A healthy degree of scepticism is absolutely essential to learning about something new. Due diligence is a critical precursor to investing precious time and money into other people's projects and ambitions.
However, attempting to stifle engagement and genuine efforts to improve and innovate by using fear and disinformation is self-serving and obvious. If you have a trusted voice, don't waste it spinning smoke and mirrors, use it to blast the air clear so that real issues can be seen and challenged. It's better to have patience and gain true insight in order to make a single pertinent objection, than to fill the air with half-truths and nonsense. Of course, if that is the objective, spin on. I hope you have a change of heart and try to help instead.
Happy Steeming
Tone Vays should've read this post before discussing Steemit in the podcasts.
I agree, it does seem like he didn't spend enough time in the community. How he thinks a site that doesn't require you to buy in at all is a ponzi scheme is beyond me.
I hope he comes around, learns a bit more and finds himself motivated to join in. His critique will be that much more valuable to those that listen to him and to all Steemers. I believe in what Steemit is trying to accomplish so much, that it feels as though we can certainly afford to be patient and welcoming, even to those that initially didn't get it....let's face it, we were all once in that position.
I agree, felt the same way some times about certain other projects and currencies. Obviously many will come around in time and userbase, and we will be just as welcoming then, but when words are thrown around like "scam" and "pyramid" about an open-source project like this without reading the whitepaper then I have no respect for that person.
Yes. There are thousands and thousands of people genuinely committing their time and effort and money and creativity to build a network and community of great mutual value. You cannot do this without optimism, trust, belief..... To have those efforts smeared with such words is very hard take. To hear it from someone with a public, 'expert' voice who clearly and objectively does not understand the basic principals of the subject is very hard. But, Steem is......Steemit is. If we don't grow by one more person, i will still have enjoyed the experience, learned loads and will never regret being a part of it.
Great having users like you here too! This community will have a bright future. :)
Threw you a follow. :)
just awesome ....... Happy Steeming
Great thoughts !!!
Golden words @benjojo!
Thank you. I always feel I want to say something to challenge our detractors. Constructive criticism is much much more difficult and valuable than generalised insinuations. I hope our critics raise their game, that's all! :)
lets keep working!
wow !!!
Great Post. Support Steem :)
I love steemit
I love it....
It's awesome.
but, Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) will decrease the value of steem in Fiat ?
I think it is difficult to quantify the effect of FUD considering it can be self-defeating. I think misinformation has the potential to generally slow progress down by hightening emotions and sowing doubt. There may be impacts at times on the value of Steem against FIAT currency but I think the current price of Steem in Dollars is more a reflection of the market's understanding of fundamentals such as growth, stability, steem supply, market awareness etc at this time. I just want critics to help improve Steemit rather than waste everyone's time.
We will always have critics for so many reasons, some based on emotion , some on rumor and a few on fact. As I have said many times Steemit could collapse next week and steem go to Zero and it will still have been a worthwhile effort. I have never experienced so many wonderful and informative stories and interacted with so many interesting people. #VivalaSteemit
That is exactly how i feel.
In today's information flows, signal/noise filtering skills are critically important for everybody. FUD will continue, trolls will rage, but we have to adjust our own noise filters to acceptable signal/noise ratio. Show must go on!
Absolutely agree @benjojo
Life is full of uncertain situations. If you always wait to see what happens, you will always miss out on it.
i like that!
Thank you.
We try not to lose heart and continue to work
Yes ......... "Ditch the FUD and get involved. It's more rewarding"
thanks :D
We all should do better
I wonder how many people are thinking so deep like you! I like it a lot.
You are very kind. There are many many deeper, smarter thinkers on Steemit than me thankfully! You might not have bumped into them yet but they are there....
I know there are many smarter thinkers than you but, there are a lot not so smart thinkers than you and they should pay attention and learn. I like the way you see thinks and I learned something today and I want to learn more, that's the reason I follow you!
I shall just keep doing what I'm doing then because what you've said is exactly why I post on steemit anyway. Thank you so much the-future
Thank you too benjojo.
I 100% agree with you :)
I'm a newcomer ....... I also have faith on Steem
Welcome! :) I hope you are enjoying the experience so far!
I like the idea to promote healthy growth. Thanks!
very nice "If you have a trusted voice, don't waste it spinning smoke and mirrors"......................
Can't agree more. Thank you.
I'm agree whit that thought. All together we can make steem great
great meme and great thinking :)
I agree with you @benjojo :D
I kid you not you just motivated this morning @benjojo! Many times I lose focus just in general and your words today inspired me in a musical way to write today:) Cheers!
That makes me very very happy arcaneinfo, thank you.
I dont understand why people is skeptical about steemit, it just doesnt make any sense, they dont even bother to try the platform before ranting and talking nonsense. Meanwhile we're all happy in here.
The huge amount of fud stems from the trickle down economics of the platform. Huge whales create smaller whales who great tiny whales who sometimes feed minnows. Minnows until the point they get a few crumbs have absolutely no power. The majority of people are powerless.
The FUD comes in many forms. I think the means and rate of Steem distribution is a serious issue because most people are working hard to contribute on Steemit and are very keen to have enough influence to make a difference. I am anxious for Steem to be distributed far and wide as are the majority of whales and dolphins from what I can tell. We need to keep coming up with ideas to help that happen and ensure that Steem gets into the hands of everyone that cares and contributes. Let's not forget that Steemit is in beta, is a couple of months old, will continue to evolve and improve and is arguably behaving in a much fairer way than many other economic systems already.
What about addressing exact points in your post. For example "infulencers" getting promissed steem to post here.
Do you mean giving Steem to people who can instantly market Steem and Steemit to a wider audience? I'm not aware that has happened. If it has, I'm not sure I have a problem with it.....it is reasonable to give shares to someone who can add value to your company isn't it? As far as I'm aware though, most 'influencers' have been invited to try Steemit out and their posts have been awarded by the community. If those rewards have seemed on occasion to be like golden handshakes, well their 'influence' has perhaps earned it. Steemit succeeds for us all and everyone in the future if people get to hear about it and get involved. Marketing Steem is very valuable. Crypto was going nowhere fast before steem and steemit, therefore the huge benefits of blockchain tech could never be realised by our broader societies. Anything that addresses that issue is worth a hell of a lot, especially with the world's economies in the state they are presently.
It totally does happen and has happened. There were alot of early post that said "dan invited me here" and it went to the moon. They can also do the exact same thing with out inviting them, they can watch the network effect of other content creators inviting their friends and only upvoting a specific audience, which they do, The "whales" are incredibly selective with who they create fomo with.
I think it is unfair to group all the whales together and i'm not sure what you mean by fomo. We can all agree that the steem economy will be better with a wide, diverse distribution of Steem across the world, in the hands of people that care about it's success. Wether you consider the present situation acceptable (given proper context) or not, don't you think distribution is improving?
FOMO == fear of missing out.
It is improving, but its still trickle down economics though and the whole system is dependent on gate keepers. Which is a stick in the eye to decentralization.
Massive whale create big whales who create medium whales who create small whales who may or may not bring minnows into their group. Its very reminiscent of the American social class/cast system and why social climbing is a thing. This is why people call steemit a ponzi. Its more a reflection of the american social system than ponzi but -shrug-.
The way I see it, if you give something to everyone for nothing, they will not understand or respect it's value and before you've had a chance to demonstrate utility, you are in an oversupply situation and boom. Black swan, it's all over. The world is not a perfect place so things have to get going, then reach maturity and equilibrium. What does it matter if in 50 years time, Steem has solved the world's currency economic issues and ushered in a thousand years of relative fairness? The struggles we've had now will pale into insignificance. The technology has value, the experiment has value, people are extracting value they can use under the present paradigm right now and valuable content is being created now. It certainly cannot be described as a ponzi and if a culture or economic system where capital is flowing more rapidly and transparently from the top to the bottom exists, i'll eat my hat! ;)
Since the launch of Steem was done in a really shady way and the founders and their friends gained the vast majoirty of it you will never ever be able to get rid of this aspect of steemit. It will always be Dan and his buddies who decide what is one top. Do not be fooled, it is not organic, just organicly Dan. Do you think that these "famous" people would have just found steemit and spent time writing without being promised something? No. Which is in itself ok, if that is made clear in the post. It is basicly a paid blog post that is tricking everyone into thinking that it was done for free and everyone needs to reward them. Why reward them more when they are already getting paid lol. This can continue for a while untill there are not enough buyers for steemit on the markets, but since Mr. Dan designed the system for maximum bagholderism you can only dump slowly, as seen in the current chart.
FUD is the wind that shakes rotten apples from the tree
hi @benjojo, great job! Your meme is featured in this post https://steemit.com/meme/@delphia16/daily-pick-of-hidden-memes-1
Thank you for featuring my meme! Great initiative!
Thats just human behavior. Haters will always hate... they are part of the ying yang.. we hare the other part who shows the world that it works in a positive way!
I don't know about toning down the Fud... he seems pretty toned down already
My feeling is this is a very simple way to help Steem distribution. However, it's obviously author choice at the moment. I hope we can all just agree to remove the ability for authors to upvote their own material. Of course it's possible that authors who upvote their own posts will damage their own reputation to the point where they get less upvotes, therefore behaviour will change on it's own. The issue is we need more whales and dolphins......which is gradually happening but perhaps not as fast as many would have hoped.
Thats the problem with trickle down economics
Yes we do. We really do. How on earth do we achieve that faster whilst ensuring that people who care and add some kind of value get the Steem?
@luminousvisions i think these are really good ideas. There is enough information to identify a whole bunch of deserving accounts. You could make an announcement and a period to allow people to attempt to increase their chance of being included, then initiate a plan to drop on them. The trouble is there would be a huge incentive to create rubbish and it would be very difficult to monitor. You might encourage people with growing positive reputations to undermine themselves. Maybe identifying them then all whales and dolphins could drop a percentage of their SP on them? The issue with that is the people who just miss out. Every way you turn there is a technical or fairness issue. Like you said, we may just have to wait patiently for the platform to mature and deliver the benefits that wider distribution of steem will bring.