As part of the ongoing efforts to grow the INLEO community, I was gifted a month of INLEO "Premium" by @khaleelkazi, which was a very kind thing, for which I am much appreciative. I learned of this on January 20th, so I decided I'd keep track of my progress for 30 days... because why not?
So, now that the month has drawn to a close (the subscription ran out yesterday) I thought I would take a moment to reflect on — and recap, in detail — what a month of INLEO Premium amounts to, for someone who's pretty much an "average" user, rather than a mega-crypto blockchainiac mover and shaker.
After all, most new users of INLEO Premium these days will be average users, so it makes sense.
For those who are not in the loop, INLEO Premium is a monthly subscription that gives you some extra features and benefits on the INLEO platform. It currently costs 10.00 HBD.
My Approach
Most important to me is that my primary goal for this year is to participate in all 12 Leo Power Up Days (LPUD) in 2024.
That means my first objective was to accumulate at least 150 liquid LEO to power up, by the 15th of the month. That LEO comes from curation rewards and posting rewards. Some is earned directly as LEO tokens, and some will typically come from HBD liquid rewards converted to LEO.
After being given this initial shot at using Premium, my second objective became to accumulate 10.00 HBD to renew the subscription — which would totally prove the suggestion that "Premium pays for itself."
My approach was to keep all LEO rewards liquid, and to keep converting earned HBD to LEO until I hit the 150 LEO mark. That would allow for a power-up, likely with a little overage.
So, I made it to 150 LEO on February 2nd, at which point I started saving all my HBD to apply towards renewing the Premium membership; meaning that I had 18 days to collect 10.00 HBD.
I kept track of it all with this handy-dandy spreadsheet:
How it Worked Out
Before getting into this, I just want to address the "Why don't you just BUY the necessary LEO and HBD?"
Simple answer: Because I don't have money to spend on things like subscriptions, streams, social media and such. I don't have for-pay subscriptions to any versions of social media. When every single month is about whether or not you can even pay all your basic bills, what I consider "entertainment/diversions" like this is not where money goes... it goes to food and things like that.
Onwards!
During the period in question, these were my activities:
- 8 Top level long-form blog posts.
- 27 comments left on long-form content.
- 65 Threads started.
- 130 Replies to threads.
- Curation to constantly keep my voting power between 80% and 95%.
These were my Milestones:
- January 20th: Premium gift subscription starts
- February 2nd: 150 LEO saved up for LPUD
- February 15th: 183.970 LEO Actually powered up for LPUD
- February 20th: 5.178 HBD saved up for INLEO Premium renewal
- February 20th: Total Hive Power increase of 37.081 HP during Premium month.
Conclusions and Observations:
The point of sharing this post was basically to tangibly test the frequent statement that "INLEO Premium more than pays for itself!" that's often floated in the community... however, often by people with much larger accounts than myself.
Whereas that is both true and nice, it's hardly relevant for a relative newcomer with a smaller account with a not so great a following.
That said, I definitely "made it." And I put in some effort, to the extent that my typically full schedule allowed.
Did Premium actually "pay for itself?"
Inconclusive, as I don't know how much greater my rewards were, compared to what they would have been without Premium. The answer is "yes," if considered in isolation; the answer is "no," within the reality of my main goal of doing a year's worth of LPUD.
Perhaps it's also a little bit of a "misdirect" to assign too much emphasis to all this, in the sense that a substantial percentage of my rewards came in the form of staked Hive/HBD, not in the form of LEO. If the challenge were to be based purely on LEO tokens, the answer would be a definitive "no." During the subscription period, I earned 88.577 LEO which amounts to slightly over 5.10 HBD at current exchange rates.
Without any doubt, I would say that Premium only pays for itself if you put a good bit of effort into long form content. I can't say that Threads don't help, but they only help a little.
Not Everything is Tangible
Which leaves us with intangibles. I definitely did enjoy the ability to post longer threads because I am a writer, and often cannot get everything said in 256 characters. I also liked being able to edit threads, because I'm a clumsy typist. And I benefited from certain rewards/prizes only offered to Premium members.
But does that make Premium worth it?
I would cautiously say "yes," but primarily from the perspective that it's a great incentive to be more active, and make the most of your INLEO experience. I tend to be one of those people who only puts significant effort into things when I have to pay for them.
Getting back to intangibles (sort of), for a moment... 500 of my staked LEO tokens date back almost five years to the original SteemLeo airdrop on the legacy blockchain. I was also here when the LEO token traded for $1.20+ (March 2021, if anyone is keeping track) and I watch the work and dedication the INLEO team is putting into this project, which gives me hope and a measure of confidence that my efforts now might well come back in multiples at some point in the future; perhaps even moreso than Hive, itself.
Only time will tell.
Anyway, thanks for the Premium subscription, Khal! I definitely enjoyed giving it a "test drive," and if can scrape together 150 LEO AND 10 HBD by this time next month, I will definitely give it another try!
Curator Cat, February 21st, 2024
=^..^=
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Thank you for your comprehensive review of Inleo premium. I understand the service much better now. But I am still struggling to understand how anyone can charge for a basic feature such as editing.
You're welcome!
Some of it is a little mysterious to me, as well. There seems to be a hardcore group of fanboys/fangirls in the community, for whom INLEO's ways bears no questioning. It's cool, and all... you need dedicated supporters... but a venue cannot improve if any questioning or dissent is swept aside with platitudes.
=^..^=
Think of paying for itself adding HBD, HIVE and LEO rewards and it definitely pays for itself with interest :D
Perhaps. With certain reservations, mind you. It's unlikely anyone actively contributing would be making ZERO, if they didn't pay for Premium...
=^..^=
Being a premium subscriber actually pays and that statement that premium pays for itself with interest is correct. I have been a premium subscriber for 4 months now and I have been enjoying the benefits in it. Paying 10 HBD for the subscription requires one to be active to be able to gain more at the end.
Nice comprehensive details of your report 👌
Well, I'm happy to hear it is working out for you @princessbusayo!
When I have managed to save up 10.00 HBD AND all the errors/bugs have been worked out so INLEO is smoothly usable again, I'll very likely renew my Premium subscription!
=^..^=
That's great. I wish you the best of the experience as you do.
Via Tenor
Credit: orionvk
Earn Crypto for your Memes @ HiveMe.me!