Back in 2017 when I joined the platform, right after steem recovered from being worth 7 cents and its price was around $1 and we still had a very low userbase thus the reward pool was shared among fewer high quality posts, it was very common to see Full time Steemians. What I mean by Full time Steemian is somebody whose only income comes from Steem, specifically from blog post rewards.
Around June 2016 I was traveling around Central America, using my post rewards to pay for everything, cashing out all my Steem Backed Dollars to pay for food, transportation and accommodation. I used to hitchhike a lot and volunteer in exchange for housing but still, I was cashing out around $10-$15 every day. Not much if we are honest.
But I was not the only one. There were a lot of Steemians doing the same, perhaps not by traveling, but using Steem as a first - or only - source of income.
Back then it was considered a sort of success story to be able to live off steem. It meant that your blog posts were cool as hell, your follower base loved you, you had some whales behind you supporting your posts and ultimately, it meant financial freedom for the author and a proof of success to the outside potential userbase, it became a selling point.
Having full time steemians was the perfect - though it would prove to be wrong - example of why people should come and join Steem. It became a sales pitch and one of the strongest arguments when inviting people to join Steem.
Hey you, second cousing from my mom's side: Come and join the Steem Blockchain! Look at Anomadsoul, Gringalicious, Allasyummyfood or Luzcypher! They, among tens of others, are living the dream living off Steem rewards, not needing to have a job and they do what they love... and you know what?
YOU COULD DO THE SAME! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS JOIN STEEM
Whoever's been here for more than 2 years will agree with me. It became a sales pitch so engraved on our minds, that profiting from the reward pool and the potential of living off steem was a hell of an argument, especially after the ATH fever and people saw how much money a simple blogger could make with a couple thousands followers and a whale behind them.
I used to have that mindset. I bet if you've been here since early 2017 or before, you might have or had that mindset. If you joined Steem in 2018 then you might not have lived it, but you heard of these Full Time Steemians and their success stories, and how if you create amazing quality content and interact every day with your follower base as well as spend hours daily engaging on discord, you might be able to achieve it too.
Well, I hate to break it to you: We don't need more Full Time Steemians. So please, don't strive to be one. We need part time Steemians with a Fiat job, not depending on Steem rewards to survive. We need people with an income who will BUY steem, not SELL on a daily basis.
In fact, I'm already searching for a Fiat job and looking to not sell a single Steem if I can, and you should be too.
The reward pool is limited.
Being a Full Time Steemians means that eventually we will sell Steem, no matter the price, because there are bills, food and beer to pay. It doesn't matter what we use the money we get from selling Steem for, the thing is we are selling Steem on a regular basis, devaluing its price at the expense of other people who are buying. Being a Full Time Steemian with these crypto prices and this shrinking Steem community is a detractor for the price and we should be aware of it.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with selling Steem whenever you feel like and for whatever reasons you want to.
I have no reason or right to have an opinion on what you do. If you decide to sell your Steem to open a titty bar in a highway in Colombia, that's your prerrogative. All I can do is try to share my opinion on why the FTS (full time steemian) mindset is not the best to have at the moment.
Perhaps when we reach a status with greener fields and bluer skies, Steem will be able to let Steemians live completely off their post rewards, just because our market cap, our price and our reward pool allows us to. Right now, it doesn't matter if you are from Mexico, Norway, Venezuela, Nigeria or Japan, if you depend on your posts rewards to substain yourself, if you are a full time blogger on Steem, you are a price liability for Steem and other Steemians.
There is nothing wrong with being a Full time steemian, just not at these prices nor markets. We can't keep having this mentality that Steem will provide an alternative of self-sustainability and financial independence if first we don't focus in giving steem the market value it deserves and it could potentially have.
I can't be a Full time Steemian anymore and you should consider that too. The reward pool shouldn't be used for this - at least at the moment - and the amount of steem being sold in the external markets is too damn much. Every time we sell steem we are depreciating it, making its value lower and actually we are making investors lose money - oh yes, every cent you sell, it's coming out of the pocket of an investor via inflation, it's not just magic free money that comes from the cloud - so, if we want to attract more investors, we shouldn't as a community be selling so much steem every single day. Which is why I, as an individual, am getting a fiat job, to be able to not devalue the Steem price as much as I've been doing it over my Full Time Steemian stage.
In the end, who cares. If you are making enough post rewards to live off Steem, congratulations. I would advice to get a Fiat job and stop selling Steem, but who am I to judge, after all, I sold over 20k Steem since I joined the platform - all from post rewards - so this post might be taken as virtue signaling and you don't need to listen to me.
I also bought 50k Steem over the past year, so maybe I'm not just talking bananas here, but still take this with a grain of salt.
All I'm saying is, we don't need more Full Time Steemians.
I have a different opinion. I think Steem will become the sole source of income for many people.
A year ago, in Krakow, I presented the idea of growing the Steem ecosystem by exporting the Steem service through Attention Trading and how this will stimulate external demand for STEEM.
This year in Bangkok, I showcased the operational Waivio platform and presented Steem as a platform for business with a specific example and numbers on how you can build an independent and profitable business on Steem.
Initially, Waivio is focused on managing restaurant rebate programs because this business does not require mass adoption, but there are many other solid business models that can be built on the Waivio platform.
Steem social blockchain has an almost perfect architecture and can be a very efficient platform for multiple business scenarios.
And the important "by-product" of business applications - a strong and continuous cash demand for STEEM. So, even Full-Time Steemians once again will be able to thrive on Steem.
Just #keepsteeming!
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If Steem pans out, some people will be able to live on it. But they will all be professional level authors. They could also be curators with a lot of Steem Power or they could be living on passive income from renting out Steem Power or just Resource Credits. But one thing is certain, if Steem is one day adopted by large enough a number of people, you will have to be a minor celebrity to be able to earn anything meaningful on sharing your travel photos with the world.
I agree 100%, once the price goes up, the bloggers who will be able to make bank will be the professional level content creators. If you ask me, that's how it should be, only a few content creators and a hell of a lot more content consumers.
I’ve been here since mid 2017, and I was always amazed by the idea that people could live on Steem, or would want to try. But yes, I knew quite a few in those days. I’ve always been a part time Steemians and A long-term HODLer. I do invest when I can because I think the long term potential is so promising. I’ve never been disenchanted with what goes on here because I’m not looking at the short term value. In short, I agree with everything you just said. We need people to come on board, invest their time as they are able and invest in Steem cryptocurrency. I’m fact just the other day I wrote out all the instruction for how to buy it in a blog post because they are surprisingly hard to find and hard to follow when you do. So I tried to make it as simple as possible!
It was indeed amazing, in fact it was revolutionary but in the end it proved to e unsustainable. If I had a Fiat job, I could invest a lot more than what I have and damn, I guess I would be an orca by now :P
I agree 100%, short term value means nothing compared to what long term value has in store for us :)
Nice to hear from you, I hope you're doing great!
Thanks, @anomadsoul. Yes I’m doing great. Just uh... my fiat job keeps me so busy that I can’t invest as much time as I would like to in blogging and curating. 😆
Good luck with your job hunt!
That was a very informative and interesting read. If I may add a point, I don't believe Steem was ever developed to substitute a full-time job, so thinking it as such will probably be a grave mistake. I think the earning part of Steem is more of an incentive and not the prime focus of using the site. There are many other methods (like affiliate marketing) where one can have much higher $/hr compared to the top writers of Steem. So, it is better to take the platform as what it is, a social media that incentivizes quality discussions.
You're right, it was never meant to substitute a full time income - at least not for everyone, maybe for just the amazing, super high quality content creators (which I think we don't have a lot of those, if any, here yet). Exactly, this is a discussion and content forum that allows you to earn crypto while engaging, not a free for all crypto blogging website.
I agree, even though (as you may know) I've been also one of those people with the only income stream coming from Steem for a few years. But I've found a few other ways to keep some money coming in on a regular basis (although I don't enjoy it as much as with writing!) and this has resulted in the fact that I have not cashed out since 1,5 month I think.
I plan on keeping it this way, and try to let the Steem either in the platform (staked or liquid).. or use it to buy Splinterlands packs/cards instead. The pressure of having an x amount worth of earnings to cash out monthly is not a great feeling, and in my case it was not even that big amount (only 50 euro for a debt payment) but I prefer on doing it with Euro not cashing out my hard earned Steem :)
But on the other hand, I also don't regret that I've sold my earnings before, as I'm super happy that so many things have been made possible by writing on this platform. At least I had the option to solve things with my earnings here, where others may have a huge problem in my situation.
I have to admit that I never use it as a sales pitch to onboard people anymore though, I love the platform, and I believe in the platform, but I also don't want to attract people that may be here only for a quick buck. We need people with a bigger vision than that..
Hope all is well btw! :)
Well said!
I always new it was doomed to failure - the blogging and living off Steem strategy - the way the rest of the internet works is that you post content for free and that's yer SEO for links the products you sell. Business as usual pretty much.
Most 'daily posts' in their own right have very little value. The value of Steem is really in its broader utility.
I actually just bought another 500 today. So I'm buying at least!
I didn't see it like that at the beginning, but boy was I in for a ride to discover it. It's definitely not a viable long term strategy, I agree.
Nice! i wish I had some Fiat here, I would be buying as well :P
I've technically been "retired" for the past 5 years, but started a new job a couple months ago so that I could help fund my traveling and crypto investments. I am looking towards the future when it comes to all of my post rewards here with Steem and have been powering it all up and buying more Steem as I can. To me, this is the best time to buy and the worst to sell, as those that are selling will most likely regret their decisions later.
I wanted to be a Full time Steemian.. I still do.. but market prices don't dictate that.. so instead I have 3 part jobs and keep investing as the current prices go lower.. but when they go back up I'll be going full time. !tip
That's my point man, exactly. The market and the steem price is far from ideal to try and live out of post rewards... perhaps when Steem is worth $2-3 it will be enough to sustain this kind of living, but not now!
But if people who wish to be full time bloggers cannot make a living here they will go elsewhere. Using your example as the Steemian that was @allasyummyfood .
This is akin to closing the stable door after the horse as bolted except it isn't because there is nothing wrong with selling and using Steem, in fact my personal thoughts are that showing the world that Steem is an earnable and usable form of exchange for goods and services and is unlike any other crypto is the best way forward to encourage others to join the platform. Once they are here, hopefully they will understand that you need to invest to earn more and thus the ball starts rolling .
Hodling is great advice when you've thousands of Steem being used for curation and compounding but to many others not so fortunate, it's doing what it was designed to do and creating a small income in return for their content.
It's also odd how those who have had their pie are now telling everybody else not to sell and to buy more!
Spend a little , save a little is still the best advice and what Steem helps you do by default with the 50-50 split.
All that buying more and hodling advice simply means people don't need to post anything much to see great returns. Autovote curation takes care of that.
We need people posting because the content is our shop window . Hodling and buying more Steem alone and just hoping the price will rise is a terrible fallacy and will not lead to new members joining and an improvement in prices .
This has to be a token of utility .
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Everything you mention is a great argument for being a part time steemian. I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not, as all these points apply both to part time and full time steemians. The only difference is, full time steemians are sure to cash out for fiat, whereas the part time ones might find several other use cases other than the one.
Also, I had my share of the pie and after that I invested almost double of what I sold :)
This is my whole point, so I'm still not sure if you agree or not with the post. Exactly what you mention here is what a part time steemian would think whereas a full time steemian is most likely powering down regularly.
Content creation is just a tiny drop of water on the whole ocean that can be steem, the problem is, most people see it as a blogging platform where you earn crypto. It's not. Steem is so much more than that, the blogging part is just as you say, the first point of contact, but it's far from being the only one
I'm kind of 50/50 with you!! 2 years ago, you were a shining example. You were people the rest of us wanted to be.
All I'm saying in a roundabout way is that we are tied to a certain extent by the stupid Crypto markets and Steem is so so much more. It can be earned, it can be used and it's also really social.
You're right, its so much more than just blogging. We have so many Dapps, and its an investment game and tool, but we have to get the balance!
With FIAT, if you save everything, you'll be a rich miserable bugger. If you spend everything, you'll be poor and miserable and your flashy new phone will be a relic in 2 years.
We need moderation and sensible use to get people into the community. There is something here for everyone but just hodling for ever isn't the way.
Let's stick at I half agree with you. Common ground. We need people buying but we need people using too!
I can't write for shit! Sorry, hence me being reactive rather than proactive and certainly NOT being a content creator lol I post pics I take of dogs on motorcycles FFS!
We just need a cohesive marketing strategy off-chain and a great mobile experience, that's why we are not getting people here in numbers.. That's what we have always been lacking.
How about full-time Steemian, part-time income :-)
I get it. I don't see the point in defining whether or not two parties in a discussion are in agreement lol. I think the only agreement anyone should have here in regards to steem is that this place might be a diamond in the rough..
It's difficult to tell from up here in the peanut gallery. This raw form of incentivized whatever might just be a geode. An echo chamber full of agreeing voices, whilst warm and fuzzy, won't be polishing any hidden gems before the mines shut down.
20k steem sold from blogging is honestly incomprehensible for someone like me and I can't form an opinion on such a fantastical career.. All I can say for certain is I have never bought steem and I've yet to hear a sales pitch that would convince me to do such a thing with fiat money..
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Think back to the make-up tutorial lol.....ok..a little later in Dec2017 the price was rising daily and imagine 1 SBD worth $13 USD lol.......100 Steem you had 1300USD in hard cash....of course, people were making a living here...except for the greedy ones who were holding on and holding on until it all fell apart.
I gave you a full vote so no selling!!!
I was thinking of opening a vagina bar.., want to help me run it?
Oh man, I can't promise anything, I would probably get distracted every two seconds :P
Me too, bad idea in retrospect. :)
I see Steem as a long-term investment of my online social interaction.
I am totally agree with you dear.If we stop selling steem in a daily basis than STEEM will able to survive and come back in a good position.I am also not a full time steemians and trying to not sell STEEM.I love STEEM and has faith in STEEM.Lets see what is waiting for STEEM in future.
Ahh your new 'secretman' account ! Welcome back .
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Which one is the previous one? Is this person alternating account or what?
My previous account was @secretman
For a fault i were blacklisted on Steemcleaner few days ago and stop using that account.And created this account 3 days ago and started using dear.
He is in a revolving door at Steemcleaners lol....mate you need to hang out in low places like I do!! :-)
😂
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thanks for this post @anomadsoul
well written
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I used to pride myself of never having bought or sold any STEEM. For the first two years all my SP, SBD, and liquid STEEM was earned through blogging, winning the odd competition, and selling Steemmonster cards. ...Up until a few months ago, when the upcoming HF and the 20 cent price made buying STEEM irresistible. I admired people who could live and travel from their STEEM income, but I realized the disadvantageous situation they put themselves in if they rely on selling STEEM to make a living. If the price drops they have no other option but sell more, making their living expenses suddenly so much more expensive, and all that in a time when the market should be urging them to buy.
Certainly at current prices being a FTS isn’t viable.
But if/when Steem passes its ATH and stays there it would start to be at least plausible in some cases. Even then though, probably only a tiny number of accounts managing to live off of author rewards. But those with a reasonably large stake might then be able to earn enough to get by from a combination of curation earnings, delegation earnings, and fees from RC leasing. At least for those living in places with a relatively low cost of living.
But for the foreseeable future, consistently powering up rather than selling is compelling. And buying some Steem here and there for the long haul.
Just my two cents. I'm not a Steem or Steemit expert and do not want to be. But what I can say is after being away from the platform for over a year, and recently returning, I have noticed less of the "Steem Experts" pitching their wares. It is still a large circle jerk, just not as bad as it once was as a year+ ago, with every single post being about Steem or some other crypto.