I have seen so many of these articles go by daily, that it is actually getting nauseating. Articles laying out the "Game Plan" of how to grow up to be a #Whale in the #Steemit Universe.
Rule 1: Find a pod of whales
Rule 2: Jump up and down and keep comment-stalking them until you finally win their attention with some quasi-intellectual drivel or keep throwing your panties at them until they deign to notice you
Rule 3: If Rule two doesn't work, then spend every penny you can afford to buy votes, pay bots to upvote you, or buy off someone with cookers & hocaine in the hopes that they will upvote you and maybe take you to the prom.
ok I get all of this. I fully comprehend the concept behind these articles and the advice that's given....(over and over again)....
.... but am I the only one that sees this as an intrinsically perfect representation of the "Haves" and "Have Nots", the "1 percenters", and the "Ruling Elite" programming that is the main reason we are in this fucked up society that we are currently stuck in?
See.... I have been writing content for YEARs,... hell,it's almost measurable in decades. I don't write content for the "1%" or the "ruling elite" and to be perfectly honest I don't give a rats ass if the kings on high like my content or not. I write to spread information, to encourage question asking, share research, and to help people figure shit out- on a broad spectrum of topics, from health, to finance, to politics, to history, to law, to banking & governmental fraud, to science & technology.... and yea, I even write about cryptocurrencies occasionally.
I tried to play this Steemit Game by "the rules", but, here I sit, with a vote worth a whopping $.14, and my articles rarely get more than 20 views..... even if I do have over 400 Steemer "followers". Bizarre, isn't it? The problem is that most of the really great content in Steemit is being published by people with a voting power of $.05-.50 cents.... and we are all voting our hearts out to try and help the amazing writers and authors and photographers and artists and muscians....
....But stacking a pile of nickels on top of each other really doesn't do jack shit to help them or anyone else out- not financially, nor in getting their work seen by the rest of the Steemit Community.
...... because the ONLY votes that count, are those that come from the "HAVES"..... not the "Have Nots".
When I jumped onto this platform (for real), and began loading content into Steemit daily back in January, I brought over 60 UnFuckers with me. All of whom have awesome content, great skills to share, and brilliant visions of what this platform could/can/should become..... Of those 60, less than 15 are still active 2 months later. Why? Not just because stacks of pennies & nickles don't add up to anything. The REAL reason they are fading away is because they've busted their balls to put out great content....and that content got 5 views,..... maybe 10. And NOTHING is more depressing to a writer/artist/musician than to put your heart and soul into a piece and then watch it sit there gathering dust in a corner, because no one can find it, let alone admire it and maybe, just maybe, reward it.
This system is Broken.
Just like the system that we all love to hate. Steemit is a world where the only voices that count, are the 1%.
Welcome to Wall Street. 
I will continue to use Steemit, but for me, it's just about putting my content onto a blockchain where it can't be tampered with. I will continue to meet other great Steemians (I won't insult them by calling them Minnows), and share comments and commentary with them, and do my tiny $.14 best to help them out. But I'll be damned if I'm going to line up like some desperate groupie at the front of the stage screaming "Pick me! PICK ME!!" at some kingpin that holds all the power of "Yea" or "nay".
... I didn't loose my dignity while going toe to toe with the Minister of Health in Canada's Parliament, nor when I stood up against the head of the CBC and the CEO of the Canadian YMCA over censorship issues.... So I'll be FUCKED before I loose my dignity by fawning over a group Whales.
Steemit has the ability to become an AMAZING platform- not just a cryptocurrencygeneratingabuck website- but a truly game changing platform, that could quite literally overtake Facebook and Instagram and their ilk and pull the rug out from under them.
I am hearing about a LOT of major alternative media people who are looking at moving over to Steemit (and DTube etc..) to escape from the Censorship Fuckery of the social media hasbeens, which would bring a MASSIVE crowd of new users into Steemit, which in turn raises the value of #Steem..... But I can tell you something that perhaps many of you haven't figured out yet: These people with the huge followings are NOT going to stick around once they realize that their followers are leaving Steemit in droves because they are just some faceless little fish with no voice or way of being heard... These Alternative Media gurus will GO where their audience IS.
.... and if the audience finds another platform that they like better.... the migration will begin. Again.
d
Although you pretty much had me at "cookers and hocaine," I really had to chuckle at this.
The interesting (and sad) thing is that Steemit came along as this brave new social experiment and like pretty much every such thing, it ends up emulating "life." It's just another microcosm representation of The Whirled.
Which of course brings into question the underlying sanity (or lack of?) of those of us who sincerely believe there is a better way. There may be the traditional elitist "1%" but just how many people outside our own "weirdo freak" 1% actually give a flying flip about whether or not there's a "better way?" They just want their Big Macs, their beer, their DingDongs and football on Sunday. These things that matter to US — like consciousness, social change and whatever else — don't even register as a slightly annoying pebble in their boots.
Of course, Steemit is a grand experiment in "Greed Mismarketing." Here we have a unique, somewhat censorship resistant, predominantly "alt" thinking, multifaceted social content platform. And what do people do, to bring people here to participate in this "Brave New World?"
COME TO STEEMIT AND MAKE LOTS OF MONEY!!!
Color me cynical, but that's fucked up. It's short sighted, greedy, needy, desperate and a whole lot of other adjectives best left behind.
"Yeah but if we didn't talk about the money, nobody'd show up!"
Oh, they'd show up. Slowly. Organically. But of course that would require "someone" to show patience and restraint in a world that's fueled by 140-character soundbytes; people who think "TL;DR" could be applied to the new "longer" tweets.
Sorry, had to rant on your rant!
darlin, you had me at " It's just another microcosm representation of The Whirled."
I can't upvote you any more than my meager 14 pennies, but they're yours!!!! ... feel free to rant any time, lol.
d
▲That about summarizes it...
Here is a funny thing. I think that in order to make upvoting system to work it is necessary to use some top limits. Like how much 1 upvote gives per post max and max limit how much single post can get 150$ for one post is close to be too much.
The only way to become a whale is to take a $100,000 and invest it in Steem. Then, power it up. Other than that, I think the chances are slim to none. You always lose money on bid bots, and it is highly unlikely you will make up the loss with votes from minnows and plankton.
EXACTLY!!! Soooooo...... Just like Wall Street, no matter what you do, the power remains with the 1%
d
WAIT!!! .... am I suppose to upvote myself now so that I can make $.14 cents?
.... guess I'll go check "the Rules"
d
I actually have started upvoting even some of my own comments :D
Haha. I $0.26 upvote your irony.
and I truly appreciate all 26 pennies :D
d
And some more ❤️
and please, accept my 12 pennies to say thank you !!
d
Yeah you should upvote your own posts because that increases your visibility.
Poor dim @mathiasian's certainly not going to get rich downvoting my every post / comment. PMSL. The boy's lost the plot. :D
This is a (un)fucking good post! Seems like history is repeating also on this decentralized platform. I'm also not the type of 'I crawl in your butt for some attention' human and so i decided to post my music here, maybe some other posts too- but i do not expect anything. I'm using also other platforms to distribute my free music for others to download and use it for underlaying videos or do whatever with it.
The more i learn about steemit the more i see the big picture of this game and i realize it is not different from the "real" world. The fish stinks on the head ;) .
But it is still good to discover and support artists - to learn about new things and have some inspiring talks. ....sooo let's keep steeming without the urge to become a immovable whale :)
I totally agree with the post of @daniarnold, the comment of @psionic-tremors and most other comments.
Becoming a whale seems to be impossible if one was not part of #steemit from the early days. But is it a big deal? I don't think so.
More important is what you also described as 'difficult' - find people who are interested in what you have to say and really like to read it - even better they show that by commenting and upvoting.
And yes - I buy upvotes. One reason is a very simple one: upvoted posts seem to be more 'sexy'. More people read it and upvote it again which results in new followers who are interested in what one has to tell.
It's like commercials (which I actually hate): if many like it, it must be good.
And yes - this might be against the mindset of many here but perhaps we need to accept that most people are structured this simple.
You can have the highest value in your words - you need (sometimes idiotic) methods to spread these words if you want to get heard.
Thanks to @psionic-tremors for resteeming this post - otherwise I would not have seen it. From now on I will not miss anything anymore by following @daniarnold :)
Steem on!
I agree with you that if more of people upvote you then you reserve have higher payout and decently higher visibility, but issue for me is massively unequal voting power where single vote could be more than 100 new in platform voters.
Thanx darlin!
d
@psionic-tremors absolutely!! my whalishness is decidedly missing ;>)
d
Hear hear. I hear you. If people played the system as it is designed it could to be/grow into (says an uncynical me who doesn’t so often get let out & who is now being questioned by a cynical me even as I write this) a great platform.
lol.... apparently I've upvoted too much now on this post, so my meager offering is just $.12cents worth now!
buhahahhaha!!!
d
I have been on here over 18 months. I'm not on here to make money. I am on here to get information from all walks of life. I engage when I feel I have something of value to give. Keep up the good fight......I am glad there are fighters like you out there......gives me hope.
thank you my friend!! exchanging information is the TRUEST form of Value.
d
To keep the answer short: true!
Yeah.. they managed to create upvoting system that makes steemians brownnose "whales."
Resteem post above if you agree.
I would totally resteem it... if I could, lol
love d
well I did.. I mean that could still create something relative to "twitter storm"
If it's any consolation, I read this post entirely :)
Your thoughts aren't completely foreign to me either. I too got frustrated with seeing the disparity between earnings (and views... not even getting seen is what really bugged me too).
All I can suggest is to just stop caring about it. Ever since I just threw up my hands in the sky in despair and gave up on trying to compete or follow a similar path to the others, I've found that I am enjoying Steemit a lot more. I stopped caring about the amount of upvotes people have.. some of the followers I have the most enjoyment from communicating with are actually teeny tiny minnows with sub-$0.01 votes. But they read my post religiously sometimes, and I get a kick out of the fact people are enjoying my content.
I've found too that once I adopted this attitude, strangely enough my earnings went up too. Not that they are big, not by any stretch.
Whether or not whales earn more or skew the system... really, who cares? It doesn't really affect me.. I just try to focus on what's fun and succesful for me on here.
Steemit is going to face serious competition soon from other platforms, too. It's going to be interesting to see how platforms like Narrative (NRV) where no SP (and thus no 'whales) exist, will compare when they come out.
I myself am not fond of the fact whales have so much power, and cannot be dethroned on STEEM (ever, basically), but it being integral to the blockchain I doubt we will see it change.
thanx darlin :D (and yea, girls and crypto's DO get along just fine :D)
yes, i came the the conclusion of "not caring" ... or at least, not pulling my hair out trying to play "The Game" a few weeks ago. But I'm an activist through and through, and I have to speak my truth. This platform really could be fuckin' AMAZING..... except for the onepercentism. I will continue, because yea, you're right! I've met some great people on Steemit and that is value exchange that is more than sufficient in my books :D
d
0.00 =) Votes, NO Votes, STEEM / SBD, pizza, BTC ...
Whooping $0.05...Delegate / Not To Delegate / Delegate...Donate!!!
I'm just another minnow swimming this weird ocean. Well said, and I guess this community is little more than proof that the human greed gene is alive and well.
Sometimes it feels like that old Tears for Fears song: "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." Conversely, nobody's ever learned what it means to simply have "enough." So inequity and extremes persist, sadly.
Edited to add: I have 3500+ "followers" here, and still struggle to get 40-50 votes a post, which just goes to show the greater joke here.
EXACTLY @denmarkguy .... when someone with 3500 followers can't get more than 40 votes (at a penny each? lol) for excellent content.... then there is definitely something wrong with the system.
d
Hey @daniarnold,
Nice post! Its really helpful for a plankton like me as I just started out. I first met you guys unfucker and now i am in steemit, creating content. I have constantly received help from you guys over and over, I am really happy and thankful. Once again this post has helped me. For me, yea i mean i wanna make money ( who doesn't ) but I think at the moment i still like to do what I am doing, making weekly posts on the analysis of the crypto market with my home-made analytical bot. hehe. Hopefully steemit will take over FB and other platforms soon!
The disillusionment with Steemit is for real.....
This system is as broken as youtube! It’s time for really inspired creatives to get paid for their work, and i don’t see that happening on Steemit right now (I do see a lot of one-hand-washes-the-other quid pro quo.....)
Edit: and i’ve been on Steemit since it came out; i got a couple of cents worth of interaction back then, and not much has changed, even with recent posts and trying to connect with a group of dedicated mutual upvoters (so it’s not just longevity that gives people voting power)
I agree darlin
d
Hi, Dani! Great post. I never did care about the earning of anything here and it took me extra time making up my mind to join in even after I did get the account approval email, sitting on it for a good month. I migrated here because so many other unfuckers were, and because like everyone else I really love to hate facebook...I've posted a few things but it's no biggy to me to skip visiting here for a few days, whereas my normie friends and family are on at the other platform so I'm there every. single. day. like it or not...eventually I am sure I'll toss it (FB) to the wayside like I did with whatever that popular one was before it came along...wow, I really can't think of it's name! but I only joined that years ago so I could vote for my nephew to get on a tv show I'm actually glad he never did get casted for....Myspace! it was myspace, LOL. anyway.....
Hey @daniarnold,
Excellent post!
No, you are not the only one who recognizes there are some things going wrong on this platform.
Yes, alternative platforms will come, and in case the rules here are not adapted, I suppose there is indeed a risk that future users will opt for networks that do a better job fighting abuse and manipulation and supporting genuineness and honesty.
I made this post for this same topic.
https://steemit.com/steem/@mikael79/ideas-how-to-better-upvoting-system-of-steemit
Thank you brother for this wonderful information I will follow all your publications I wish you success
You could always start posting some NSFW content. :) :)