This is fine!
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Many steemians keep asking the same questions. Will Steem be more successful in the future? Will the userbase of Steem grow? Why, even though the count of steemians grows day-to-day, many people still haven't migrated from other platforms? What is holding down Steem?!
These people are passionate about our beloved platform. They prefer to concentrate on its advantages (100K TPS! Strong community! Decentralization!), not drawbacks. I was one of them. I believed that Steem's issues will be eventually addressed by developers or will be solved by community in a natural way. Some of the problems indeed are non-existent now: take spam posts, for example. Thanks to the HF20, spammers are now having a hard time continuing to produce their rubbish posts. Or Steemit website stability: I would say that it has vastly improved compared to the situation one year ago.
But one issue remains unresolved. This issue is often overlooked by steemians; to them, it does not exist. It was stealthy enough to hide from me for most of my wonderful journey on Steem; not anymore.
Back to basics
The goal of every social platform is to get content delivered from the creator to the consumer. Steem only seems to meet this criteria. Let me explain.
Joe is an average Steemian (average Joe, heh). Because he is new at Steemit, he does not have a massive follower base nor has he any funds to promote his post. He creates a high quality post. He posts it.
What does he get in exchange?
Well...
- His post is the first in the general 'new' section for about... 10 seconds;
- His post is the first in categories' 'new' section for some minutes (hours?). Still, more time =/= more upvotes here, because the categories where posts are rarely posted usually do not have a large amount of visitors;
- His post is displayed to his subscribers; unfortunately, if the subscriber has a large amount of subscriptions, chances are that he will never see Joe's post;
- If he is lucky enough, his post will get to trending, but let's be honest - it has an extremely (as in <5%) chance to do it.
Long story short, Joe's awesome high quality post will never get the appreciation it deserves.
But wait, there's more!
Steemit consists of thousands of such Joes, producing high-quality but severely underappreciated content. If every Joe managed to get his content to his potential readers, Steemit would be full of quality content.
But Joes struggle to do this.
Instead, Steemit is full of promoted posts. They are steling Joes' reader base. They are not giving Joes any chance.
Yes, it is true that promoted posts can sometimes be really good (or really bad). But it's not the point.
The point is that Steemit's system of content discovery is flawed, which is the first part of the problem.
Simple answer to a big question
We keep asking the same question: why are people not migrating to Steem?
The answer is simple: Steemit is not good enough. Head to Youtube (which, of course, is far from ideal due to the censorship). What do you see? Content consumers consuming content. Content creators getting views for their content.
Head to Medium. What do you see? Quality articles on relevant topics getting views.
Steemit is flooded with articles about its own ecosystem; it is sometimes hard to find original & relevant content using the tags. Talented authors initially not wishing to invest in Steemit's ecosystem (Joes) end up giving up and leaving Steemit. Their place is then being taken by (mostly) not-so-talented authors wishing to invest some money. In the end, Steemit's content quality level is lower than that of competing platforms, which makes me sad.
This is the second part of the problem: the amount of good and relevant content on Steemit is limited.
Note: by Steemit I also mean all of its interfaces, such as Partiko, Busy etc.
Note #2: you have the right to disagree, it is normal for human being to have its own point of view. Just try to be objective and think rationally before arguing.
Dear @alexanderrigov, you are talking about the problem of Steemit, where right now is not important waht you write but how much you invest.
The fairy tale of "make good contents and get rewarded" is no more valid after HF20.
I think the price of elite social is that, few users with huge SP, this is unfortunately the destiny of Semmit...:(((
Dear @intellihandling
To some degree you're right. What matters is our investment, quality content and engagement (Which allows people to recognize us and that in return attract traffic).
And Im glad this fairy tale is not real any more.
Core of problem is not "tool" (steemit platform) but that general laziness and belief that quality content should promote itself.
I think we reached stage, where quality content is worth nothing if you do not engage with community. There is just to many content creators and most of them want to be "visible" without putting much effort to build their visibility.
Cheers,
Piotr
Dear my friend Piotr, you know that this sentence was write in Steemit White paper?
It Was my friend, because White paper Is now as toilet paper...☹️
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hahaha I cant stop laughint @intellihandling
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Steem is a great platform but does not really compete with others. It might simply be the lack of advertisement or it needs a cool factor.
The coins logo is not as cool as Steemits logo for example. Facebook logo is simple and slick so is twitters. Making an account is also not as easy as making one on any other platform.
To get a free account people have to wait more than five minutes to get their account. People are not patient they want their product as quick as possible. The point of entry should be simpler. It should be as easy as making an account on any other platform.
Then there is the problem that people do not know what crypto is and might not care to learn what it is, get the coin, then pay in crypto to make the account quickly.
It is good that there is the option to make the account quickly but if the system excepted a debit card or credit card then converted it to steem it would be simpler for people to get their accounts.
I do not think people care about having to pay for the account we are a consumer economy after all. It is what means they use to make the purchase that confuses potential users which puts them off.
If people could also power up, buy steem or steem dollars with fiat that would be more convenient for them.
Maybe steem could partner with some service that provides this. Steem just needs a better medium between fiat to crypto.
Dear @cryptouno
What an amazing comment buddy.
Small correction if you dont mind: Steemit is a platform :) STEEM = blockchain
Also Im not sure which other platform is doing better than Steemit. I tried many (if not all) and so far Steemit has the strongest community and building engagement here is way more efficient than anywhere else. But that's just my impression.
You're right here. I wish to understand why does it take so long to create account.
This time I disagree.
Beauty of current solution is that it limits new users to those who understand basics of blockchain and crypto. I would never like it to be different.
Cheers
Piotr
I was comparing Steem to other social platforms like facebook, twitter,and Instagram. Everyone knows how to make an account on those sites.
I do not like facebook but they do have a large user base.
When the internet was first created people hated it. They thought it was too technical. Once the internet became easier to use it was adopted.
I was only thinking of ways to attract a larger user base since daily trading volume is only 3,127,729 coins.
Steem should have a higher trading volume. It is a great innovation.
Check out this Crypto Company. They are bringing Crypto to the masses.
https://steemit.com/kr-news/@cryptouno/pundi-x-the-crypto-between-worlds
I can go to a Coffee Shop in Hong Kong and pay for my sandwich and drink with my Crypto which is awesome.
I mean I can already do stuff online like booking airline tickets or pay for a hotel but I like how now I can go to a physical location and use my crypto.
Thank you @cryptouno for your great comment.
I figured that you're comparing this platform to Facebook. At the same time Im trying to correct you (hope you don't mind).
Because STEEM is not a social media platform. STEEM is a entire blockchain (public ledger). Steemit = social media platform.
STEEM and Steemit is not the same. Steemit (as a platform) is build on STEEM blockchain. So we can compare STEEM to EOS or other crypto. And we can compare Steemit to Facebook/twitter etc.
Hope Im making sense?
Very noble. I would be happy to help you if you would ever need my support.
And big THX for that link. Will check it out right away :)
Yours
Piotr
Totally agree with you on this one. I would also add that no other decentralized media platform has such a great technology powering it.
I totally agree with you.
Good content are not getting the right recognition.
We have to be sincere high steem power holder are getting too much recognition.
Looking forward to the continuation of this post
Dear @oclinton
I think we reached stage, where quality content is worth nothing if you do not engage with community. There is just to many content creators and most of them want to be "visible" without putting much effort to build their visibility.
Core of problem is not "tool" (steemit platform) but that general laziness and belief that quality content should promote itself. Typical Joe is simply to lazy to build engagement with people and currate others conent.
Cheers,
Piotr
Nice point man.
A very valid point you make. Currently the limited advertising interface steemit has, i.e. Promoted section, gets little to no traction and is actually seems to be a waste of resources. Advertising itself may not be the best solution.
I think what could potentially work is a goal orientated system that works like an automated tutorial system. Instead of encouraging newbs to post, it guides them to network, comment and connevt with people and gain followers, as soon as they unlock certain goals and followerships, post become available. They get rewarded for completing goals with posts and auto upvote from a whale account. Whales yo be paired with lower level accounts and to give at least 50 cent auto upvotes to sponsored accounts. Which is not much for them, but alot for lower level accounts. The higher rep the account gets to the greater the reward. Which will encourage users to constantly unlock new levels and goals. Kinda like a game.
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I think this is a great idea. 'Gamification' usually helps to motivate people.
Yes I agree.
There is actually lots of great content on steem, but it is impossible to find.
Fortunately I think this can be solved via UI.
If you have an Idea how, i would love to work with you on thinking about implementation.
I have a few ideas that I will express in my future post. I need some time to think how all of them could work; I will publish the post only when I feel like I have the concept ready.
P.S. Running out of Resource Credits :(
I love to see how responsive you are @alexanderrigov
I delegated 30 SP to you just now. It should help you with your RC. I will keep this delegation at least for 2-3 months.
yours
Piotr
Thanks a lot - your delegation really was a pleasant surprise! I am planning to buy some SP in the end of January. I think that you definitely can un-delegate me in February to help other Steemit authors which need SP more than I do.
All the best, Alex
Dear @alexanderrigov
you're very responsive which is absolutely great and steemit community surely will benefit by having you here.
if you would ever like to keep in touch and support each other closer, then drop me a message [email protected].
This will allow us to communicate easier.
No pressure of course,
ps. you mind telling me where're you from buddy? just curious.
Cheers, Piotr
Sure, if (or rather when) I will feel that I can help you or someone else. My plan for 2019 includes investing in SP and Steem, and I hope that I will be able to help our community.
I'm perfectly okay with answering this question, no need to excuse yourself :) I am from Latvia, but my mother tongue is Russian.
All the best, Alex
hi @alexanderrigov
so we're almost neighbours as I was born in Poland :)
hi @knircky
I think we reached stage, where quality content is worth nothing if you do not engage with community. There is just to many content creators and most of them want to be "visible" without putting much effort to build their visibility.
But most people do not understand that or are simply very lazy. You do create good content and Im reading it from time to time. But I do that only because I already know that you respect your viewers and engage with them.
Majority of users just want to post something they consider "good content" and they dont even bother to reply to comments. And soon after they lose their entire audience and start complaining about Steemit and blaming this platform.
Cheers,
Piotr
I post once a day, usually a #freewrite, which is a story written in 5 minutes, I would never expect to see it on the hot or trending thread. I create #freewrites because it's challenging and it relaxes me. Plus I make other #freewriters laugh sometimes. If the price of Steem goes up, it's just a plus. I'm here for the community involvement. Just my opinion. 🙏
Greetings, the problem at this point is well as a means that is not the most viable economic medium that a problem that is given as a problem that is distributed the pay one earns money, I speak as now the SBD is worth more than the STEEM , the page gives you only the lowest value currency, I speak that you do not even pay at least something that SBD, that at least pay a percentage of the coins here and another problem is this page would have better performance and allow you to see a chat people connected, so it would be easier to interact directly between users. The only viable thing that I have seen here are the initiatives that the same users invent to facilitate economic gains such as competitions, systems such as steem-bounty and many others, for now I see that the most viable thing here is to participate and integrate into projects that one find in steemit
Good point @ljmm.
Great comment. Anyway don't you think that to many people seem to expect that Steemit will solve problem of their posts visibility? It is simply not possible for every quality content to "pop up". One day we may have AI that will help to decide what is and what is not worth being displayed.
Yours
Piotr
I‘m looking forward for a great steemit Future! Good things always take their time to become great! So lets See, what 2019 brings!
Greets from LowerAustria, Robert
IMO what we really need is smaller niche communities like Discord groups provided via. Nobody sees everything that is posted on FB/Twitter etc. People will mostly browse on pages they have followed or groups they are a part of. We don't have this on STEEM platforms for the most part.
Check out @steemhunt it's one of my favorite projects on STEEM. It has a very specific focus with soft-moderation and it has its own account based voting system. The platform itself is considerably engaging. https://dpoll.xyz is another favorite of mine. I'm actually the #1 in Top dPollers list.
We have more interfaces/front ends/platforms with niche focus. This will make curation more efficient and directed at a much more targeted demographic.
Good point @vimukthi
Great comment. Anyway don't you think that to many people seem to expect that Steemit will solve problem of their posts visibility? It is simply not possible for every quality content to "pop up". One day we may have AI that will help to decide what is and what is not worth being displayed.
Yours
Piotr
Thanks for the tip!
There is so much unique and great content on Steemit but it's just hard to find them thanks to upvote bots. I've been curating travel content for travelfeed since February and there is great stuff out there, which would not being noticed if the author would only use the travel tag. They need to weight original content might more!
Yes, I think that Steemit as a platform (as in not only Steemit as a community) should reward unique content creators.
Hi Alexander! When you will continue this post?🤔😉😁🤓 I wish you a Happy New Year and thank you so much for joining to @crypto.piotr Santa Venezuela initiative🎅👼😊
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Hello! Have a Happy New Year too.
You're welcome :)
The continuation of this post will most probably come out in the second half of January. I will send you a memo.
Great!😉I am wishing to read that👍🤓
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I think the parallelism you make with Joe is super accurate and based on facts, but the reality is that to be recognized Joe needs to do much more than good quality posts, just like in any other platform. The catch with Steemit it that we don´t have many users and so not many attention to be given to so many quality content creators.
But, I do agree with you that Joes of Steemit should have a easier time sharing their amazing content, and specially better/more ways to advertise their content for free, rewarding the quality posts only.
I must say I'm impressed, since day one, with the development team. They always solve our major problems, they hear the community.
Dear @diogosantos
You've nailed it.
But Joe is lazy :) Joe doesnt want to spent hours reading comments, and finding quality content himself. Joe doesn't want to put more effort than minimum (posting his own content)
And Joe would like STEEMIT to solve problem of this laziness. Perhaps you're right that things could get better, but core of problem is not "tool" (steemit platform) but that general laziness and belief that quality content should promote itself.
Cheers,
Piotr
You are right. It's hard to find good content in steem. But I think it's not a specific problem of steem but social media in general. Even for famous website you only see the content of few creators, who already have a lot of fans( or bought enough fans/upvotes), or the ones who advertise it. The difference between steem and most other social networks, it's easier and legal to promote your post by spending money ( you just need enough SP).
Maybe a better search function could help the people to find better content more easily. Every time I search for a topic I only find the most popular on top but not the most useful. On YouTube/Medium I can find the relevant post easier ( Just my opinion.)
Do you think it is easier to find relevant content on YouTube/Medium just because of the better content discovery system or because of the userbase? In my opinion, userbase does not play a major role - content discovery system does.
Because of the content discovery system.
The userbase can just help but most of the time you discover content through friends/recommendations.
I'm a returning steemian. I had stopped before because people used to prioritize earnings in their posts and it's too obvious. Most posts used to be clickbait or recycled topics. If people express their ideas more, I think steemit will become interesting and people will come regardless if they earn money. Let's use reddit or twitter as an example. Each posts doesn't have to be serious. We can simply start a discussion and upvote each other's useful comments.
I think that Steemit-based Reddit-like platform could be extremely useful. If something like that does exist, please let me know :)
Beyond what you mention friend @alexanderrigov
I agree, the promotion by many users who can economically do it, allows their posts to be more viewed, can have greater access to the steemit community in general.
This is how big accounts benefit much more than those who do not.
It is also true that these promoted publications are not always quality, in fact, many do not even use any type of edition, and it is absurd that they get thousands of followers and even hundreds of votes.
Another thing to consider is that many manage to make good investments in steem power, and this allows them to negotiate with some whales, exchange votes.
I have noticed that many publications of some users have almost the same number of votes each time they publish, and in the same way they are practically the same as those who vote in all their posts.
We know that you can automate the votes, and in this way "help" to obtain constant income.
It is a game in which you fall on that platform, where quality does not always prevail in the content, but the strategies you use.
It's part of what I've seen, to add to your point of view.
Before HF20 = 45k userbase or more... Now userbase 10k. Spam problem can't be solved with steem code, it's steemit, busy, esteem problem.
The first and second problem can be solved with creation of API that shows the origin of the upvote, and the interface like steemit can remove upvote from outside steemit, and change post value to 1:1.
That's my opinion!
Hello! May I ask you where did you get these numbers from? They seem dramatic.
Hi @elieltavares
But HF20 did solve this problem better than any other platform ever did (facebook/instagram etc).
Out of those 45k way more than half were spamming bots. Current 10k is more realistic number of real human accounts.
I've lost you here :(
Yours
Piotr
Most people are at FB,
Because he has too many old members.
There are not many people in other BLOGs.
STEEM already had some people.
Great to see you on Steemit again @alexanderrigov
I noticed that you had some solid break. Im glad to see that you didn't give up on Steemit yet. :)
I also wanted to say thank you for supporting our small initiative "SANTA VENEZUELA". We all appreciate your kind donation.
Also hopefully 2019 will better for all of us.
Are you actually talking about STEEM (as blockchain) or Steemit (social media platform)
I think we reached stage, where quality content is worth nothing if you do not engage with community. There is just to many content creators and most of them want to be "visible" without putting much effort to build their visibility.
Because Joe is lazy :) And Joe would like STEEMIT to solve problem of this laziness. Perhaps you're right that things could get better, but core of problem is not "tool" (steemit platform) but that general laziness and belief that quality content should promote itself.
Hope to read part 2 soon :)
Cheers,
Piotr
Thanks for spending your time to read this post @crypto.piotr!
Both, actually, but in the context of this post I am talking about social media platform. Will try to be more precise next time :)
You see, the problem is, that there are many Joes that could be beneficial for community, but once they try to join Steemit, they try their best, get disappointed, get confused and leave. There are no native promotion tools on Steemit, and all these bots are really confusing for the new user. Maybe you are right, but I still think Steemit could do better in this regard.
I am pretty sure that part 2 will come out in January, but because I want to create a logical and well-thought-out concept, I will not hurry. That doesn't mean I am taking a break from Steemit though; I just think that the post deserves some time to be invested in its creation.
All the best, Alex
Dear @alexanderrigov
Seriously my pleasure. Is there any chance you could send me memo or email once you publish part 2? Chance that I will "bump into part 2" accidently are very rare. And I really enjoyed reading your piece.
Isn't really same story with every other platform out there? I tried facebook (including signing up to many groups). Twitter. Medium, busy. Name it. With current huge amount of content creators it's simply very hard to be visible.
Oh yeah. I agree with you on that one. I just believe that comparing to current competition this platofrm allows to build solid engagement.
ps. Alex is very Russian name. Are you from this part of the world?
Yours
Piotr
No problem. I definitely will send you an email.
And yes, you guessed that right :) My mother tongue is Russian. I come from Latvia.
All the best, Alex
still waiting for part 2 :)
Hello once again @crypto.piotr! As I said somewhere here in the comments, the second part is coming out in the second half of the January. I just want to make sure I include all the possible solutions in it :)
All the best, Alex
I think that you explain some of the problems right on steemit now, maybe if the new users can be viewed for more time on some categories, that can help more. I"m not sure.
Very interesting post, i am waiting the continuation.
Thankyou for the support on santa Venezuela event.
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Steemit will continue to be flooded with content every day and curation is a problem for sure. Communities are trying their best to manually reward good pieces of content but it is ultimately a front-end issue. dApps like esteem, busy , paritko and steempeak as well as steeve will all have to come up with improved methods of curation and recommendation engines to help users find content faster
I'm sure we will eventually get there! Steemit was just an example of what this blockchain can do not the be all and end all of the product
hi @chekohler, @alexanderrigov
Perhaps developing AI would help? What do you think guys? I can easily see future where AI is judging quality of content.
cheers
Piotr
I think it would help as long as it doesn't drive echo chambers like we see with google and Facebook where content is curated so much to your preference that you are actually limited to the content you see and miss out on so much. You should check out steeve they trying to use AI curation on STEEM
That is indeed very good point @chekohler
thx for your comment
Piotr
That is a good point. Steemit is a great concept with (let's be honest) poor execution. Yes, the tech is excellent, but something needs to be doneabout content itself or else Steemit will go extinct in several (5?6?) years because there will be a superior platform.
I think so too, if we can get SMT's up and running eventually Steemit will be sunset and dapp owners can go out and recruit users for their niche platforms lets say actifit for example and users would even know any better that its running on steem all you know is you get actfit tokens or partiko points if you're a partiko user and so on.
Its pretty cool to see the evolution of this blockchain project and im glad I got in early
You are an expert.
good bounty
Hi @alexanderrigov!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 0.000 which ranks you at #158804 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has dropped 552 places in the last three days (old rank 158252).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 373 contributions, your post is ranked at #328.
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Once a user logs in there should be no need to submit another password just to post. The small amounts of crypto currency involved, as well as the action of posting, do not need this degree of security. If Steemit wants a lot of active users, like the bigger social media the sites, it should be fast and easy to use. I had much difficulty loading a photo to my post, repeatedly. The problem has decreased. I managed to add a picture to one post today, though the picture for the second post did not upload. If there are others experiencing this problem, then it should be fixed. This is not at all to be critical. I appreciate this site, but easy and rapidity of use is a positive feature (of course), and is normally an expectation for a social media platform, otherwise it seems (to me) to be underconstruction. If this site is still under construction, to the degree that just posting a photo is a big investment of time, fine, but there should be be a prominent announcement about this, even for a beta site. I saw tutorials for how to post photos at this site, but really, the normal way to post a photo is to click on a button, and choose the file to upload (fast and easy).
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing post with us!
Have you heard about Partiko? It’s a really convenient mobile app for Steem! With Partiko, you can easily see what’s going on in the Steem community, make posts and comments (no beneficiary cut forever!), and always stayed connected with your followers via push notification!
Partiko also rewards you with Partiko Points (3000 Partiko Point bonus when you first use it!), and Partiko Points can be converted into Steem tokens. You can earn Partiko Points easily by making posts and comments using Partiko.
We also noticed that your Steem Power is low. We will be very happy to delegate 15 Steem Power to you once you have made a post using Partiko! With more Steem Power, you can make more posts and comments, and earn more rewards!
If that all sounds interesting, you can:
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Dear @alexanderrigov
I just visited your account to see if you posted anything new lately and I see that you're taking a break?
Hope you're not done with Steemit and you will be back with some interesting publications soon :)
Yours
Piotr
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