The economic effect of this is similar to a lottery where people overestimate their probability of getting votes and thus do more work than the expected value of their reward.
It's nearly a year since I started my journey on here. I've tried growing the organic path, with bidbots, even with joining communities and engagement. I invested countless hours trying to make it work. More than 3/4 of my combined SP are from investment.
Looking back, I wish those valuable hours lost were better spent. Your highlight of Steemit's words are so on par with we all strive to achieve on here, realizing too late that perhaps, it is not worth it afterall. Not everyone is a success story!
My investment now will be with Steem Monsters. I have earned more with imaginary cards than I have with the Steem cryptocurrency. In fact, all of my friends are investing and earning more with SM. Individuals that have never invested a penny in the Steem cryptocurrency have spent fiat investing in Steem Monsters.
I see all that Steem Monsters have brought to this platform and may I add that it is without funding/SP delegation from Steemit Inc. SM have yet to mass market and they are a game with imaginary cards yet people are willing to invest fiat. I don't know know of any other dapps out there that can claim their users are investing fiat into this platform. Hmm ok, maybe nathanmars with dtube, but he is definitely a one-of-a kind big investor.
steemmonsters is for sure a success story on steem, but do you know, I have not not got involved with it myself. Games and apps for kids, we need more off. to me STEEM is the start of web3 and if you are here for steemmonsters or if you are here to share your art work, we are all early adopters.
Sometimes I also feel that the hours I have spent here over the last 16 months could have been better spent. My initial goal, of finding a way to monitize my existing online business via crypto has not yet been made possible and still feels rather far away. Not everyone is a success story! and that includes me, and although I dont do the lotto, I still post here on steem. Maybe one day :-)