There's a certain myopic smugness around here that really isn't going to work if we are to build this place to a much greater level. Unfortunately, the nature of the rewards system makes it a self-fulfilling reality: Because you are only rewarded for "internal" content, people only publish internal content. We need to get away from that and make a move towards simply publishing interesting content that is venue neutral.
I ended up on Steemit (as it was, back then) because I followed an article link on Facebook. It was to an article about Universal Basic Income, which I was studying, at the time. There was not one whisper about "Steemit" or "making money" or "upvotes" in that article.
My decision to join was the result of reading that article (posted externally), then looking for other UBI articles here; then noticing that people were getting rewarded for their content here... getting curious and then making an account as a result of that.
And I think this comment may just form the basis for my next post....
My reasons for joining are somewhat different but actually not to dissimilar theme in the sense that it wasn't an article about steem that drew me in.
I have always enjoyed the idea of writing but never knew where to look. Particularly as my music is all about a life event of mine and I have a story to tell... But I had no idea how to write engaging stories or decent blogs until someone said, go to steemit from the music community I was in.
It was exactly what I was looking for because I just love writing and then joined some groups and took it from there. Would like to think my skills have increased somewhat just by being here. The crypto earnings didn't really factor in.
So I came to develop my writing skills through word of mouth otherwise I'd have never heard of this place. I wasn't writing about steem when I joined either, life stories, music and travel from September. Have only written the odd bits and bobs about steem from a layman's point of view to maybe encourage those outside in to the space.