I fully expect (yet another) argument on the merits of steemit as a truly decentralized and democratic platform that rewards authors instead of selling its users to advertisers. There's no doubt steemit has the advantage over Facebook in that field.
Currently, Steemit's members are being duped into paying to have a say. The members are forking over large sums of money because they think that's the only way to get exposure here. They pay these so-called promotion bots because they were told that will give their post a boost... but it doesn't give them a boost. If everyone bought $10 to put beside their post, that just makes $10 the new $0 and they remain unseen.
The money goes straight to the middleman instead of remaining locked in as Steempower. The members are not being rewarded nearly as much as we used to be because they think taking a shortcut is the fastest way to success. They didn't read the fine print because the fine print wasn't offered.
That behavior gives Facebook a clear advantage. Nobody needs to pay to have a say there. It's not pay to play or pay to win.
Those middlemen are making thousands of dollars per day, and these new members are getting nowhere.
I don't even think Ned realizes the full potential of this platform yet. He seems to be too distracted with snake oil salesmen knocking on his door and offering new "ideas" for them to make money while thousands upon thousands of other members can't gain traction and end up quitting because of what these snake oil salesmen did.
People are being lead... astray.
You obviously don't manage pages on Facebook. I do. It's pay to play. You get literally no exposure without paying Facebook for it.
Are people paying Facebook $1200 for two days of exposure?
And more. A LOT more. Ask any Facebook page manager how much Facebook charges for the attention of people who already liked you page.
I just asked someone who manages Facebook pages, and she didn't give me an answer.
On the trending page of Steemit we currently have people who spent $1200 to be there for two days.
You said:
Steemit isn't selling it's users to advertisers. The users are selling themselves to advertisers and for far less exposure than Facebook can offer. Every few days, these Steemit members spend another $1200 or so(at today's token rates) to purchase that slot high up on the trending page.
Not until people wise up.
The advantage comes when real advertisers arrive, buy STEEM, and place ads on popular blogs that generate ad revenue for the blogger. Then, everyone from the top all the way down to the bottom(even if they don't have a popular blog that generates ad revenue) benefits from the ads instead of being sold to the advertiser(or, in our case here, selling themselves).
This is a blogging platform, with elements of a social network. In my opinion, it's best to leave what Facebook does out of the picture and focus more on how something like Youtube operates.
YouTube (Google) has been empowering creators on the platform through monetary incentives, production guidance and even a bloody studio. But YouTube doesn't have a problem with user acquisition or retention. Facebook is discovering it has a retention problem. Not as major as steemit, but at least they're DOING something about it.
Paying managers doesn't solve problems. Good managers solve problems. Paid managers can cause more problems. Paid managers can still get fired. Just compare it to any real world example that has paid management. If Walmart screws up, the managers get fired, Walmart keeps going because they hire people to take the fall.
Anyway, I'm not trying to be a jackass here.
Paying good managers solves problems much faster than hoping they'll do it for free. :)
And I know you're not trying to be a jackass. If I thought you were, we would not be having a dialog that's about to vanish into the unreadable thread zone. :)
It's also important to note that buying upvotes usually pays back. As in, you get what you paid in SBD and SP and don't lose anything by "recycling" your SBD to give your posts more exposure.
For selfish reasons, it pays off.
If I decide my artwork is the best, on my own, and pay for votes to place my work at the top every day... what will the other artists think of me? It's not them who will be eager to support my work. Over time I'd just end up being an informercial for art instead of an artist.
On Youtube, we skip the ad so we can view the content. I don't want to turn my blog into an ad that gets skipped.
If other artists were to attempt to compete, they'd have to purchase votes as well. If $1200 becomes the new $0, $1200 worth of our tokens becomes worthless to all except those who sell the votes. In this case, those are advertisers who win. Everyone else loses.
That's a huge sacrifice to make just for a bit of exposure.
She is right. As someone who manages Facebook Pages for years, I can tell you that you need way but way more than 1200$ to reach the people who liked your page and new audience.
And, because of the new changes to the reach of pages ( that just started. Its going to be sooo bad soon. ) you need to spend a lot.
Nope. You're not paying facebook $1200 for two days of exposure, for one post.
It can be even more. or less, it depends how many people you want to reach, what people did you target and how well did you optimize the campaign.
The whales are running their dupes on a treadmill.
Just because someone is offering people crack, that doesn't mean they need to buy it and smoke it.
Yep, but in this context the whales are supposed to care about the platform, and clearly they care more about profits than creating a welcoming, rewarding platform for small investors.
I don't, and haven't, used the bid bots.
In fact, I spend way tooooo much time going on about how they rape the reward pool.
When the community is ready, they will step up and stop this crap, until then it is open season on the dupes.