This became more and more clear to me as I started spending more time here. I personally was able to sink myself into several communities pretty quickly through MSP and Open Mic and eventually Curie, and as a result have been able to earn with my creative posting. But as I rose up in the ranks it was pretty obvious that content creation was not really the name of the game. When I hear people describe Steem as a blogging platform I think that is a poor description. You can blog on Steem, but really that is not what any current iteration of a Steem front end excels at. Absolutely this is a social media network and the social side of the game is what controls payouts, not the content.
For me personally I would create content at more or less the same rate with or without Steem, with or without compensation for it. I blogged for years on two different pen and paper RPG blogs, and I posted music and art to Facebook and yes even Myspace before that. I wasn't doing it for money.
That being said, the presence of money in the ecosystem does change the experience and for me the choice was clear, I have spent more of my energy in curation efforts just because I personally would love to see creative endeavors pay off for people. Truly creative people will create anyway. But wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where artists didn't have to starve? Where the value that art and music and ephemeral culture have in human society is actually recognized? These things are universal for a reason.
I have never been one to give up hope, I look for the clearest path to the result I want to see and I try to actualize that path. I have put my energy toward projects like @curie and my own @r-bot and @humanbot because I think there are enough creative souls out there that this thing can still reach critical mass. I think there is room on Steem blockchain for many kingdoms. There is no reason dmania can't have their corner of memes, and utopian its developers, and dtube and dlive their vloggers, alongside healthy and thriving communities / sub-communities of authors, poets, artists, musicians, film-makers, dancers, crafters, creators. We just have to make it happen. Many of us are actively working toward making it happen.
I know you are one of them @liberosist and thank you for not jumping ship.
Much love - Carl
Carl, I noticed your involvement in the platform for a while now, and what you do here is really admirable. With a little more people like you on Steemit, liberosist probably wouldn't have thought about writting this post.
@liberosist, I really needed to read your words this morning. I had my first strike of negativity about Steemit this week: When I write a post, it's easy 8 to 12 h work of effort to create something new, so I can't post more than twice a week. I don't complain because i do get some payout, but I am starting to be fed up to see low quality content that takes less than 1h to create take such huge fractions of the reward pool. Basically, taking the revenue out of the mouth of real content creators. Is it really worth it? or should I revert back to other content creation platforms where I used to invest time and effort (Udemy, Pond5 etc.).
For now I am sticking to Steemit, because since I discovered it in October, this amazing idea felt like a breath of fresh air on the Internet. I am sticking to it, because I want to see such an idea become mainstream, propelled by the magic of Blockchain tech. I am sticking to it because it also fuels my own creativity. I am sticking to it because coming from the indie music world, I know how it is hard out there, and Steemit does provide a door to success that would otherwise be closed for even the most talented of musician... Iam sticking to it because the revenue incentive allows talented people to take of their time and share their views and knowledge with others etc. Yet, all this provided if the the cancer of greed does not ruin it all...
So I am staying on the boat too, to fight for what I think is a beautiful idea.
You are one of the good ones here for sure @muphy and it is an honor to be in the boat with you! Much love - Carl
Thank you for the kind words Carl :-).
In return, I believe it is people like you that keep the original spirit of the platform alive. There are others too, and I am really glad about that. Together, we are like a force, above greed, living on this platform, trying to protect it.
Maybe we are the seeds of a leftist intellectual branch of anarcho-capitalism :-)!