How long can this go on?
Content producers playing the role of consumer as well
Is something I ask myself all the time about steem. I put as much time in as I can commenting on others posts, but that's not what I'm here for, I'm here to write! Which I've been doing now on steem for 26 months. It seems the only way to become successful on here unless you're one of the 'chosen ones', is to read and commenting on tones of posts/day.
I haven't got the time or energy for the levels of engagement I used to keep up anymore. I recently wrote a post called 'Crypto, the Big C and the Dark Night of the Soul'... one comment that wasn't a bot. Which I can only assume means one person read that post. It's shit like that which makes me consider powering down and leaving every single day.
Let's throw the question of rewards out of the window for a second.
If you write good content on steem at the moment, but don't have the time to engage (massively) with others then you can forget about anyone coming to read your posts, unless as I said you're one of the 'chosen ones'. People naturally flood to people who are being boosted up consistently thinking they have the secret sauce. This is the biggest reason people leave! This is the biggest reason people think things are fixed on steem.
P.s. just in case you get offended by what I'm saying here in gonna qualify it; I'm not speaking about you per say, your writing is very good... but so is the writing of many many other steemians, half of whom have left. Most didn't leave as much because of lack of rewards than the fact that their readership dwindled to nothing. This is the number one reason I see in people's comments who have left in the first weeks of joining steem. They don't know about discord, they don't understand networking properly and then they spend time making something good and receive zero feedback. Similarly, I could easily list ten very good creative writers who left because they were intelligent enough to recognise that the quality of their work didn't mean shit because they hadn't powered up more than 10% of what they'd earned. It's the lack of engagement that will drive good content creators away from steem much faster than low rewards.
These issues need to be addressed, and as you rightly point out it's because we are dangerously short of consumers. Steem is a place where consumers can literally be rewarded for consuming their favourite style of content, so I don't get why concerted efforts haven't been made to pursue this from a marketing perspective.
It's all very well people saying 'we've got to sort out the system first so that the shit posts are no longer on trending', that is underway, and it's a good thing. But steem is becoming a smaller and smaller community, and the overall quality of content creators coming in isn't getting any better. It's not being marketed effectively to highlight the potential for consumers with the EIP 50/50 changes.
It's like we as a community have crashed the plane in the arctic, panicked and eaten both our legs for fear of starving and now we can't walk out of the frozen fucking arctic where we crashed.
This platform has always had a severe shortage of dedicated consumers. Spending two years pushing actual talent away so garbage could rise to the top, annoying the potential consumers, didn't help.
Tbh, I know you see some of the problems very clearly so forgive me if this comment sounded preachy. It wasn't meant to be. I'm just venting about things that have pissed me off for a long time, and I have little idea how to address. I guess debate around these subjects helps, but without action soon all this talk will be useless.
P.s. nothing wrong with a bit of a break from steem. That's the only way to avoid the dreaded burn out. Nice to see you back and writing 🙂
Early on, if I was grouchy about something here, it was usually a low view count. Now we don't even have a view counter. I can't be here when it gets quiet. I internalize that stuff, drives me nuts, makes me think I did something wrong. It's also incredibly hard for me to get around to everyone and comment. All these years and I haven't been on Discord. Rarely use steem chat. Too busy trying to write and produce art, daily. Damn right it causes burn out. And nothing I do means anything, especially the art, if people don't look. I grateful though for all the good that has come my way. I don't take it for granted. I want to work and at least feel like I'm earning all this, and I do.
Yup, I feel the same way. This is why I end up considering leaving pretty much every week. It's also why 0% of my fiction or poetry gets posted to steem anymore. I'm not going to devalue the time I spend crafting it by putting it out here and giving up first publishing rights.
I also wish there was a view counter on steem still, it would make it a hell of a lot easier to judge how much impact you're making as a writer. I arrived just after they scrapped it.
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