there may still be hope for the blockchain if anyone is willing to actually work on these kind of worthwhile concepts, as opposed to SMTs, which will either never be delivered or will just end up creating a bigger infrastructural and legal mess.

I can share the conversation with you, if you’d like to read it yourself.