"This bastard child of Reddit with all the luxuries of a Craigslist interface"
Agree. I'm new to Steemit and was interested in the payout formula (esp. could be good to freelance writers, considering places like HuffPost sometimes don't even PAY), but currently there is no way serious writers would come on here. It looks scammy as hell and the UI is way worse. It just looks not credible, even if their potential financial rewards would be better than say, Medium.
Also, the community has the potential to be super toxic.
Yes the platform UI and UX are awful, I think most users agree on that. If there are no changes to this in the 2018 update then we know that they have no intention of fixing it and then I will only be here to follow @haejins posts even though I actually like the idea of Steemit. The user-friendliness is lacking to say the least.
@psychoserenity if you are here as a serious writer, there is a community on discord that would be of value to you. It works with the serious writers on Steemit.
Networking is how you develop yourself on here.
Thanks for bringing to my attention - I'll check it out/think about it. I'm doing relatively well in writing "IRL" in terms of recognition and placement, and a problem with online v. literary spaces is that they are currently a bit incompatible - a lot of prestigious literary magazines will not accept work that is published anywhere else, and often that includes blogs and other online platforms. I might be shooting myself in the foot.
Essays/articles however, follow a different set of rules where it's not 100% disqualifying for it to be previously published.