What is the Relationship between Meme Makers and Money?

In a truly free market, individuals have the freedom to barter and trade all things of value with each other. This is because anything that has value can be used as a medium of exchange or a “medium for indirect barter.”  

However, what happens when more things are being traded than can be held in your hand? Also, what happens if not everyone wants everything you want to buy? People would need something which could represent the value of other goods and services… this led to the development of money: an abstract mechanism by which economic transactions could occur.

As we transitioned from relying on physical objects (such as shells and stones) as money, we began using paper (and now digital) representations such as banknotes and digital money. Banks, who provide financial services to individuals and businesses, are the ones who issue currencies (e.g., dollars), which represent the value of the goods and services in our economy. These banks can never run out of this paper currency but only produce as much needed for an efficient economy.   The more an economy grows, or there is more demand for that currency, then more of that currency gets printed – since it has no real value other than its face value (“fake” value.)

This brings us to today, where we have a relationship between meme-makers (i.e., people with content to share online) and currencies/banks/money (i.e., people who want to share/like/content comment). If someone were to make a popular meme, they would receive money from currency holders for providing them with value. However, the currency issuer (i.e., bank) can never run out of currency units but only produces as many currency units as needed by the economy.

Although this relationship may seem ideal, it is not without problems. For example, let’s say that more people are using digital currency units than “real” goods being produced in our society. This means that currency units lose their value since they cannot represent the amount of value in an economy. which could lead to no one wanting them anymore or at least reduce their overall value. Since everyone knows about this problem, it’s in the best interest of everyone to keep a check on this. You can check Meme Scout for more information.

This brings us back to content makers and their currencies/banks/money. Since currency holders have shown that they’re willing to exchange their currency units for other goods and services, enough people should likely share a meme. Other goods and services would become more valuable (e.g., demand goes up) – thus leading to an increase in its value (“real” value). Should the opposite happen (i.e., not enough memes are created), then overall demand for that particular currency or money will go down (i.e., decrease in value), which could lead to less sharing of the worst-performing memes; helping combat inflation by keeping supply high while maintaining the value.

However, what if meme-makers feel that their currencies are not worth anything? Would they then stop making good content and lose a unit of currency that could be used to purchase other goods or services? That is a problem for another solution to work on!