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If I haven't miscounted, it's been 29 days crazy days since my Steemit account was approved and I made my first post. I'm writing a 30th day post to share with you all tomorrow, so keep hitting F5 on this browser window until you see it! But since that afternoon 29 days ago I've spent likely too much time learning the vocabulary and intricacies of this little corner of the internet. I've had a nice time, and virtually met some cool and smart people who I hope to learn from and be inspired by in the future. However, there's a part of this steemy blockchainy cryptoish platform that bugs me.
Steemit is all about the money!
"I give you upvote so you give me upvote. This is a a great story and great read. Thanks for reading this great post. Nice job! I give you positive comment so you follow and upvote. Here is 0.001 Steem. Now give upvote to my top content. Nice post! Upvote for Upvote."
I'm a photographer for Pete's sake. I didn't come on to this platform to trade $0.01 upvotes and comments on garbage content where you swiped a low resolution photo off of CNN.com and go on to paraphrase some annoying crypto prediction. I've been posting quality photography (or at least an attempt at that) onto my Flickr, Facebook, and Instagram for years. I've done that without the immediate belief that I'd somehow earn some money from my posts. It didn't matter though. I love photography and wanted to share it with whoever would find it inspiring. However, a side effect of working hard on that content and sharing it publicly has landed me an opportunity to have my work represented on Stocksy United, earned me free phones, drones, and outdoor gear, as well as real actual income for employing my talents and sharing high quality, hard earned photographs to people kind enough to follow along.
When I heard about Steemit, I was immediately interested because I saw it as an opportunity to reach new people, and earn a little crypto as a reward for doing what I already love. I don't see it as a get rich quick scheme any more than I see posting photos on Instagram as a get rich quick scheme, which for me might end up being more of a reality than Steemit ever will. I'm pretty careful about who I follow on here, so thankfully my feed has stayed fairly authentic. However it only takes five minutes to dredge up posts where the little planktons, minnows, and dolphins are squeezing their way into line to drop a mostly meaningless comment on a post full of low quality content because they see a little (65) after the username of the poster. I guess you could say there is this mentality on other social networks, and there definitely is a deluge of low quality content out there, but this platform seems especially full of desperation and unashamed asking for attention.
I wish people would have the mentality that posting great content and meaningfully interacting with others can actually net you some pretty cool opportunities. Sure there are opportunities for rewards on this platform, but if people would understand what it takes to earn them on here, they'd have probably already figured out a way to earn them on other platforms as well.
But who knows, I'm the noobie here so I could be totally wrong. I did just get approved to buy votes on Smartsteem so maybe it's time to start gaming the system. You tell me!
I promise my 30th day on Steemit post will be a little more positive, and include a few shout outs to some great folks on here. I just felt I had to get this one out of the way before then. Thanks for reading!
Dear sir! Your post is full of wisdom and I am proud of you! Thank you for blessing us.
but really.
I totally know where you're coming from. Especially when I started, it was a confusing time of everyone being positive, but only a few being authentic. Over the months, I've slowly curated my own users that I follow, and now interact with most of them (obviously some more than others). As with any social media, there are people who honestly use it and others who abuse it. Unfortunately it can take some time to weed out the chaff, but once you do (or at least once I did) it is a great and interactive site. Steemit definitely has its downfalls, but it also has great potential. I know there are a lot of things that need to change before it's widely adopted, but here's to hoping there is a way to somehow clean up the content.
P.S. Always love seeing your work, even if you frickin' clickbait me.
Great reply. My sentiments exactly. We forget that this is all one big experiment. At the moment, I think Steemit is going to reflect human tendencies we also elsewhere in the market. Have you ever been to a market in the third wold? It's busy. People are talking, bargaining, even yelling. In short, it's a noisy, dynamic environment. I like to think of Steemit as a marketplace of ideas and content. How your content performs on the market (i.e. financially) is not only dependent on the artist, but the marketing, business and technological acumen of the artist. I think we see the same tendencies with Instagram, which is 95% filled with selfies and bad photos of food. Eventually Steemit, or something that succeeds it, will hopefully have a better list of features or rewards that promote more genuine use. Otherwise, I worry about the same things you do...
Very thoughtful response. I love your analogy of Steemit like being like a busy marketplace. Makes the negative aspects seem much less obtrusive or annoying, and puts emphasis on the eventual value underneath the entire thing. Good thoughts! I wish somehow more people could read these comments. I think the conversation is a valuable and insightful one.
Thanks! Glad to see you got some of my sarcasm. I think it will take a bit of time as I curate the writers and content creators that I follow. I'm not leaving anytime soon, but have had a bit of a harder time finding content that I really can connect with, compared to other social media platforms that I've used.
I know what you mean on one level but I have been here for 3 months now and have had quite a different experience on it. There are issues here on steemit (mostly around the trending page and vote sharing/buying) but at the same time I have had more true interaction here on this platform with other photographers than I have had on other platforms for years. So much so that I just wrote about the experience on a recent post about it here ( https://steemit.com/photofeed/@intrepidphotos/touched-by-the-moon ) .
The issue with begging up-votes is a problem here; but I have experienced nothing like the old V+F comments that one used to get on 500px in its early days or the constant bot spam comments that one gets on Instagram. It's hard for any platform to get rid of them however its hard in particular for platforms that have the potential to reward as that $0.03 vote is actually important for some people in the third world. This is going to be a problem for appics also and will be interesting to see how they deal with it. Once you have some steem power you can always just downvote the comments and hide them, otherwise you can report them to steemcleaners ( https://steemcleaners.org/abuse-report/ ) and they will punish them appropriately.
The main difference for me is that I would never get interesting well thought out comments like this one (or the others here in response to your post) on Instagram. I would rarely get any constructive feedback on the other platforms. Just a whole bunch of "Great post" "Love it" "Nice" one line comments. Steemit being a long form platform encourages a more in-depth level of discussion. I agree that it needs a messenger app, and they are working on that (need to remind ourselves sometimes that it still has beta under Steemit on top of the page). In the mean time people talk on discord channels, or via IG messenger, telegram, or the alpha Steemit Chat.
You have some beautiful work and its been nice to get to know you a little. So I hope you stick around!
I have some thoughts that I formed overnight, and I can connect some of those thoughts to this response. Thank you @intrepidphotos!
I have never really blogged consistently before, and have primarily used Instagram which encourages only short form comment, and very basic conversation. I believe I am learning how to transition from short form content to long form content. I have had the thought that this platform in comparison to Instagram may be the perfect place to post experimental work, learning processes, and requests for feedback. For several years I have largely viewed my Instagram as a fluid and current portfolio of my best work. My initial thought was to transition that mentality to Steemit. I am seeing however that this platform may be better utilized to serve a different purpose. I'm not sure what all that entails, but I am excited about the potential.
I wrote the blog post above with a heavy dose of sarcasm and cynicism, which comes naturally to me in my personality, and as a result I believe the post came across as more negative than I really feel. I really do appreciate the conversation that occurs on here, and I believe I'm learning how to adapt to this sort of platform. It's new to me, and I'm finding my sea legs.
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I think your on the money there. Steemit is a great place to experiment a bit more outside ones comfort zone to get real feedback. On Instagram if I post something outside of my normal theme the first few people like it a little less as it's not what they expect and then it gets crimped by the algorithm so that no one ends up seeing it. I range from from a reach of 25,000k people down to 6,000 people depending on the shot. So people feeds become narrower, and they end up being shown almost the same thing over and over again as the likes are self reinforcing. This is the main problem with algorithm based social media as it is self reinforcing of a given style or ideology. Chronological media on the other hand shows you everything in your feed; so the apparent quality might be slightly down, but you see things that would otherwise be screened out, and occasionally you see things that come from a different perspective that broaden your mindset and might just change your world view slightly. I think appics will be more of a direct IG copy when it comes out and complement steemit
This is a great post and opens up a wonderful conversation. I really like your response @intrepidphotos .
I decided some time back never to like for like or follow for follow on social media. Only to like what I actually like and connect with in some way and only to follow people whose work I love or who I feel a connection with. I refused to play the IG game. I have recently become quite cantankerous about people being measured and measuring themselves by their number of followers. People as numbers has never ended well for the human race.
I have taken an enormous step back from Instagram because the economy of people as numbers does not sit well. As @intrepidphotos said there is a more authentic conversation here. Sure there is a lot of low quality content as across all social media but provided there is no plagarism I try to remember that everyone has a story and people who appear to be making a money grab might really need money. For the one's falling foul of ethical behaviour I think Steemit has far better systems in place to crack down on them than IG.
IG is a free for all in using other humans for personal gain and contributing little back to them in connection and authenticity. That said there are also many outstanding human beings on IG doing wonderful things. They just often get so lost in the algorithm which is a real shame. I love curations here like @curie and @photofeed @steemitworldmap and so many more that give those great humans doing wonderfully creative things a chance to rise to the top some. I have only reached a relevant audience on my writing account @onethousandwords because of them. And I have found fantastic authors and photographers thanks to them.
Lots of good points made in this! I hadn't heard of Steemit Worldmap so I have it open in a new tab as I type this. I would agree with most of what you said about Instagram. It is deceiving to think of follower numbers as any kind of personal worth, both for yourself and others. You also bring up a decent point about some people possibly really needing the money. I'm not in that situation so I hadn't considered that. But this is a platform without borders which makes it pretty neat! I appreciate the thoughts.
Enjoy the world map. It is one of my favourite curations.
Try doing it without buying votes, let your work speak for itself!
Thanks! I signed up just because it was available I guess, not fully intending to use it. Is buying votes actually profitable? It seems like a short term game plan versus a long term plan.
Exactly!
You can buy yourself into the trending page for greater visibility. It cheapens Steemit in my opinion. I’ll support your work for free!
So when you pay for upvotes, you are essentially moving your Steem or Steem Dollars from your wallet to a future payout on your current post for the purpose of increased exposure? If you don't pay enough to get on Trending does it really do anything for you? Just trying to understand this. I will admit I paid a few SBD to Smartsteem on my latest post to see how it works. It's all an education at this point! :)