RE: First payout! I'm now a 10-dollar-ionaire!
To understand SBD, read Dan's (one of the founders) posts on his long term vision for this platform. Quick summary: bootstrap a social media platform in order to boostrap a currency in order to bootstrap an open, decentralized marketplace for true agorism.
Steemit's Evil Plan for Cryptocurrency World Domination
Due to my voluntaryist leanings, this post more than anything else got me excited about Steemit. Unfortunately, Dan has moved on to other things (EOS) and is no longer part of the development of this platform. Still, a semi-stable currency has great value. He also built BitShares which introduced bitUSD. In many ways, it allows regular people to do what the central bankers do, only we get to do it against them and short against the USD (see the post I referenced in a different comment for more information on that).
It's hard to fleece people who have paid $0 into the system. Bitcoin adds currency every day and the market supports it. Same here, except the DPOS algorithm is so much more efficient that power isn't wasted and rewards can be distributed to authors and curators instead of just miners. It's a beautiful thing. I'm really glad you're here exploring it. Reading some of your thoughts and questions remind me of many things I was confused about a year ago. :)
I'm semi-deliberately not reading the 'intentions' things. I really only care about effective results. Because people can lie about intentions, but results are actual reality.
Though I guess I'm lying about intentions. I am curious, from a design perspective, why. Why a lot of these things?
I still am fascinated with the idea of digital currency, I just still am not sure I like any of them that are out there. Maybe I should do a quick post on what I think the features of such a thing ought to be...
You should. You may get some interesting responses, depending on who reads it.
The why, I think, was answered for me the more I read of Dan's blog (including his personal blog) and the books he features there (books you would probably hate. Dirty, evil books on Austrian economics and Ayn Rand. Heheh. :)
sarcasm intended