I recently got done binge-watching the original Halloween series. And after finally getting to Halloween 6, I had two choices in terms of spending my free time. I could either:
- Figure out ways to encourage and get people on this platform to buy more STEEM more regularly;
- Or make sense of the goddamn clusterfuck that is Halloween 6 with two different cuts, both an equally jumbled mess.
Figuring out ways to get people to buy more STEEM seemed like the lighter task, by far.
I mean, seriously. Michael Myers was the father of Jamie's baby, what the fuck?
So anyway.
It's a bear market, right? Not just in STEEM land, but in the entire crypto sphere. It may be a long winter yet. Personally, I think the idea of a crypto downtrend is more than a little overblown, considering I have this rather vivid memory from rather recent times when BTC was worth no more than $500 a piece and we're still at $6,500, but I digress.
But STEEM is its own coin, so BTC shouldn't be the deciding factor of STEEM price, in my opinion.
The crypto slump has put us in this sort of holding pattern where we're kinda sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for a Korean whale or two to make a move.
That's what it seems like to me.
I've been thinking about this a lot the past few days, so I wanted to open a community discussion about the one thing that connects us all in this very dysfunctional community where no one gets along:
Buying STEEM
Why and why not?
I recently decided to start buying STEEM and building up my account.
I held up on the decision to buy STEEM due to waiting for it to go longer, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt it's silly to look at solely the current prices.
I figured that there's a lot about Steemit that I currently don't like. It's gone in a direction that isn't to my liking. However, some, if not most, of the things I understand. I don't need people explaining to me why A is A or B is B.
I probably know already.
The important thing here is that these things led to me deciding to build up my account again because even though there have been 20 hardforks, and the community and culture within the site have changed along the way, the one long-standing fact that still stands is the one that if you want influence, you need STEEM Power.
So, instead of whining, I figured it's better to start putting my money where my mouth is and gain that influence back.
In other words, I started to look at the amount of STEEM owned, as opposed to what it's worth in dollar amounts.
This lead to a wide arrange array of thoughts, and I'll try to convey most of them here as best I can.
I'll namedrop @whatsup as someone who I've probably had the most Steemit related discussions over the past few months. Highly enjoyable, too.
She and I look at Steemit from different angles, but both understand where the other is coming from. To @whatsup, this is a business endeavor. First and foremost.
I'm more old school where I still like and support the idea of content creators getting rewarded for their work just because.
However.
Both of us agree on the reality that content, in and of itself, holds little to no value. You can and I can dislike this as much we want, but that's like me disliking the fact that hot weather exists. Or Adam Sandler's movies. Not a whole lot I can do about it. It's a reality.
It's not a content funded reward pool, it's an investor funded reward pool.
In order for there to be a reward pool for us to enjoy, people to need to put their money into STEEM. In other words, buy it.
Buying and holding STEEM should be as attractive as possible. Now, there are some pitfalls, some avoidable, some maybe less so. But I have a positive vibe as a result of the Netcoins contest, so I'm interested in a community effort to try and solve this problem.
One major pitfall - pointed out by many - is that the amount of fiat value tied in STEEM Power that actually makes a difference is so huge, it's simply inaccessible to many.
And while this is true, I think it's a little short-sighted to think that if you can't buy all the STEEM you need right now, with one purchase, it's not worth it to buy it at all.
Let's say we have a person capable of purchasing 100 STEEM a month, for instance. That's 1,200 STEEM a year. And let's say we have another person like that. And a third one. And a fourth one. And a dozen. And a hundred And so on.
And let's say we now have a respectable amount of people capable of shilling out that 80 bucks to buy STEEM on a monthly basis. And this keeps going.
Then let's say that within these people there's a community who all like, say, fiction. They enjoy reading it, they want to reward it.
These people can gang up and put their collective SP to work together in order to reward fiction authors.
What I'm talking about is a formation of a middle class to where there currently isn't one.
Content creators trying to find their demographic within a large middle class - as opposed to within 12 or so whales - is more close to how a real economy works anyway.
Official communities aren't there yet, but there's nothing in the way of people forming ones. And there already are communities and cliques on Steemit anyway.
It's a pet peeve of mine that people here really seem to always be waiting for someone else to do everything. When, in fact, there's nothing in the way of the community itself organizing and accomplishing things. Like, hey, the Netcoins thing. That wasn't @ned, that wasn't Steemit, INC. It wasn't the whales. It was the community. Organizing. Getting shit done.
Gg, guys.
And speaking of "Gg". I spend a lot of time on Twitch. For those unaware, Twitch is a streaming platform where people stream their gaming runs. I mostly follow speedrunning, namely Mega Man speedrunning.
One day recently, I stopped to really spend time thinking why is it that I've spent more money donating to streamers than I've spent buying STEEM. Donated money is gone, wheras STEEM can be used to make more money.
For whatever reason, it's just been the more appealing option for me.
Just today, I donated money to a fund that is to be used to pay for the expenses of three people from different countries to travel to a speedrunning event in the US this January, to take part in a Mega Man race.
As soon as it was announced by a runner I respect that he was going to use his donation money to help these people out in their travel expense, I felt obligated to take part.
And the conclusion I came to was that it's the sense of community. The Mega Man X speedrunning community in general is extremely nice. At least it's been nothing but nice to me ever since I humbly joined it back in the day. People help each other out, want others to do well, succeed, and improve.
Even the world record holders find the time to help complete newbies out.
As I feel like I'm part of something nice, I'm inclined to do my part.
And now that you're all done yelling "But that's communism!" I'll continue.
Yes, self-interest is big on Steemit. Dare suggest altruistic strategies for any given situation, and you get laughed out of the room because altruism is dumb and you're a socialist.
But what if I told you that altruism can be a capitalistic strategy?
I have, in the past, powered down STEEM. And I don't really feel any sort of guilt about it. I also hold SCORUM coins, and I feel the urge to hold onto them and not power down. Much moreso even than my STEEM.
Why?
Again, a sense of community. It was an extremely warm welcome when I joined and made my first SCORUM posts. People read, engaged, rewarded. Just made me feel welcome. Much like the aforementioned speedrunning community, I was made to feel like I was a part of something.
In fact, my initial experiences on Steemit were quite similar back in the day of summer of 69. And by 69 I mean 2016.
The result? I regularly bought STEEM and powered it up.
Unfortunately, however, it started to change little by little. And as the community grew more and more antisocial, I started to care less and less.
Why shouldn't I just take what I can, right? This platform doesn't give two shits about me anyway.
Yeah, there's a tone of self-pity there, I know. But that was the feeling at the time. And I didn't think about things from the influence point of view yet at that time.
But while supporting users to make them feel like they're part of a community is something I would support, there's something else, and it has a lot to do with the price, coincidentally enough.
Something that is puzzling me is a number of users who I won't mention who have consistent, high-level support on the platform, day in day out, month in month out - and at this point already - year in and year out, who are also in constant dumping mode.
Large stakeholders use their voting power to allocate STEEM daily to people who regularly dump the STEEM on the markets - lowering the price.
That's actually quite bizarre.
Take that out of the Steemit context for a while and think of it as a different form of business. So, there's a business strategy that demonstrably and consistently, without fail, lowers the value of the business. Doing this has little to no benefits, while the negative effects are the exact opposite of what you're trying to do: maintaining value and increasing it.
Doesn't seem like a smart thing to do.
I know that the reason this happens is vote trading. The long-term effects on the price can be ignored because the vote trading allows for a lot of short-term profits.
But there are still some manual curators who do non-vote trading curation, so this me appealing to them, specifically:
Reward buyers and holders!
Holding and especially buying STEEM can easily be made more attractive if the culture of the community is changed to such that buying and holding puts you in good standing with the community.
Those who buy and hold increase the value of your stake, the dumpers decrease it. Why would you vote for a dumper? Why would you ever?
I'm disappointed that the 100% power up symbol next to the post never really made a huge difference in curation. Those posts should be treated as the golden posts on the platform, receiving preferential treatment.
The posters are making a short-term sacrifice in favour of the long-term game of the platform. It's a sin that this goes unnoticed so much. I know for a fact that it's why I've personally never really bothered.
Again, it's the strong sense of the community not giving two shits, which, in turn, makes me to not give two shits.
I also feel it'd be kinda cool to be able to earn "badges" that would show up next to a post's headline, indicating something like, I dunno, amount of SP held and stuff. It could work in tiers where a blue STEEM symbol would be 5,000 SP, then 10,000 SP would have a different color, and so on and so forth.
How about certain levels of SP held giving the user access to exclusive emojis?
Stuff like that.
You'd surprised by how much people are attracted to that sort of gamification. It works in environments much less serious than Steemit.
Things like this can be seen on Twitch, actually.
I'd see small, fun things like these being a good add in incentivizing STEEM purchasing for the smaller guys, too. In addition to the influence, etc.
TL;DR
The reward pool is funded by people who buy and hold STEEM
STEEM can be treated as its own thing, as opposed to a subservient of Bitcoin
A good community builds loyalty
A large enough group of people building their account allows for the creation of a true middle class
We need incentives to buy and hold STEEM instead of dumping
Steemit is not the endgame for STEEM. STEEM is. I've seen it thrown around a lot that "Steemit is not proof of content, it's just proof of brain" and whatnot, basically disregarding Steemit as a publishing platform entirely at this point because it's all about the apps now.
But Steemit still has an important job to fulfill as the onboarding app. It was designed to onboard people to STEEM.
And here's my big thought of the day:
What if Steemit was used to onboard buying STEEM?"
Not just to earn STEEM, but to buy it. I think there's a big missed opportunity here.
My question to you!
This is an open forum now.
I'd like to get as many comments as possible, preferably from people with all different sizes of stake.
What are the things, right now, standing between you buying more STEEM? This isn't to finger point or any of that nonsense. It's for research and discussion.
What things should change for you to be more willing to purchase more STEEM and power up your account? Be it 50 STEEM, 100 STEEM, 1,000 STEEM, whatever.
If you read this post, it'd be cool for you to answer that question. And just like the Netcoins contest, commenting here is not stake-based; all comments are now equal, as it's the idea to hear from accounts of all sizes.
This post will be botted for added visibility.
All resteems are also appreciated.
It seems like I don't have a cool picture and thumbnail to go along with the post, so, uhh. Here's Yobby, I guess:
One of the big reasons I don't buy more steem is because of the upvoted amount on posts like this one. It would take me 2 months of my best quality posts to get an upvote like this without the use of a bot combined with massive curie. It makes me fear that the platform has been hamstring'd due to the way its currently working out rewards..
Don't get me wrong this is a great post and it deserves a good payout - its just the way the mechanics have allowed it to be so high.
It really puts new users off, they come see this large upvote you have, put all their effort in and get nothing (unless they go for a bot).
I really like the point you make about people who withdraw Steem, why upvote them if they are gonna send the price down. I wonder if some how the payouts of people without SP locked in can be...dispersed towards helping new users, so they have a better experience. I think you have made a really good point on this, locking in to SP while not being a whale should have a higher reward point.
Cheers
This is a great article with a lot of talking points.
Let me answer your question: I do not put more money into buying Steem, because I do not feel the Large Investors will respect my investment and treat my money as carefully as I do. For example, not flagging Haejin and other coingrabbers. There are too many people who are stacking coins vs. working on the real investment which is the people who use the site.
Content does not hold value, the eyes that view the content is where the value is at. Not enough users care about that element at all.
Hence I feel like my investment will be liquidated by the large users.
People manage money, code does not.
I also want to comment on your thoughts about the community. There are some great people here, but we have a culture that leans towards everyone is on their own. This does not foster and create cooperation and as a result, we have not retained new users and I believe there is more to it than the money when it comes to retention. People seek pleasure and avoid pain, - Psychology tells us this. So, posting an article without getting any feedback is painful, while getting feedback creates a feeling of pleasure. Sounds dramatic, but emotions are really important in building and marketing a site.
People will stay when they feel more pleasure than pain by participating on the site.
And YES! Rewarding Interesting Content is absolutely capitalistic! Aulterism is to give without expecting returns. Capitalism would say building the site like a business is the correct course of action.
Great post! Thanks.
Without the content, the eyes cannot see. The value starts with the content. It's no secret; it's not like we have sit here wondering if the chicken came first, or was it the egg?
Eyes make content more valuable. There's no value in eyes alone.
In the two years I've been here, I've seen far too much neglect. Thousands of talented people producing their very best, wondering why so many fear embracing the local talent while they say things like, "We need big names."
Big names started at the bottom in this online entertainment world. Joe Rogan was already a celebrity; his podcast took a long time to gain traction. Alex Jones was a nobody and now he's notorious. Freakin' Justin Beiber started out singing on Youtube. I could name thousands more, but what's the point? The thing they all have in common was the fact they produced content on platforms that embraced 'local' talent. They weren't ignored by the eyes they worked in front of. Those eyes weren't snubbing the content producers with the hopes something 'better' would come along. The eyes made the content more valuable because they looked. They looked at virtual nobodies until they became somebodies, then continued to stare.
My blog started to take off awhile back. A lot of people loved seeing me take off. Then there's this crowd frowning upon it. "Why does he get something and I don't." Some folks won't even look at my blog if I earn something substantial. I get treated like a cheater, for no f'n reason. I've taken all kinds of flak for simply doing something I set out to do, and I'm not the only one; I read comments, I hear what people say behind our backs, out in the open.
Everywhere else, one must pay for valuable content. A long time ago, Metallica got all pissed off with Napster. Some people thought entertainment should be free and artists thought it wasn't fair to work for nothing. How many people here even remember downloading mp3's in the late 90's? I can. If you would have told me back then I could download music for free AND get paid for enjoying it, I would have laughed at you, called you a bullshitter. Now here we are. People could literally spend a few thousand today as a subscription to enjoy unlimited online content that pays them a return over the span of their lifetime. A fair system for both artists (content producers) and consumers. A free concert, and you walk out with more change in your pocket than you had when you arrived.
But since people can't seem to wrap their heads around why content is important, and how it generates billions upon billions of dollars and views annually, and why it's important to embrace the local talent, we might never see this place take off. Instead we can stick to a few people selling votes, pretending to be "promoters", so we can see the latest and greatest fucking Monkey Post nobody gives a shit about.
There's so much potential here. People simply don't understand the BUSINESS. Of course it's a business. This is the online entertainment industry. The artists hated the mp3's and leeching way back when, but over time they embraced the technology and found ways to make money using it. Now they make far more than they ever did and more of them earning as well. I'm a fucking artist, I see many others capable of producing quality content. I see a new business model and dammit I made it work! Imagine this place in five years. Nobodies that want to be somebodies.
I don't know why the hell I started this rant here. Most people don't even know what I'm trying to say half of the time.
Hope it makes you feel better, understood your full comment :)
The platform will become popular when there are unique talents (local talents), not really found elsewhere. However, as with most platforms, those who come first, reap the benefits. Sakimichan on Patreon, Shane Dawson on YT, being first and staying persistent matters. I think for those who come late, there needs to be more initiative, or multiple sources of income. 7 day payout for a post is not enough for those who make timeless posts. Also good old posts are still a pain to actually find, it's pure luck.
I guess the most painful part about Steemit is it's easy to get stuck at a specific rank and SP. A year later and got only 0.03$ vote to show for and I'm one of the lucky ones. I just can't recommend this to anyone, knowing the effort it took me to get here. I'm already too invested to simply quit. Annd off I am ranting..
Majority of my posts are timeless. We're allowed to recycle old material and remonetize it, within reason. For instance, once a month I'll put all of my recent artwork into one post and publish that has a highlight reel. I've republished two year old short humorous stories. I've probably done that three times. Nobody complains and chances are the people following today never saw that old work. I'll reformat it so it looks better than the original, produce a new cover. I've been thinking about possibly publishing three or more old classic posts into one 'greatest hits' style compilation post. There are ways to earn again, as long as it's within reason and not abusive spam.
Definitely :D I started reposting 3 months ago, my oldest content and people loved it, in fact! And I've encouraged others to try that as well, there are always posts that I miss even from Steemians who I follow regularly :) I haven't reposted anything lately as I've been doing Inktober and I try not to spam. Upgrading and updating an old post makes it fair and more interesting. I've also cut down unnecessary parts making posts easier to read.
I keep all of my posts' links and image previews in a word document, so it's really easy to find good old stuff ^^
Your content does matter that isn't what I am saying. I am saying people do not take dollars out of their pocket to reward content.
You are one of, if not my fav, content creator... But I wouldn't navigate to the site to view it. I navigate to the site, to invest and speculate on Crypto.
People spend billions on books, magazines, music, movies; they drop quarters in guitar cases. People reward content, daily. If this was Facebook, this conversation would be being rewarded, but the money that exists in this world goes to someone else, makes them rich.
So you walk up to the magazine rack and select the Crypto Column. That's the one you want to buy, but you'll flip through NoNames Show. Totally normal in this industry.
Excellent point.
No, thank you. :)
I totally agree with you. Thanks for the words of inspiration.
I think that, as things stand, the amount of Steem one would have to buy to have real influence is more than most people, or even a cooperating group of people, can afford or would like to risk.
ROI is about a penny for $500 bucks right now. ;) That's overly simplified but you get the point.
Very well articulated. I've made similar arguments in some of my previous posts and have postulated that much of the popularity surrounding the big social media sites is due in large part to recognition and feedback people receive for their participation. Indeed, I believe that Steemit's continued growth and success will depend largly on constructive engagement throughout all levels of the platform. I would even argue that for the everyday Steemian making money is just the icing on the cake. Just to make a quick analogy, look at the most popular and long-standing open source projects. What keeps the best talent around if monetary incentives are not a factor? Recognition and constructive engagement rule the day.
1 - Steemit, Inc.
Their track record and the amount of stake that they hold. Their forced development plans and their gatekeeping of protocol changes...even the notion that any ideas ought to be “pitched” to them before anything else can happen.
2 - Steem Witnesses
The fact that so many of the witnesses have little to no understanding of Steem protocols and the social/behavioral and economic theories behind them. The fact that most witnesses either don’t understand or don’t care about managing the two tokens, STEEM and SBD. The fact that so many witnesses have zero respect for code review or feedback and irresponsibly move to the next version of Steem because Inc. tells them it’s all good.
3 - Lack of Vision
Let’s face it...most of the “big developments” in our ecosystem revolve around voting and delegation schemes. There is almost no actual business development and commerce taking place outside of that. It’s as if the only thing that matters is how much of the rewards pool one can capture. That’s the extent of most of the grand ideas around here for “apps.” It’s either voting and delegation schemes or yet another interface where we can see posts that can be seen on Steemit.com. If Steem is to legitimately grow, it needs much better use cases outside of posting and voting.
4 - The Crypto Ecosystem as a Whole
Too much noise. Too much moronic attacking of legitimate projects by popular “maximalists.” Too many scams. Not enough actual innovators and actual investors. Seems to me that most “investment” across different tokens comes from the same people/organizations that have already been in crypto and just recycle profits...a lot of pump-and-dumps or other manipulation from a relatively small amount of pockets. And the “mania” is hard to predict. It could resume at any time...and it could have peaked last winter.
Conclusion
Far too much risk for the potential rewards. I like the Steem blockchain’s capabilities, but everything surrounding it pushes it into the “too risky to invest” category for me. If we’re looking for investors, this is something that needs to be addressed at some point. It doesn’t matter how great the potential may be. If the risks are just as great or greater, investment will be minimal.
All that being said - I’m still not a seller at this point.
There is currently 30 million US$'s worth of Steem and SBD sitting in the Bittrex account, 8 million in the Poloniex account, and so on. I wonder if people would keep that Steem as Steem Power in their own wallets here if there were no power down period and all Steem would be immediately available for trading when wanted.
I would. I sold most of my modest amount of Steem when prices were high; of course I did, I was here to make useable money after all, and not to lock away Steem and look smiling at the amount of SP I had while prices plummeted. I think others who actually use Steem are also hesitant to lock it away for a longer period without much hope of revenue.
What if ...
Just wondering.
i was thinking about something in line with this thinking, but a skew so it's more rewarding for the long term SP holder and yet give liquidity and freedom for all other token holder
Let me give you an example:
Power down should be just 3 days, then we don't need savings, all savins is powerup
Let those who Vest earn 20% of the reward pool....but let the vesting accure geometrically to 20% over say 13
weeksor 1 month, or 13daysCuration is dependent upvot vesting of powerup, the longer you powerup (or delegate, many of the top witness who runs bot will hate this....but it really makes sense)
Example for #3....SP start at inflation percentage so ~8% and grows to 100% (of whatever curation reward.....this will radically change behavior if you ask me.....could do a trending post on this but i'm too lazy.....so feel free to chat me up and I'll give you the economic details, there is a ton of benefits....including forcing (by temptation) the whales to liquidate at higher prices bringing greater decentralization to ownership, disrupting bot payout, increasing curation reward for long term curators, improving returning value to proof of brain, basically everyone will be powering up, averaging out the % of powerup will out way almost every other stake/vested coin if we go this route, etc,etc.
Yeah, but you and I never come up with solutions, as you very well know by now. We never make suggestions of any kind.
Oh, yeah. I forgot.
Boy, this was refreshing to read. I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of yours after your "I'm Taking an Extended Break from This Shithole" post early in the year; especially being that the 'extended break' lasted like 8 hours before continuing to post again, getting like $40 payouts. There was a terrible diaper rash of shit-talk-on-steemit-and-receive-huge-rewards-for-doing-so going on around that time, and it was a shame to see these 70rep folks doing most of it.
I'm not a steemit nationalist or anything, but fuck, it was driving me nuts. I mean, it was just weird. Why all these people would spend time on Steemit just to bitch about how terrible Steemit is?? Oh, right... because they were getting like $200 per post for it. What you just wrote is the polar opposite of that. It's productive and it actually throws some solutions out onto the table. I agree on just about everything you said.
Based on my own experience here, I feel like mass adoption is what we need to achieve that community and middle-class you speak of. I'm a prime example of an everyday Joe getting on here. I'm not a tech guy, at all. I didn't know a single thing about steemit, twitch, bitcoin or cryptocurrency when I signed up. My brother just told me about this site where you make posts and get paid to do it. Over two years later, I'm still here and have accrued a bit over 10k STEEM power, which I'm still sitting on. I've withdrawn very little; really just early on as a test to see if this was all "real". I like having that small amount of influence on here, meager as it may be. Also, I know this will all go up eventually (look at your bitcoin digression). If I'm not in a hurry to cash out, why not keep in here in my SP where I can use it - both for influence and for earning more money? Like you said, it seems like a shitty business plan to dump it all the time. Again though, coming back to the mass adoption thing, maybe these people are crypto techies who are making a living off of crypto? If it's their job, then I guess I understand. I'm not that though. I have a pretty blue collar, full-time fabrication job; so I don't NEED the STEEM cash. It's been kinda this fun hobby thing that may pay off one day. If tons of other everyday Joe's got on here, they might behave in the same manor... especially if you add some of the incentives that you mentioned.Honestly, I can't think of a good reason. Numbers are down, it seems like a good time to buy. I guess I just never really think about buying. I'll do my part of this theoretical movement and buy some up. I just got paid anyway!
Sorry for that bit of 'real-talk' in the beginning, but it felt good to get that out and vent a bit. It makes a lot more sense now, reading about some of your reasoning and your feelings at the time. I mean, you're right... the sentiment was everywhere. Ironically, THAT'S what nearly drove me away from the platform. I've always just logged on and tried to post neat naturey stuff, but things were getting SO political. Anyway, kudos to you for this.
That post you're referring to is not my proudest hour. The things I was pissed off at actually nothing to do with anything that was said in that post. I was venting for completely different reasons, though Steemit ticked me off, as well.
I have no problem with real talk. That post sucks and it was a childish spur of the moment thing.
I was also drunk. It reminded me of why I don't drink.
Well you, sir, have a new follower. Stay off the sauce. You're way better without it. lol
Okay, I’m new here. Buddy created account for me but now I cant even vote and post only 2 comments a day. Also he told me that this mechanics is a new here and back in his days you nedd to wait weeks and weeks in order to even take pleasure to have an account at all. Nice work what i have to say.
And to have a vote and an ability to post as much as you please (and maybe EVEN CREATE ACOUNTS for other ones) you need to buy STEEM.
It’s a nice concept actually as it makes a word here more valuable than on facebook or bitcointalk, but still. It looks and feels really ALIEN to a majority of internet dwellers.
I know that people have to power down at some points but I agree, it's a bit annoying to see regular dumpers of steem keep creaming in the rewards.
I wish there was more of a community of low/middle holders of steem. It just seems that the pump last year was too great a lure for lots of folk and they dumped all/half/three quarters of their holdings. I once swam (as it were) with a shoal of similar sp holders. I am the only one left after last year's pump.
I do wish that there wasn't such a contempt for content creators at times. The focus is all look at the dapps and how we (content creators) are fucked. I think content creators are just as important as a bunch of folk using different dapps.
Not sure if I have added anything or just whined, lol
And yeah, @whatsup is a lady? This is madness! :0)
I don't think that content creators and dapp developers have to be mutually exclusive.
I believe (or hope) that there is still a lot of overlap where everyone can still access a share of the rewards pool. I really don't think that content creators are going to be fucked.
Ultimately, popularity and social activity will always play a part in the rewards distribution. And there will always be people interested in the writing, photography, videos, etc, that are found here.
Especially if you can build a community among your followers.
I agree with that, I think there is room for all and for many an overlap because I know for one that I don't want to be stuck in just one niche.
It's jut not the first time I have read a post decrying content creators as if they are the enemy sometimes. Which is odd.
Building a cmmunity is important. What often counts though is them not fucking off at the first sign of Steem breaking two dollars :OD
I think it right time to buy steem and powerup.
I'm not buying anymore steem because in all honesty, I've lost that loving feeling here on steemit. I joined about a year and a half ago and have put my own money in the system and have never powered down, well, until today that is. I had a vision that steem/steemit would explode in popularity one day soon and anyone that had about 1,500 steem would be very well off.
Unfortunately I don't have that vision anymore and I'm also discouraged about how good content goes unrewarded. I'm seeing guys posting just regular posts that is basically like a memo with no valuable content, tons of mispelled words and is just fluff in my honest opinion. But these guys are pulling in very nice rewards. A lot of the rewards are from buddies scratching each others backs and bots, bots and more bots. Instead of a place where you can get rewarded for providing interesting or valuable content, it's a place where the popular kids with the bots reap the rewards and their main agenda is to line their own pockets instead of making this place great once again. It's a damn shame to see some of the great content providers that are leaving steemit now. With all of that being said, that's why I started to power down today. It's very sad because I had such high hopes here. Great article, resteemed.
don't completely give up, keep 1/2 that 1500 Steem ....and invest the rest if you really want out, i do hope you find some great investments that will give you 10K% return, someday Steem will come up again....but how high who knows, just keep some so you don't miss out completely incase something magical happens
STEEM has a bright future I think! Thanks for the info!
I put around 60 sp in recently, because of apps like @actifit and @cleanplanet I actively follow, I'm not that interested in writing things and instead I'm more into how they engage people to move more or inspire to clean up the environment.
By the way, I'm recently checking out the summer runs from GamesDoneQuick, so yay for speedruns 🙂
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"in this very dysfunctional community where no one gets along" i don't really have that feeling on steemit. I think my experience here was a bit like yours on twitch. Got to steem knowing no one and had luck to meet some photocommunity that is really nice, and also had some luck to somehow miss all the drama. I do know about the problems bots, self voting, whales... but i am mostly out of it. It does sometimes feels a bit lonely, but i also don't read everything that people that i follow write so when someone read it and lives a comment i am happy.
for my 273 days i sold steem once (around 30 steem) just to see is it posible to get from steem to dinar in Serbia. I am kinda lucky that i don't need that 500$ of steem right now in my daily life so i decided that for now everything is going to SP.
Why don't i buy steem? now thinking, all answers are connected to one thing :D I am living in Serbia :) where average monthly pay is 400$ (that is what government is saying, not really sure) and getting crypto is not that easy. Also my one and only crypto that i own is steem, don't really have time to look to all that cryptos, i am not a trader, currently don't really want to be, i have my day job, and i have my hobby in photo and video and i just want to share it with people. If i can get something from it, i am happy.
This was a cool, refreshing, and different comment. Thanks. :)
Nice to read this view compared to all negativity out there.
in the beginning i was kinda pissed about trending stuff, but i just stopped looking at it :D and yes it sometimes feels like writing to the wind, but it is like it is. and there are some great people here. It is kinda like RL, no way that all people are great, but you kinda don't hang out with people you don't like :)
Yep. Like anywhere its the people you spend your time with that make it heaven or hell.
Confidence that Steem will work, largely. I see all of this talk blaming the price for user/content degradation, and how we're just waiting for the next BTC spike, and it's discouraging, because if Steem doesn't work at $0.80 (or $0.25 or $0.07) then I don't think it works at all.
If I'm just putting money into something that needs to be propped up by Bitcoin, there doesn't seem to be a lot of point and I'd be better off doing something else with it.
I had $6000 USD in pipeline to become Steem Power if hf20 went well, and then it really, really didn't, and now that money is just sitting there while I have a hard time figuring out which direction I want that pipeline to move. Some of it that's in SBD is going to become BTC this week because I have $600 I want to spend in BTC and I'm not holding any, but that's not really progress.
Good feedback. Though I’d say that, ultimately, HF20 was a good thing and we’re in a better place now.
Yeah, the implementation was rough, but the end result is a big positive.
Technologically that may be true - though there are still some interesting emergent behaviors happening around the early vote penalty - but philosophically it very much isn't. We learned a bunch of scary things from the hardfork process:
Apart from some efforts on the code front by mid-tier witnesses, none of this has been addressed, and each of them on its own is very much a "run" signal to me. I'm trying to be patient about wanting to see some movement on these issues, but we're getting to the point where it's not looking good.
Lack of money, and lack of faith in a cooperating middle-class ever developing to the point where I can monetise my content better here than in The Real Worldtm.
The only reasons I can think of to power up are to be nice to the people who post things I enjoy, and getting bigger upvotes because my wallet is larger. Both reasons don't stand up well against the risk of Steemit as a platform for rewarding content (which is why I came here) degenerating further towards a money-making venue for the big-walleted content-agnostic folk.
I think we are well past the point where it is realistic to think a content-centric middle class will develop. That said, I'd be over the moon if somebody proves me wrong, but until then, I'm not throwing real money at it.
And what @ats-david said as well.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Small to medium size communities can and should be that middle class. We've actually seen a few pop up that are successfully rewarding their members for contribution and investment. They are absolutely self serving and insular, but that's OK, and right, in my opinion. They, the communities, keep to themselves, write, vlog, discuss the interests of that community and don't give a shit about the flags wars or other whale problems nor should they(the communities.)
I've said this before - I think communities should be the main thrust of Steemit or others interested it growing STEEM's value and holding. Not to mention they(the communities) onboard members and associates that are off chain. It's the quickest and fastest way to grow Steem organically.
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Money is the only reason that I dont buy more STEEM. I do agree that content creation and groups are the most interesting aspect of this platform and, in my opinion, hold the most value toward keeping individual users here and satisfied. Whales and Businessness generally just up the price and keeps the platform as is without building the working class and majority of users fairly.
Also Adam sandler is epic!!
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Great article man! I agree with the buying more thing. I actually just bought 150$ STEEM. I'm going to buy more every week or month. Depends on the crypto market and how much profit I make.
I took steem out.
Taking steem ( 6 months ago) literally stopped me going seriously hungry,and it kept a roof over my head!
(my point being, don't be too quick to assume or judge the motivations for people taking out of steem)...
All my steem is from content.
By choice, I'll be leaving it here, and keep it growing, but pesky 'life events', and all that...
Secondly...@whatsup is a girl ?
You do know Justine Bieber is also a girl?
lol.
Phew!
(I was having some very weird dreams that was raising a lot of questions...)
Sighs of relief...
ok this is epic
wtf, who is she?
Haha, she is!
I knew that.
lol.
Phew!
(I was having some very weird dreams that was raising a lot of questions...)
Sighs of relief...
Ha!
She is very much a girl! And yeah. Take it from me: life has a pesky habit of getting in the way of things.
Gotta disagree with this, at least a bit. I feel that, at least among the subset called “active users”, I’d consider minnows and dolphins to be middle class. Granted, among all accounts, minnows and dolphins are in the top 1%, but of the 50k-60k active users, minnows and dolphins are middling.
Sure, among Steemians there’s a tiny pool of super-wealthy that skew the statistics, but the same can be said of the world at large.
But I do agree with you that I’d like to see more people buying Steem and having skin in the game. It’s a win-win all around.
Hmm. You may have a point. It’s 6am where I live, so you’re going to have to forgive me for pushing further brain work to a later time, hah.
Middle class isn't exactly a well-defined term in any field. Some focus on being above poverty, some define it in terms of middle incomes/wealth, or not having to work with your hands, some just say it isn't the poor or the rich, but those inbetween who do well, well enough to have something to spend beyond the necessities of life.
I think a middle class on Steemit should be wealthy enough to make eachother wealthier at a fair pace, even in the face of the huge amounts of Steem being in a few hands, and passive, and 35% being behind bid-bots, and so on.
As wealth is a relative thing, I don't think we will ever see such a middle class on Steemit when it is up against what Steemit and the Steem distribution has evolved into, and I see no way at all of doing it just by producing content, which is what I came for. Also, I doubt a middle class will ever emerge that is supportive of eachother, as opposed to people soloing about with short-term goals and picking whatever path they see to increase their individual wealth as fast as they can without looking any further than that.
Anyway, middle classes tend to disappear in some incarnations of capitalism, and I think Steem/Steemit is one of those incarnations, as in its current state and set-up, it over-emphasises making money with money, which leads to concentration of wealth.
I hope I'm wrong, or will be at some point.
Lack of money is the main factor for buying steem.
Last year, when steem was at around $6 — a shitcoin gave me nice profit of around $15k (I am still holding it and now it's worth couple hundred dollars).
I wish I could have converted that to some stable coin and today bought steem with it.
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Aww man. That sucks. But that’s crypto for you, right?
I hope the coin you hold gets a nice pump yet!
$15 000 USD profit? That's a lot of money! I don't even have the half of it.
If anything would have made me $15 000 USD profit, I would have immediately converted it to Bitcoin (BTC), then to fiat currencies. First to Euro, then to HUF (Hungarian Forint).
Since you didn't do that, I think that you are rich.
I live with multiple disabilities. I am receiving a small, pension-like monthly income.
My current monthly income in real life is approximately $242.39 USD (68 480 HUF), because $1 USD is currently (2018.10.24, 09:00 CEST) 282.52 HUF.
$15 000 USD is currently 4 237 800 HUF.
Yes! More than 4 million!
Just to make another comparison:
I could buy a HOUSE (!) with approximately $2500 USD in some parts of the countryside in this country.
With 4 million, you can buy a house in many parts of the country.
So, if you have $15 000 USD, then you are a rich (literally millionaire) person in this country.
If I would have $15 000 USD, or even just $2500 USD, I would buy a house.
Knowing this information, you probably regret even more that you didn't converted that "shitcoin" to some stable coin, or even to fiat currency.
Lol mate, I am not anywhere near rich. Just stupid mistake and now regretting it, gotta move on.
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Mate, I can feel your agony. I had all kinds of shit portfolio in QuarkCoin, WorldCoin, FeatherCoin, PrimeCoin, PeerCoin etc. I have made similar mistakes not onetime, but most of the time until last year, I moved all my leftover holding to Steem and bought more: https://yehey.org/steem/@riseofth/investing-lessons-being-for-five-years-in-cryptocurrency-market-market-is-cyclic-and-invest-in-project-with-strong-fundamentals
Sometimes everything feels backwards on this platform. People that work hard and produce good content are not rewarded. People that do nothing are rewarded (e.g. Big whales like @freedom). I spend quite a bit of time creating content for Steem, Ironically, I would would actually earn more by delegating to bots and not be here. People who are willing to forgo rewards (curation or vote selling) through downvoting are attacked. People that profit massively from their bots are praised as great people and are apparently helping the community.
How is it possible for this type of ecosystem to survive in the long-run? I don't think many people will invest in something that offers limited growth. I bought most of my Steem in November last year. Things seemed a little more promising back then. I have only bough about 1000 Steem this year. Even with lower prices it feels very risky. I am still hopeful enough not to sell. I will still keep creating content even if I am earning less. If Steem has no content, there is no Steem. I am just afraid many of the best content creators will leave before things turn around. Not everyone has the time.
You mentioned a lot of good suggestions in this post that really makes sense for the healthy growth of this community and platform.
Thank you! For the kind words themselves, as well as just engaging in general.
Bring back 104 week power downs.
That'd fix 8 of our 9 problems.
i'm not convinced it will, last time that happened Steem went from $4 to $0.09 during a general crypto bull run (that's way-way worst than Steem going from $8.50 down to $0.80 is a long crypto winter)
go see my response to @ocrdu above @mattclarke, if the goal is to encourage holder or more important buyers (short-term, mid-term, and long term) there maybe more than 1 way to skin the cat
I am currently buying more Steem, as well as powering up all my rewards.
I have been in and out of the Steem community many times over the last couple of years; usually I get bored or frustrated, and then stop visiting for months at a time.
This time around though, it feels different. Like the community is starting to gel a little bit.
Maybe it is just me, but I am starting to get social value out of the site, so have been engaging with the other users more, and spending more time here. I know there has been a drop in regular users since HF20, but I think those who remain are much stronger for it. I think that those numbers will return once Steem price begins to climb again, but this time will be built on a better foundation.
I am curious to see how the tokens go, and how well some of these Apps work out onboarding new users. I am feeling pretty optimistic about some of the developments.
So combined with the fact that I think that the broader crypto-sphere is probably nearing the end of this consolidation phase, and will break out soon, I think it is a good time to buy. Steem is riskier than the larger coins, but has larger upside potential.
I am currently buying 2 - 4 times per month, and depositing into both of my user accounts.
So many excellent ideas - I used to think you were a bit "Steemit is buggered and we are all screwed" which was a something of a downer, but I fully agree with your points here - yes some things are a bit shit sometimes, but this place is pretty cool and we really can do this!
There isn't anything stopping me from buying more Steem, but I'd like to give my personal thoughts after reading your post.
I have been buying Steem a little at a time. I thought from the very beginning it was strange that I couldn't buy it through Steemit. If the point is to get more people to invest then it should be easy to do.
If the point is to get investors then I think I'm understanding Steemit better. I thought the concept was to attract people with ideas, things to say, adventures to share; the better the content the better they'd be rewarded. I thought they were the main attraction. Now I'm getting the idea that they're the parsley on a dinner plate, basically irrelevant.
The other communities you're involved with, do you think they are tighter because there are fewer members? Easier to get to know a couple hundred (or so) rather than thousands? Or because they share one common interest?
I agree it's up to us to create communities within Steemit. I see them, I follow them, but other than randomly coming across them I don't know how to find more of them. A centralized list somewhere? I had been tagging my garden-related posts with "garden" finding out later there was an established tag of "gardening". I'm supposed to know that - how?
If posting and commenting and voting is the main thing then it should be easier. But since it's not easier I'm back to thoughts of parsley.
First off, @whatsup is a lady???!! Never knew that.
I think one thing that would make investors buy and hold steem is if it gives passive returns for just holding. Delegation to bots really caught on. Maybe dapps should implement something similar. Buy Steem and hold, earn our tokens periodically.
I am a believer. My only issue is the cash to buy Steem. Living in a country where you need 350 units of your local currency to buy Steem does that to you.
Apart from that, I have no trouble buying steem every now and then.
The discussions on steemit about "content creators earning steem" versus making "passive income by delegating" puzzled me a bit in the start. As if there were good an bad people here.
People that have some cash to invest should not hesitate to do so and preferably do it in a second account. You can be both I mean without being a split personality! It is the middle class indeed that makes the difference in any economy.
Damn, this was a good read - I mean Michael Myers was the father - wtf!?
No - really this got me thinking about all that is steem and maybe i have been taking it all for granted and such... great article, and I am glad I follow you - Thanks!
An amazing post, !!! I am a junior here.
Looking at this post interested in arguing?
I throw a question, is steemit a social media? Or business media? .
For me it's hard to invite people to buy steem, this steem is produced by great steem power here. So no matter how much money we have to buy steem, there is no meaning. Hhhhh just imagine. Whale here I see there are only two activities,1. Make as many posts as possible (certainly not with one account) and 2. ask to buy steem for beginners, hhhhh, amazing !!!!
Complaint !!!!
-------Original posts never get upvote, but if other posts are published there are very many values, this is very dishonorable and very embarrassing to friends ..
------The works on Google published are highly priced, because they share the same great power steem.
Regarding prices :: steem prices continue to fall because it's too much,
Regards
I invest when I can because I believe in this vision and in the good people here on this platform. I’ve had a fun and rewarding experience on here and have even attended a couple live events. I believe Steem has high potential and I’m sticking around for the long-term.
-Ken
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Some very good points here and the comparison to the middle class is a great one. Middle classes take time however. I have tried to do my bit here as well, and the steem price collapse has helped it become more affordable to hold steem (compared to the cost of powering up 8$ steem) . People move to these new platforms and get that sense of community but success brings its own problems and ultimately the battles that steem is facing now are ones that all platforms will have to get through when they get to this stage.
Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-10-24-18
Keep up the good work and original content, everyone appreciates it!
the future is bright!!!
Nice post! i just made a post about a possible fix to the blockchain. I would love your feedback
In all due respect , if you think that then you have not been involved in the Internet marketing side concerning digital products. I have produced Content and sold for thousands of dollars because of the real value of that Content. Not sure how you two are deriving and coming to this conclusion?
Maybe it's just semantics and the interpretation of them or maybe you are talking strictly talking in the Context of Steemit,inc. ????
Anyway, great article. Really some very good points.
I would love to develop a middle class of dolphins that are able to self sustain each other at least a part time income. But also make sure that this dolphin middle class is keen on assisting in every way possible to help the Minnows reach that middle class as well.
P.S. In the next 3 to 4months I plan to buy another $10K worth of Steem. More than likely right before SMTs are released
great article mate! :)
@schattenjaeger, I get you when you say that communities are not really here yet. They actually are, but it is very hard to hold them together, because everybody is directed to a non-Steem based site called Discord for talking and brainstorming. This is a point where really nothing has changed after 20! hard forks.
If we want communities, whe should be able to form them on the Steem-blockchain itself, imho. Like a chat function, or specified pages for communities, etc...
Will I power up? I will! How much, I have no clue, but every little bit helps.
You say that culture in steemit has changed, what do you mean?
Yes i see that content means nothing, people with high steempower take more votes and have more influence. Can you explain how is that happening? if i see something i like, i vote it up, ok maybe reputation is an eye grabber too. But i really dont check the steempower of the member before i vote
As for the image, it's cool :P
As an itty bitty plankton who just recently struggled with RCs I power up all STEEM I get. STEEM bloggin is a nice hobby, but I don't produce the kind of content that would allow me to subsist on STEEM, my day job earnings go into supporting my family.
You know what could possibly advance an increase in STEEM holding? A platform-wide RC market (long promised but nowhere to be seen yet) and some power hungry popular dApps. Early on the market would no doubt fluctuate -- scarce at first, RC's would eventually become over-abundant as folks catch wind of this new passive income stream, but if the dApps grow to absorb the influx of RC's and STEEM prices jumps (as a result of increased demand, naturally) it should presumably all balance out.
Congratulations @schattenjaeger!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following categories:
Honestly, I started reading this because I wanted to find out how the heck you related the Halloween series to a Steem-based investment decision. Once I realised I had been caught by the lure, I found myself reading on till the end.
I really have no idea how I will be proceeding with investing in Steem, but I do know it's something I don't want to completely rule out.
Ha! You fell into my trap, I see.
transfering my upvote to one of your more recent post
Funnily enough, I’ve written about the same topic.
On Steemit, even.
As opposed to an IVF baby?