When I first stumbled upon Steemit, I was skeptical because what sounds too good to be true, usually is. Why would anyone want to pay me to write anything? I’m not even particularly great at it.
However, after looking into Steemit and researching “what is blockchain”, it made more sense.
I think it's fair to say that in the last 10 years we have individually spent over 1,000 hours on social media across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. While we were doing it for entertainment, these companies have been profiting thousands of dollars off of our time, engagement, and information collected which is then sold to the highest bidder. That's why today, Facebook is valued at over $500 billion dollars.
The creators of Steemit recognize that our time and engagement is valuable; also it's the users that make a platform successful, which is why they compensate us for our work. Every upvote (similar to a like) is worth real money. It's free to create an account, so how do they make money? For starters, the easiest way to understand it is to think of the money (Steem) as stock. They are similar but not exact.
Everytime someone upvotes you, Steemit is giving you a fraction of a share of their “stock”. The more people who are using their services, the more investors, and the higher the value of their “stock” grows. At the time of this post, 1 Steem is worth $3.08 in USD.
It works because it’s a win-win situation. We have incentive to keep posting on their platform and they have incentive to compensate us for our work so that we keep posting on their platform, and the cycle goes on.
Also check out “How to convert Steem Dollars to USD”
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Hope this helps!
The SteemCollege Team
P.S. Learn more about Project Influence by HyperFundIt
I am new to Steemit and this is a good starting article for me to start my research and better understand what it is all about and how best to serve the community that is Steemit. Thanks a ton for writing this.