hey @anyx!
However, with the new ability to reward only our friends or ourselves with all our influence, we run a great risk; if people focus on the reward rather than the engagement and community building, we could quickly collapse into a self-serving, reward-leeching scenario.
I love how you're digging into the seams of our community here anyx. I see this dichotomy play out inside my own head every day on Steem. It happened when I opened your post...there was this little voice that went off in my head (also I am not familiar with your account) about a paragraph down that said
this is a good one! go vote on it before anyone else does
This time, I ignored it and kept reading, but that is ALWAYS THERE. Some days I'm feeling expansive, and I just want to support others that deserve it. Other days I'm feeling needy, and I (perhaps somewhat angrily) upvote shit just for the reward. It's odd...I've felt so many things come up since I joined a month ago. Sometimes I'm insanely excited, some days I feel kind of meh about the whole thing...other days I've met some royally cool people.
I didn't realize that you made Streemian. It's really useful =) I have been donating my vote to curie for a while.
There is this question looming over us all;
What will we become?
I'm hopeful that whatever it is, that many many new friendships will be born.
I like the critical eye on it all anyx, keep it coming
I know the exact dichotomy you're talking about -- I had that when I first started. After some time, and becoming witness, I've been focusing hard on finding ways to become more altruistic, and improve the community as much as I can. I've done this through making @cheetah, and bootstrapping @steemcleaners. I think (and hope) that as people stay here longer, they start thinking about longer term success as you have. :)
And oh, no, @xeroc made streemian! I meant to say that I just set myself up on streemian so I was an available curator. Curie is a fantastic choice to follow too!