We went to catch up with some friends briefly for a coffee. They have just moved back to Finland after 10 or so years away for his work. Before he left he had a strategy that allowed him to progress very fast through the ranks of his company and open up opportunities that others had been waiting for. What he did was, work very hard.
When others were keeping office hours, he was staying back late. When others would turn down work that clashed with their private lives, he worked weekends. When others were complaining to their superiors about him getting promoted even though they had been their longer, he did more than what was expected.
Now he is back in Finland, he is currently working out what he is going to do with his life. His wife who has not worked while being abroad will return to her career and he is considering, staying at home and day trading in a semi-retired life. He is my age. I am happy for him.
What I find interesting (and he and I have discussed a few times over the years we have been good friends) is, the people who felt entitled to promotions because they had been at the company longer. This is not uncommon as many people feel that age equates to skill but in actual fact, experience is the real teacher.
Also, many of the people who have a lot of time in aren't necessarily the most motivated to keep pushing or, the most willing to accept or adapt to changes. Often, they are also not full of bright ideas as they have become accustomed to the way things are, which makes it difficult to promote them.
In my own work I have dealt quite extensively with these types of people and, industries that breed these types of people but pretty much, everywhere can suffer from people with entitlement issues. Steem is no exception.
There are quite a number of people who were early adopters of Steem and were doing very well but got too comfortable or, too complacent in their position doing what they did. Many seem to forget that this place is in Beta and has been since they started so relying on it tom remain unchanging and in the form one wants is not a great strategy. Some people who were very highly rewarded early on are struggling now and, this can happen to anyone here.
Essentially, a change or series of changes could make either ones content irrelevant or, support disappear. The large amounts of stake going into bidbots is the most obvious here where people who used to vote manually now sit back and earn passively. There are apps that come and go and of course, content niches that rise and fall in popularity also.
Steem is much like the real world and the only real protection against irrelevance is adaption. This can be done in many ways but a lot of people struggle to let go of what they have always done and learn or adjust for a new environment. Often, they then look at the new people who come in and feel that their position and status has been taken away.
What many don't realise is that the system that they so happily enjoyed and benefited heavily from was not suitable for other people's approaches. They didn't recognise that they were privileged. A change however may empower the previously disadvantaged into having a competitive advantage. For example, being comfortable in front of a camera as it is hard to be anonymous and benefit from making personal videos on @dlive or commentary on @dtube.
When it comes down to it though, all of our time is limited here as no matter how talented, very few people are able to consistently change with the trends and where support is going to land. For Steem, this means that future earning on Steem is going to come down to having Steem power to curate, sell, take airdrops or whatever else is possible. And, this is where many of the early adopters fell perhaps.
Many who came in early found that earning here was easy for them, they got to the right people at the right time when competition wasn't very high and, there was a lot of Steem Power floating around. This charged their entitlement batteries and made them feel confident that powering everything down wouldn't affect their lifestyle.
Bad call in my opinion because, the platform isn't and is still far from being stable. It is going to keep changing and at times drastically, for potentially years to come.
One thing that the bidbots can be thanked for in some way is that people have recently started to really consider distribution and have realised that there needs to be a larger group of SP holders who are willing to build the community. This means that more people are looking at track record of users they vote on and some of the larger voters are not voting on people who have powered down everything. This has shifted some of the available SP to users with track records or potential to be here in the future. At least for now.
Things can change very fast though and while people are complaining about how things were they, are missing the potential to reinvent themselves and even potentially, do better and have more fun doing it.
It could be that next week, next month or next year, an app, interface or hardfork empowers those who now feel 'disenfranchised' again or, create a space where many more people can be empowered more evenly.
Still though, the fact is likely to always remain that those with significant Steem Power will be those who benefit the most and those who choose not to invest into the platform will always struggle. Those who had the opportunity to earn well here and still didn't invest anything are likely going to struggle the most. Not only with getting future support but, with having past regrets.
There is a high risk that this place will not turn out successfully and those who powered out will likely be glad they did but, this is the thing with investment. In general, the higher the uncertainty, the higher the reward if it works out well. Powering up is investing into that uncertainty and powering down (from an investment perspective) is saying, I am not willing to take that risk.
However, this can go well beyond an act of faith as those who are investing in are much more likely to care how the system performs in the long term and on Steem, that means not just for personal earnings but, distribution and stability as a whole. Those who power out can do essentially nothing for distribution as they have nothing to distribute anymore.
I was talking to @fredrikaa yesterday who is co-founder of Steempress (I am posting on now) and how he is taking some risks in his career to put more time into Steem. He and @howo have already put a lot into Steem. Yes, some people might think this is crazy and it is definitely NOT possible for everyone but, they are investing into the uncertainty. They work very hard at this, have had good success with their projects and - they have both been here just over a year. What about all of those high-earning early adopters, where are their projects on Steem?
It would be fantastic for me if this was a content rewarding site only because, that is where I am comfortable (regardless of whether you like my particular content or not) but, it isn't. It is a platform that is continually growing and expanding into areas where 1700 word articles aren't the norm. What happens to me? I can't only rely on my content.
Well, I don't have a place forever but, I can continue doing what I enjoy unrewarded if, I can still earn with the Steem Power I have collected. I have 1900 articles under my belt, 10,000+ comments and I have distributed a fair amount of my stake over the last year. I have also been part of many various interactions on Steem and a lot of conversations that didn't win me a lot of friends. I see this as my track record, someone who invests-in and works to improve the system in his own way.
My Steem Power is hopefully not going to be part of a sinking ship, it is going to be a ticket to access all of the doors Steem may open in the future through apps, SMTs and various revenue streams. I might not earn on posts but, I can still be a significant earner and part of the system while helping others earn also.
For me on Steem, there is a larger meaning to the platform and its potentials than a place to earn a little by writing about what I like to write about. True or not, it makes me feel part of doing something that has the chance to influence and change some of the current systems in the world and improve many people's lives.
I am sure that I am not the only one who feels that the world could do with a shift in the way it operates. But, do the people think that the change that is good for them isn't going to impact on others? There are a whole range of people in this world who are currently living in unknown privilege and positions they feel entitled to. They have likely also been there a long, long time.
Are you going to feel sorry for the bankers and crony politicians when they whinge that they are no longer getting supported? Will you hold back change to maintain the status quo to protect them? Will you continue to suffer so they don't?
Change is coming. Always.
Don't get too comfortable.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Posted with Steempress
"Change is coming. Always. Don't get too comfortable."
I think this article is spot on. It's not just the Steem eco-system that is changing, but everything.
Increased automation is wiping out some jobs, and creating other jobs, particularly for techies with programming skills. Amazon and online are ravaging the high street, with most businesses feeling the pinch.
Under threat are all jobs that can be automated, and now, as a consequence of Blockchain, all jobs that are the essence of centralized control.
Growth areas are software designers, techies, and more than ever, the jobs that require human connection, like care workers to interact with an aging population, doctors and nurses, and all things that come with a real smile, which machines still can't quite fake.
Notably, Steem is a leader in both growth areas, in that:
(1) Being a decentralized Blockchain, it is the essence of a decentralized tokenized future, that cuts out manipulative middlemen; and
(2) Being a place where human beings create connections, it is necessary in a way that must survive automation. Humans will always need to connect.
The problems for Steem are twofold:
(1) It's so early to the game that mass adoption is still in the future; and
(2) It is still in beta, whereby the incentives that could make it dominant, in a field that inevitably will be world-crushingly massive, have not yet been refined enough to ensure that it won't be overtaken by rivals.
However, the fact that mass adoption is still in the future gives Steem time. It's difficult here, but when the future does arrive, the folks here will spot it far quicker than the general population, who are in slumber.
Whether or not Steem ends up the market dominator, Steemians know where they need to be, even if it is in two places at once. Relationships here can translate to multiple platforms if necessary, as long as we are ready for change.
Keep your eyes open, adapt, figure out what behaviors trigger platform growth, and the people who survive this tough early pre-adoption phase will be oh so ready when the time comes. :)
Rodney man... you are a comment ninja. Put everyone to shame here... myself included.
Lol Thanks, meno. That's the closest I'll get to fulfilling my ambition of being Splinter from the Ninja Turtles.
Seriously though, it's bloggers, who come up with such great topics for their blogs, who I'm grateful for. :)
I will push this comment to the top because it is a good read :)
Steempress has much less risk thanks to a 1,000,000 delegation. Without that, then there would be definite risk, as a 15% cut of 0 SP is 0, and curation is 0 as well. But they get a nice chunk of 15% and curation with 1,000,000 SP delegated to the project.
The real risk begins now as we are both leaving comfortable jobs this summer (Orange in the case of Howo, and the European Space Agency in my case) to pursue SteemPress and developing Steem projects full-time.
It is true that delegations help a lot here. However, on the flip side, they come with the added risk that if your business model relies purely on it as a source of income then you will go to zero if for any reason you should lose the delegation.
But it is a great asset of the Steem blockchain that any large stakeholder (or community of stakeholders) can help StartUps get going.
Risk depends on other opportunities. I have a friend who was a pro hockey player. When he was young he chose to stay playing in his home town for a couple more years because it was easy. The decision likely cost him an NHL career. He still retired a pro hockey player in his native Sweden and will never go hungry but, he also never played NHL or for the Swedish national team.
If Steem fails, steem is worth zero and those who risk alternative careers may not have opportunities to get back on that path.
The delegation makes things much easier for sure and as said, the decision isn't available to everyone. The risk is relative to the individual's prospects though.
Its still nice considering the creators of steempress have invested into Steem themselves before receiving a delegation. There's even lower risk for those who just come up with an idea and get a delegation.
Yep, I didn't mention this part either. They were invested here well before Steempress and have worked on a range of other projects also.
Whew, after reading all that the only thing I can contribute is he sure has a gift for gab. Man, it's a rough decision when you get half way through a article and still haven't hit upon something in it you'd have a comment on, it's like do I bail now or finish in hopes something will fire up a comment....if I left a comment it would be a one liner spammer comment like I totally agree sir....so you get stuck with the gift of gab instead.
Lol. I ramble.
That's okay, it's fine. Sometimes it just me trying to figure out where I belonged in a conversation or the conversation pretty much covered all the bases.
What percentage of SP do you think is controlled by bid bots?
If I were to guess, 50-60%
According to @markymark, about 11%.
Source: https://steemit.com/steemit/@themarkymark/how-much-sp-in-tied-up-in-bid-bots
Running through that number, I don't the Steemit account with 44 million SP removed? I may have missed it. Gotta look at potential active SP which is notoriously hard to compute plus, not all bots are listed on that site afaik. @paulag might have an idea on this too.
The biggest ones are. I think we should really know the actual score before jumping into conclusions and campaigning against bidbots. If those conclusions are off-base, they may have adverse consequences.
I agree. From what I have seen, ~40% was the lowest calculated estimate.
Do you remember where you saw this figure?
Hi Taraz. This platform hasn't cost me anything but time. I am not a gambler and believe in this place. To be successful you have yo adapt and move with the times. I don't think I will do a dlive or dtube video but one never knows. I will carry on putting my heart and soul in here and see where it leads.
There are so many different options and they seem to be growing every day. Some people put a massive amount of work in for very little reward but, they think that one day there is the possibility of return.
I am with them all the way. It won't happen overnight but it will come.
Mmh, my mind was going into all kind of directions when reading this post!
So, let's see if I can bring some order in my mental chaos!
Cheers,
Peter
No one can really say how it is all going to turn out but hopefully, it will be a decent result for many.
Long term staff expecting automatic promotion is like long term customers expecting a cheaper deal.
Why should one party benefit less from a relationship over time?
Complacency is not the way ahead for anything. You have to always keep working hard in the right direction otherwise someone else will come and take your place. That is just rule of life. You try to sit back and take things for granted means you have brought your own downfall.
Every thing ends, individual or empire.
I started using steempress a few weeks ago and I'm still learning the ins and outs of it. I love that it gives me the potential to earn after the seven day cutoff by utilizing a traditional blog, but I still get the steemit exposure.
I went with a Steemit based hosting service, but I will eventually need to change because the page name doesn't allow me to utilize adsense the way it is.
I find it hard to keep up with the various changes and apps available.
Mine is on my business one (unfortunately) and I upgraded from premium for it. It was expensive through Wordpress (200€) but I decided I wanted to try.
Me too and it is only going to keep expanding.
Wow, I paid 3sbd to the Steemit group that was working in conjunction with Steempress. It included setup, name, and hosting for the foreseeable future. One heck of a deal I think.
I am actually a DLive streaming superstar on my super secret alt.
Some really good stuff here Taraz, really glad to see another stakeholder employing the "blockchain background check." Some would call it stalking, I call it a service to our community. I don't upvote consistent bot users or those who power down without good explanation. Code is law; they're free to do whatever they do... and so am I. That's what makes this place so great.
I don't browse NSFW so I wouldn't pick you.
I apply this to the "Hi, I'm back, been real busy" people who arrive when prices are up too.
Very well said. I hope to be able to put some money into SP in the near future. Times are tough right now for a few more months, but soon. Once I put it in, I have no intention of taking it out.
Yes steemit is a community very much under development. Their are a lot of new possibiities for people to explore. For me steemit is platform where can shre and learn about the views and ideas from a very global community.
If the early adopters of steemit feels like they conquered it all and done it then they are for a big shocker. Because the new batch is joining in and they very much dedicated and focused.
The problem with people getting ultra comfortable its when they have already did some money and their only interests here its to earn more and more from unethical methods.
This is good for them, but this doesnt grow organic this community, people put their minds, their time, their skills and soul to create great content here but are not rewarded at all by their merits and steemit was created for people to fight and compete with big players from online world.
The way the things goes now, old users will never be changed by new ones and should have no stress about it because as a real content creator when you have no money to invest to compete with dolphins/wales and you see huge difference in payments between good and shit posts you decide to step back and do your own blog where you can earn more than 40 cents per week.
When you are good content creator, you cant simple stay here and spend your half day time or night writing from passion because sometimes you need to eat and its much better if you find jobs on infinite websites where you create content for money on specific themes and you need to use 200-500 words and the money comes after job done, not in 7 days.
The whales who can curate hundreds of great posts and ecourage people to join this platform based on their earnings and quality of time spend here, they decide to do more money with bots, chase high payed posts, chase big curation rewards and dont give a shit about good content.
This way of developing your business doesnt help you at all on long term, you will not be replaced as whale, but soon you will have less and less people who create content just because doesnt afford to buy upvotes or promote themselves and in the end your steem power will worth less and less, for example bitcoin went back to 7.5k usd but STEEM going down from 2.4usd to 1.35usd and people keep selling.
If whales makes a plan to revigorate this scene, in next year steem can stay easy at 3usd-4usd and they will earn way more than now, but they focus on short term winning.
If you want to have people to invest in steem, first you need people who join steemit and from thousands, some on them will start buying steem and power up, but when community is unhappy 100% they will not recommend to friends.
You are a passionate writer, great one, but you have 1.5 years and i believe you invested in sp here, you are privileged as well, but starting from scratch with empty belly will be harsh mood/time for new comers to keep their enthusiasm and remain after a while.
Passion its something unique for everybody, but keeping that passion alive you need to have something from Maslow Pyramid.
Its way too much to talk about the path and goals of steemit, believe it or not, all depend by the whales and dolphins because here nobody can take your place, the problem is when not many what to be part of this blockchain(steemit) and have his place because of some.
I have posting something close to your ideas if you want to take a look on my last post https://steemit.com/steemit/@dombusiness/looks-like-it-doesn-t-matter-if-its-a-shit-post-when-you-chase-curation-rewards
I just got a shocker....!
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/if-you-think-we-don-t-have-a-problem
I started here back in December of 2017. I don’t know what it was like back in 2016, but I am loving the platform as it stands right now! I, like yourself, enjoy writing blogs. But I also enjoy shooting video. I do my best to incorporate both forms of content to reach both readers and viewers at the same time.
I got involved with a super awesome group called the Steem Creators with @steemcafe, @larrymorrison, and @ogc. We are holding a conference in September in Toronto and I am one of the speakers. Couldn’t be more exited about where Steem is now and where it is headed in the future. I enjoyed reading your article @tarazkp. Keep it real 👊🏻
-Ken
Posted using Partiko iOS
I found that really interesting. Some ideas in common with a short opinion piece I wrote about block chain economics in general. I'm new here and I'm sure will get to see this paradigm as it relates to Steemit. Change is good. On the other hand it's neither good nor bad, but inevitable. Growth is good. Evolution is ideal.
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Great post! I just followed you and upvoted you! Follow me back @relsserd.
Terrible comment! I just muted you and flagged it.
Lol😂 !!! This was just too straight up 🙌
The savagery is for real
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