I just read and commented upon a post by @fknmayhem about Steem being too philanthropic and even though my comment is somewhat disjointed, the post deserves some comments on it. Have a read and show it a little love with your own thoughts.
One thing that it did remind me to write about (remember my post last night about what is valuable content) is the idea that this is a place that you can do what you want and, write about what you want. It absolutely is but, doing what you want doesn't mean you are going to get the results you may be after.
Too many users drop in on the Steem flower expecting to gather pollen and sweet nectar but are unequipped to do so if they stick to the do what I want philosophy that so many adhere to. This doesn't mean that one has to completely change but it does mean that there are going to be parts that need to be done. In general, everyone wants to be able to be rewarded for doing what they love but the world has created an unreal view of this.
If we take a professional athlete as an example, they spend much more time training than performing professionally. Much, much, much more time doing the support work so that the minority of their time can be spent doing what they love, doing what they get paid for. So, are they getting paid for their performance or, the background work to be able to perform highly? Both, since it is unlikely that you can have the performance without the background. But, you can have the background without the performance.
The hard work isn't a guarantee of return, it is the space creator so that there is the potential for return. When applied to Steem, if you are thinking about being a long-term player/earner, it means learning about and probably writing about things that you may not actually love. The reason is that this community is in a development phase which means, development needs to happen and, that is up to the community.
Right now, we are building the stadiums, putting in the seats, the gates, the billboards and all of the other facilities that will allow skilled players to compete for a large audience of spectators. The only reason those players have value is because of the audience they are able to bring in and the merchandise they are able to endorse while doing so. What they offer to that audience are their skills and, a place to put them on show and in so doing, they engage the audience emotionally and, retention is high.
You may be a skilled player but, the large audience is not here to spectate because, the grounds haven't been adequately developed. Yet. It is up to us to develop this place, not Steemit, not whales, not curation projects; us. Us as individual users. People complain about things like retention but that is only a problem because people think about themselves and say, I am only here for the money. Yes, this is a big part of it but it will never keep the spectators in the stadium.
If mainstreaming happens, there is not going to be enough SP to service all people so the idea of earning for everyone is ridiculous. What is going to retain people is the engagement between users and this lays squarely on the users. You may not like it but, engagement is the foundation of building a community here and keeping people coming back, not votes, as votes are going to run dry for most in the future unless, highly skilled players.
To be a significant part of the future and benefit from the mainstreaming, two real things are needed. Steem Power of course (and even small amounts will matter) and the ability to be a part of the community which most likely at this stage of the lifecycle, requires being outside of the comfort zone. It means installing a few seats into the stadium.
If your blog is not putting ass on seats and compelling them want to come back and sit down again and watch another game, you are not engaging them. This takes work, it takes understanding, it takes investment, it even takes early losses to build the infrastructure before the income and, it is up to you to do. Not me or some curation project to find you, at least in the early stages. And, it takes consistency, a level head, willingness to learn, change, grow and, a massive amount of resilience as time and time again you may put your heart and soul into you work and, get nothing in return. Zilch.
But, for those that take the time and invest themselves (and their Steem) into building this place, the potential to be able to take advantage of the future grows exponentially. The more people that see this as a project that they are part of building rather than a place to earn some money, the better as then they will be forced to realise the truth.
The truth is, the responsibility and success or failure of this place is going to be up to the community who builds it or, tears it down. Shoddy craftsmanship is going to encourage, shoddy players and spectators who do not want to stay and watch. As I wrote on @fknmayhem's post:
Right now, new users come in and see the low quality that earns and says, I can produce that, and they all can. It is competition at the bottom of the barrel.
New users shouldn't come in and say 'I can do that' and be able to, they should come in and be inspired by what they see to attempt to do something but know that it is going to stretch them to do so. They have to come in and realise that in order to play on the field, they are going to have to either already be highly skilled or, be willing to train very hard. What this means is that those who recognise they can't do those two things will still find a seat as a spectator who enjoys watching the game being played.
Right now, this is not the case and people come in, realise they can produce the same quality but find that they are unable to earn on it. Because the quality is what they themselves can produce, they aren't earning and aren't engaging, they leave saying that this place is broken. No, the stadium isn't built, people are putting the cart before the horse.
If you want to use this like Facebook or Instagram, that is fine but, it is already available on facebook and Instagram so, why be here? If you want to turn this place into Youtube or Twitch, fine but the same premise holds. Steem users should really be taking a step back in my opinion and working out that the competitive advantage isn't in the earning, it is in the engagement of users with potential to earn and the realisation of seeing real users get rewarded for skilled content without requiring a centralised authority to dictate terms.
In my opinion, we aren't competing with the other platforms, we are redefining what it means to be an online community with the potential to actually reward those who deserve it. Right now, it is looking too much like the crony communities of banks and governments, the very people most want to be free of.
Freedom isn't free, neither is Steem. You can do what you want but don't expect to get where you want to go by doing what you want to do.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
A friend of mine who I introduced to Steemit is already one of the dispirited ones. He's gong to write about 'what is wrong with Steemit' soon. I will be sure to resteem his article as he has little in the way of followers.
I'm quite sure he's going to bemoan all the things you have mentioned here though. You have to vote people up all day, and respond to people, blah blah.. He's done some posts which have gained little attention so far, besides me voting them and @steevc.
I really know what the fuck he expects to be honest. You don't get something for nothing, and you cant expect flocks of fans looking at your articles if you are an unknown.
It takes time to build a following and often, a lot of time. Effort is assumed. The atrition rate is so high because many people who wind up here haven't the foggiest in what it takes at other places.
I am not a reddit user but I remember @acidyo saying about all of the work it took him to be part of that community and, that was for no monetary reward. In my opinion, it is people like him who have an understanding of the consistency it takes and that isn't just in the 'posting' arena.
Your telling me! It does for sure. Not for the impatient.
Reading this, I realized just how incredibly lucky I am to be able to write about what I want without feeling the disappointment of a failed post anymore. It would be incredibly hard to think of something to write out of my comfort zone, so I never strayed from doing what I wanted to do. Just a few months ago I was covering up posts I worked hours on that made .75 with bidbots and resteem services. Then I started writing about a difficult trial our family was experiencing, and I was noticed! I just recently came across a few people who are ready to give up. People whose posts and talent are greater than mine, and I told them to keep going.
That's the problem though. One of those people didn't respond and another one was just stubborn, thinking his content should be able to stand on its own without having to make friends. You know, because Steemit is broken.
I liked reading your thoughts on this matter - thanks for sharing! :)
It makes a difference when what you write about (comfort zone or not) is authentic. At the end of the day, th few organic curators prefer to upvote humans, not programmed producers doing it for votes.
Very true. It is hard work finding a group to enthrall with ones writing, but one must keep sharpening that pencil and keep refining and redefining till you have your audience captured. Hard work and perseverance is key
You are right in what you express. I am new to Steemit and I like to find interesting and quality content. Many times I am surprised when I see posts, which in my opinion, have very low quality and are highly rated and commented.
Hi taraz. Engagement with other users is key. I see very little of this by the majority and they will learn the hard way. It doesn't really matter what you write about at the moment as long as it's decent. Without engagement with others you are lost.
Hello, very interesting post!
I have already written about this topic, but in Italian. I think that I will soon increase my participation in English.
I'm starting an publishing agency (in Italy), for September it will be online with a website.
I think the main problem of steemit is that there are no readers.
In steemit readers are other authors who try to develop their own steemit strategy (everyone is here to earn as authors). That is, they try to increase their followers by participating through comments. This is not good (the lack of readers) for those who put content (and readers) at the center of their project.
Steemit is more a social network platform than a blogging platform (for technical features). Therefore the main attention can only go towards relationships rather than contents. For those who want to carry out publishing projects, like me, steemit can only be considered as a simple minority element in a business strategy. At this moment I am evaluating the opportunity of this platform in helping (supporting) a professional publishing project.
I am not sure if you have read about other interfaces and SMTs but, there is a lot of potential for publishing platforms to develop as well as a lot more consumers of content to come in. What holds back a lot of viewers is the quality of content available but I see it as a 'build it and they will come' position. Currently we are early in the building phase.
You're right, I'm recently in steemit and I still have to know projects that use alternative interfaces.
For now I refer only to the main steemit platform. Both from the interface point of view and from the point of view of technical functionalities (for roles). In this sense, steemit does not facilitate the reader (the one who has no profit goal) to use this platform (registration, wallet, blockchain, and everything else). Furthermore, the platform is not easy to use to store interesting but old content, etc. (I hope soon there will be new functions in this sense). The editorial business is normally scalable while steemit rewards the content only in the first week (this is good in a social network perspective).
If I am developing professional publishing projects I will have to go where the reader is, I have no alternative to this. And steemit still needs to grow a lot in this sense.
All these things that do not help.
However, I realize my lack of knowledge of steemit. So most likely you can give me some suggestions.
I like what you said about competing at the bottom of the barrel. That is exactly what's going on right now. a lot of people just come on here and post memes and stuff like that expecting to get paid. More and more people are just selling their votes so I think you are absolutely correct about not having enough votes to go around in the future. People have to create high-quality content. At least I hope so. We need to get a few more big players on here who create high-quality content to be great inspiration to others
And some big investors too.
Yeah. A celebrity would be great. They would get a lot of support from the community and they would give so much back.
I agree with many things, but isn't the professional athlete thing just a little crazy? Isn't that part of the problem? Yes, we all have to put in work and interact, find our footing, but when you start treating this as a race..doesn't it become just about crunching the numbers, dazzling the crowds, instead of being authentic and original wanting to communicate things we want, we start thinking about pleasing people to gain traction and get attention.
Engagement and interaction also needs to be authentic and honest.
The professional athlete analogy is about the effort requires to actually be very good at something, not just to compete. I know of some people who never compete yet, they want to be experts and they put their effort into being so. A painter for example may never show the world her work but spend all of her time honing her craft.
I agree that shoddy work is not good anywhere, but sometimes good work doesn't get rewarded either; sometimes, perhaps too much, shoddy work is the norm and is copied and spread. It may be something to hold up good work, to promote it for all to see so that shoddy work can be held against it to be known for what it is.
Outside of Steem it is even more difficult to get rewarded. No matter whether good or bad work.
Here in the SteemSphere you can grow a following much faster, all while at the same time being rewarded, much faster than most would ever be able to do elsewhere online.
No truer words have been spoken, but that isn’t only the case on Steem either. Hundreds of popular and decently earning blogs are shoddy in quality. Yet they manage to grow a following and generate sufficient page views. Does that make them an inspiration? Maybe.
But they had to put in the hard work. On Steem just bidbot yourself to trending and you are the inspiration. And that, modest or low quality becomes the benchmark we attract and further cultivate.
if you have quality content you need to be able to offer this content on as many platforms as possible. Quality content is part of a market niche (today).
Are there niche readers on steemit?
Sorry for my English, I'm Italian.
No worries about your English. I’m not a native English speaker myself.
Hive mind communities should solve the niche issue, in a similar approach to subreddits. So probably still very vast oceans to navigate.
There are already several communities around tags. Kenny’s Kitchen’s tribe comes to mind. We will soon see always more “frontpages” similar to sndbox’s portal and also the #ulog community. I know several are being built as we speak.
thanks for the tips 🙂 👍
I've tried bots and find as soon as I use them my usual upvotes go down. I know that my work is good yet so few even read it and even less understand it and prefer the conformity to creativity. I guess I haven't found my niche people yet and so have to keep on going until I do.
There are indeed several manual curators who do not upvote when people use bidbots. That mostly because many manual curators think (correctly) that bidbots aren’t healthy for the ecosystem.
I was on Bubblews until it went bust and was earning a fair bit just before the end, bots were frowned upon there
I only had a quick skim of your feed so far, but given the categories I saw you may want to check out @tribesteemup
It’s a curation community, one which focuses on “healthy” and “abundance”.
The founder is a great person. The world would be a better place if it had more @kennyskitchen alike people. Even if he may disagree with my recent post. :D
Thanks, I'll take a look
Many don't realise just how hard the 'real world' can be it seems. They look at the tiny, tiny percentage of Youtube users who are monetized and think that is the average.
Yeah, exactly. I am just getting started on Steemit and decided to check some courses and videos from those who've already achieved something on the platform. And the sad thank that most of those are teaching you to cheat - like hiring someone who will spin a bunch of news 2 bucks per piece (imagine the readability) and you'll be just posting it again and again unless something will hit the target and get the good ROI. And people actually do this. And actually, earn money off that. With that type of knowledge spreading around there's such a huge risk that the platform will be just turned into a cemetery of a horrible content.
Although the thoughts in Taraz's post are all right. But still, we have to deal with human nature. And we do have a tendency to screw the good things over.
Most of those people are 'get-rich-quick-ers' who don't really know what they are doing for the long-term. the people they attract are the ones who soon leave and call it a scam.
Hope you are right and they won't ruin the future :)
I thought @whatsup put it very well in her recent post. This is basically an experiment. See what you can create from it, see what works and what it becomes. People do like to compare it to other social media sites, but I think that its uniqueness is its ability to be whatever we can make of it. It's so malleable at this point and I look forward to seeing how it will be shaped. It's entirely possible that, especially when the hivemind comes in, it could be something different to different people and groups. Lots of little steem worlds maybe.
But, like you say, whatever we want to make of it, it's going to require some work on our part and won't just land in our lap.
There is one good thing about steemit that I like a lot, and that is here there is a chance of being seen while on fb unless you pay them then mostly anything I post goes unnoticed pretty much completely, and that is why I'm here and not on fb and other sites anymore.
There is so much opportunity and in all likelihood, it will fragment heavily into a thousand niche groups. This is the beauty of a decentralised system wher users can make of it what they will.
Awesome contribution. Especially I like the comparison with a professional athlete.
I can only agree. There is a lot of background work to do, to increase the probability of a success in the foreground. There is no guarantee but without the background work, your chances are as good as zero.
The work in is like a lottery ticket, have to have one to win. I know a few professional athletes who have been training since they were knee high for years with no guarantee of ever making a dollar plus, the constant risk of injury. Steem is difficult, time consuming, complicated and frustrating but, it isn't close to impossible to be successful here. At least not yet.
Your opinion is enlightening, @tarazkp. I will try to give my blog and this platform what it takes.
As you say it's just not possible to everyone to earn well here. Some will buy votes to get on trending and attract followers, but otherwise it's a long slog. I was here for months before I made much, but I enjoy the interaction and the community. I'm lucky to have built up a good following who support me, but it was also a lot of hours of commenting and voting. I want Steem/Steemit to succeed, but we all have to help that happen and not just concentrate on how much we can make for ourselves. It's already changing, but this is just a hint of what it can be with millions of active users.
But, you are the one who interacted and became part of the community. Many are waiting to be spoon fed.
I agree, there are slight undercurrents that have been forming for the last few months while everyone focuses on the reflections o the surface
We definitely have to change the message in our mouth to mouth advertising of steemit. I wonder if explaining the benefits besides the money are enough to make people migrate from other platforms that are more friendly (in regards of crafting the content) and with a more direct and easier registration proccess
Well Taraz, this is one of your more well written pieces that everyone who is serious about the future viability of the steemit platform should read. That having been said there are a couple of items I would like to comment on.
Unfortunately, I think that a significantly high percentage of people who come to this platform fall into this category with the illusion of being able to do the same thing and make some money at the same time. Doesn't happen so they resort to other curation methods such as comment upvoting or using bots for example until it dawns on them that bots are a losing proposition as well as other curation methods and then they either become stagnent or leave. Unfortunately it is a relatively minor percentage of people who have the expertise to be high content providers or the drive/determination to learn how to become high content creators/providers.
Second and most importantly I think that the following statement is the crux of the current problem with the steemit platform.....
This is the problem that the higher minds like yourself and say @fknmayhem are going to have to figure out if the steemit platform is going to be successful.
While I could say more I'll leave it at that. Anyone reading my comments should probably be aware that while I have been an investor in the steemit platform for 324 days, I have serious doubts about the steemit platform going forward and am in the process of powering down, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
We all have those doubts, more often than we would like to admit, @naegling11.
The truth though is that STEEM will not become popular because of Steemit. Steemit Inc. even don’t hide that their focus is elsewhere, rightly so. They’re building a protocol, not one website.
Eventually, if STEEM becomes a big and important token it will because of everything what happens on the Steem blockchain. Mostly SMTs, not because of Steemit.
Maybe Steemit isn’t what most think it is. ;)
A well written article @fknmayem and that is what all steem investors hope for, but what about the crony communities of banksters and governments that currently control a significant amount of steem and daily drain the rewards pool for their own benefit while occasionally throwing a scrap or two to the masses to keep them from revolting.
Or more importantly than that, why are @ned and yourself powering down if the future of steem is so bright. Not trying to be antagonistic, and maybe you both have financial obligations that require you to do something that you don't want to do, but it does seem odd.
To answer to the second part of your question, I’m powering down less than I grow on average ever week. Any other relevant reasoning doesn’t fall in the transparency required for blockchain. :)
As for ned, I’m guessing that he is powering down because his agreement with the board allows him to power down x every x. But that’s merely a wild guess, one which IMHO is a fully normal process though. Founders (and also C-level execs) usually have vesting equity every so often, which they then are allowed to sell.
Addendum: I didn’t say the future is bright. I said we all have have those doubts, more often than we would like to admit. But I do believe in SMTs. Whether that means I also need to be a HODLer... maybe those concept need not be mutually exclusive. But I agree, perception matters. Yet my life is not on the blockchain.
Thanks for the reply @fknmayhem, you're honesty is appreciated. The future is definitely uncertain in regards to a lot of things in life, especially in the crypto sector. One is certainly wise to not have all of their eggs in one basket.
Even though you declined payout I upped you so the comment wasn't at the bottom of the chain.
@fknmayhem is right and I feel that same pressure daily. I would be crazy not to I think considering the uncertainty involved.
He is also right that Steemit (where most focus) is unlikely to be the driving force behind Steem the token. It may evolve into 'just another app' that caters for a market segment.
Who knows the final resting place but hopefully, we are a long way away from death ;)
Hi @tarazkp you'r right the hard work isn't a guarantee of return, it is the space creator so that there is the potential for return.
This post was so bad, I almost committed suicide. In fact, I still might.
"If mainstreaming happens, there is not going to be enough SP to service all people so the idea of earning for everyone is ridiculous"
Surely if mainstreaming happens, SP will be worth SO much more that it will take much less of it to service each person.
That said, people only have so much attention to go round. If I am following ten other people whose content I like, then person number eleven is going to suffer, because I simply don't have time in the day to read an eleventh article.
So, maybe even if there is enough SP to service everyone, on account of one SP being worth considerably more than it is now, the vast majority will have to settle for being audience members because the most talented, most considerate producers will command everyone's limited attention.