I've been watching a beautiful project unfold this week, but as I have, I've also grown increasingly frustrated.
As a dad, I understand how hard it is to keep a goldfish alive. We do great with dogs, and cats, even a lizard, but the fish? Nope? 3,4 days tops. And the same thing is happening on steemit. It would seem we are content to feed the whales, while minnows and plankton are left to starve.
There are some people who seem to get it.
The #dolphinschool bootcamp project, started by @Markrmorrisjr is amazing!
With just a couple days promotion, he managed to gather 20 students, who've been fulfilling daily assignments for each of the five days and creating some really wonderful content.
They've gotten some really great response, in views and comments, people are overwhelmingly positive about it, but, here's the thing.
The project is getting very little support from us!
While some of the students have earned decent payouts, the project itself is getting triple the views and comments it gets votes! They haven't had a single decent payout on any of these posts, each of them with well over 2000 words of actionable tips and resources, while the same 5 or 6 accounts sit atop the trending column, day after day after day, buying hundreds of votes and drawing hundreds more for a few pennies in profits.
Meanwhile, what evergreen, usable content are they even producing? Sure, crypto news is interesting, but what value does it have once the market changes?
Crusaders like Bernie pick one or two targets, but no one is addressing the elephant in the room!
Without wide asset distribution steemit will fail!
Right now, 41% of the assets still belong to steemit inc. That's fine, they're capitalists and deserve to reap some reward from what they've built, but right below that, we're allowing the huge percentage of our rewards to go to a few, not just a few days, but nearly every day.
Meanwhile, we're losing 90% of new accounts almost as fast as they sign up
If you've ever wondered how the 1% became the 1% Steemit is showing us. The vast majority of users, rather than creating true community and building projects that will create true wealth among them and a circle of supporters, they "invest" in the biggest accounts.
It's just like the stock market. We seek fractional, short term gains, "sure thing" by selling votes through them, buying votes from them, renting them our SP and upvoting their posts for the curation rewards. Meanwhile the average post can't be getting more than 2 votes!
If we have 250K posts per day, and the record number of total transaction is 2 million in one day. That's 8 transactions for every post. But, that includes upvotes, follows, comments, resteems, transfers, the list goes on!
If upvotes count for 1/4 of all transactions (and I'm having a hard time believing that, when we can only cast 10 full power votes in a 24 hour period) that's 2 votes per post, while some accounts are taking 1000 a day and more!
No, I'm not suggesting an equal distribution of funds.
I don't believe in communism, or socialism, it makes everyone impoverished, but, if we don't support the plankton soon, it will be impossible for anyone outside of the inner circle to even BUY their way to a decent payout, due to the overwhelming resources being consolidated in the top accounts.
No, I'm not asking for redistribution of anything! Even voting power!
I'm asking for users to start supporting real talent, especially that talen that supports the beginners.
These new accounts start with such restricted SP that they cannot complete the assignments for #Dolphinschool without trouble. (two votes, two resteems, and a post on their own blog) when these are completed, some accounts don't have enough bandwidth to comment and upvote other students, even minimally.
So why does it matter? Just shut up, buy votes, sell yours and make money!
It matters because, the only way to correct the situation we are in now, is to change it now. It's not going to get any easier. The vote selling and buying and delegation leasing is a problem. Here's why.
- The steem mining integrity is undermined when subpar, or short term value content gets huge rewards!
- Quality content goes unrecognized and many quality users will leave, impoverishing our community
- 3rd world countries are where this can spread fastest, make the most difference and create a real position in the global market for steem.
- A wider user base, earning higher rewards is the best way to solidify steem and attract the investors that will raise the price.
A higher price of steem is the only way to increase the value of the prize pool!
If we don't get more cash value in the daily rewards pool soon, I predict that many mid level and lower level users will visit less often, creating even more disparity.
If you're in the top, you may think, oh, good more for me.
But even 100% of $0 is still zero. Crypto is not like other investments. What assets are there, other than the mining operation, which is the engine driving creation on the blockchain? So, here is what I'm asking.
Please, if you're a dolphin, or whale, curate your own votes!
Sure, selling your service to the highest bidder, may seem like smart business, an easy way to make money, but like I said, 100% of 0 is 0.
I upvoted the OP, not because I agree with the assertions, but because I would like to have a wider discussion. Specifically, the question in the title and the assertion:
This seems to imply that the so-called path from "minnow" to "whale" is a requirement for success of the platform.
First of all, I think those fishy names are dumb. Second, I don't see the logic. It seems like a non-essential.
To me, having a certain stake is like having a certain sized house. You know it'll pretty much always be that size unless you decide to make it bigger. The certainty of the size of your stake is more important than having a bigger stake compared to your neighbor.
You know what you can do with your stake, and you have certainty that it will have the same impact now as it will in 5 years. This is something you can use to plan your next move.
This is the main power of stake-based ownership on these kinds of platforms.
https://sites.google.com/site/classismswp15/classism-capitalism-the-cause-and-effect
https://steemit.com/steem/@stellabelle/steem-whitepaper-for-dummies-reward-distribution
I.E. Yes, Steemit is classicist to the core. It needs a Marxist hard fork.
Um, you can take your marxist hardfork and shove it. That's not what I'm saying. If it's not a voluntary shift, it will lead to further abuse, just in a different vein.
Wow. the marxist reference was more satirical than anything. I believed I was agreeing with your post by pointing out what is wrong with Steemit and agreeing that it needs to change. You make a complaint about capitalism without realizing it:
In my quotes above (did you read them?) I'm pointing out to you that the complaint you have, that there is no "path for a minnow to become a whale", is a "classic" complaint of classism, and that this classism you feel should change is actually inherent in the design of Steemit, as outlined in the Steemit White Paper, which I also just quoted for you. I agree with your post. I agree we need a change. I don't really think Steemit should be communist. How would that even work: a decentralized platform cannot have a central control of economic inputs and outputs. It was just my way of saying that Steemit does indeed need to change, and the thing that needs to change are some of it's capitalistic aspects. However, perhaps you don't realize this, and would like to defend these particular aspects of capitalism despite your complaints?
Yeah, big difference between encouraging voluntary support of others, and trying a top down model that forces some fake version of equality.
And no, that is one version of capitalism. Go back, read history. Look where we started. Capitalism was the means to give each man ownership ability. It freed him from feudalism. He had a stake. But, if the mass of users voluntary surrender their stake to an oligarchy, it looks very much the same as pre-capitalist society, only marginally richer.
yes but at the cost of losing the Commons. I have read history, I think we just have a different interpretation of it. I suppose we could argue the merits of private ownership too, but that's not the part I'm most concerned with. There is a dynamic and much needed balancing between private ownership and the Commons. Without the concept of the Commons, pure ownership is slavery. For instance, do you believe all humans should have equal access to fresh drinking water? Unfortunately fresh drinking water isn't equally distributed on the planet. Should something be done about this, or should "market forces" do their bidding?
But, it won't have the same impact in five years. It doesn't even have the same impact it had a year ago. It's virtually impossible for beginners, in the current climate here to get a single post even seen, forget getting a decent payout, because the top of the trending category is owned by about six accounts, and if you go through their wallets, you'll see, they didn't earn the votes, they bought them. Some of these people weren't even anything here five months ago, forget five years. Yes, work is important, I'm not suggesting we reward people who don't work. But, look, everyone wants to point to the top and say its not fair, but the ones at the bottom build that, by investing in the top, instead of investing in themselves. But, it can't be done solo here. It's impossible. It requires support and teamwork. The top post on trending Right this very minute says in the opening line I'VE NEVER CONTRIBUTED TO STEEMIT!
no it's not virtually impossible
and yes it can be done solo.
in fact it's a lot easier now than it ever has before.
It's been done...and it's BEING done as we speak.
just work at it.
So, who do you know, Everit, I respect your knowledge here, that has come from a new account recently, WITHOUT buying votes and gotten past minnow status. Can you give me one example?
depends on what you call 'whale'
I make a fairly decent amount of money off steem (10K SP + 7K delegation rented)
I started with nothing...and it was HARDER a year ago than it is now.
IF I'd re invested everything I'd most likely have 50K or more.
I chose not to do that. I've withdraw a fair amount of steem and bought stuff.
(paid off ALL my bills...I'm debt free...and bought a few toys)
PappaPepper has done WAY better than me...he's bought a farm with his earning.
an actual farm...in the Ozarks. He made over a 100K last year alone..
He started from nothing...and did not invest.
There are others....I mostly don't pay much attention to what others are doing...I look out for myself.
No, it was harder for YOU a year ago, because you had 0 audience. I offer you the same challenge. Start with a new account, without announcing who you are, or upvoting yourself from this one, or adding outside investment dollars and get back to me in a few weeks.
now why would I want to do that?
why would I give up all my hard work ?
$42.775
that's what I've made TODAY...in SBD.
I'm going to buy me some bitcoin with it.
or litecoin..or Ethereum, or Bitcoin cash....
soooo many choices.
then when the current dip is done.
THEIR value will increase.
I also started at that time. I barely invested until I was past 5000 SP and even now I am close to even on what I've taken out and what I've put in, I am not an excellent writer. I did buy some votes in the past couple months, but not much before that. I just kept posting and I never took any money out.
It was harder as Everite states, as we didn't have bots and we didn't have minnow projects. Also the reward pool was not as linear as it is now, so the top posts took nearly the whole reward pool.
Quit worrying and build the account. SteemIt is a sink or swim platform. Survival of the fittest.
Not worried. Trying to convince more fish to swim their own way instead of leasing their power to big dolphins and whales. Here's how it goes, I get you to rent me your power for a small return. My vote goes in before yours and twenty others, and BAM, I get five times what you get, because of my SP (if I'm a whale) Suckers game. Investing that SP to vote for up and coming accounts and building your own syndicate is where it's at for the long haul. Who knows when the whales may stop selling votes? Or the prices get too high?
I do think minnows delegating their steem power while they are young, is a questionable strategy.
I came here knowing no one and ground my account up, I am now planning on staying here despite not being a great blogger. Why? Because there are other ways to invest and grow my Steem Power.
Why else would I stay if I didn't want to be a blogger when I grow up? (not meant to be said with a "tone"). I didn't picture it this way in the early days, it is what has developed. I agree we have a distribution problem. However, I am fine with the whales earning. The more people who are winning the more attractive this becomes as an investment.
Also, we really don't need to retain people who do not have anything to put in. Either time, outstanding talent or money.
BTW, it was not harder. Not even close. Talk to someone with a new account now, where they can barely make one or two posts a day and a few votes and comments before running out of bandwidth. That was NEVER a problem in the early days. Sorry, but you're both wrong. It's easier for you now, because you're established, know the ropes, have at least some audience and a vote big enough to provide seed money for a decent payout.
Antonopoulos is the second biggest name in crypto, behind Nakamoto.
If he talks about steem, billionaires start paying attention.
Well, there's the issue. Stop looking at trending. I never even think about it until someone complains about it.
But, the vast majority of pieces never get seen, especially if you're new, with not much audience, unless they reach that category.
I interpret what you're saying, "You'll never be seen unless you reach trending."
If that's what you're saying, you're dead wrong. Trending is never a requirement to be seen. It's just a distraction. Ignore it.
Pardon me for saying so, but I dare you to start a brand new account, with the SP being allotted, without upvoting yourself from this one, or announcing who you are, and get a $100 payout in less than three months. We are getting 250k posts per day. Getting seen is a problem, and IMO vote selling is part of it. You've been here since I got here, do you really think it's the same? And, without adding outside investment,or buying votes.
Way to move the goal post.
Restarting your account now , Has no merit on what a noob can do, You already know the places to go to get decent votes on your blogs, you know the whales to follow to get a higher return for votes,, so an experienced user re starting from scratch bears no value to the efforts a noob may have to put in
You have some good observations and points of view to consider.
Complain or try.
If I was a whale and hadn't been supporting the #dolphinschool 100%, I'd beach myself in shame after reading this!
The ideal solution here is a balance:
DON'T VOTE FOR CONTENT THAT YOU WOULDN'T BE PREPARED TO RESTEEM, AND THAT DOESN'T SUPPORT YOUR PRINCIPLES, INTERESTS & VIEWPOINTS!
I can offer the following guidance here, based on my recent investigation:
Thank you @steemgoblin for your holistic support of the true Steemit community, and @markrmorrisjr for the brilliant #dolphinschool!
100%*0=0!!
Do not bank on curation rewards. Voting is not a way to make money. Period. Go here https://steemviz.com/pendingpayouts look at any account you want, NO ONE MAKES THAT MUCH ON UPVOTES ANYWAY! Focus on building audience and producing good content.
Apologies, I shouldn't have used the word 'payout', I was assuming that high value payouts indicate users with the bigger accounts, which is wrong. What I was trying to suggest is voting with discernment to ensure support for all levels of user, as opposed to merely voting on posts that are are well written and interesting. Personally, I would vote on all your posts (and a few other users who have high value accounts) because I enjoy and appreciate the quality and content, but I realise now that I need to consciously spread my vote power to support users with smaller accounts whose posts I also enjoy and appreciate, so that they can grow in the community.
Perhaps multi emoji 'Likes' could be employed as seen on FB. One could then Upvote and/or Invest in the Post/Comment.
No, only vote on quality content, otherwise, you just divvy up the prize pool with no real purpose. The entire reason for it is to encourage quality content so that steem is based on a knowledge base filled with great art, information and stories. Your suggestion would merely encourage more mediocre content, creating the system we have now where trusted curators and bots are put into effect to upvote content that's not complete crap. I'm not saying don't vote someone with potential,but if they're just shitposting memes, they either need to add value, or go home.
Okey dokey, I'll make a note of this and try keep it hidden from my rebellious side.
That's what #dolphinschool is working on too, improving the content they offer, so that we CAN in good conscience, upvote them.
I'm am a participant in the #dolphinschool and you are totally right, the steemit system is not designed for the plankton to rise up in the chain
The Trending/new/hot system is obsolete, I really suffer to find content I would like to read. At least other social media recommend me content based on my recent likes/thumbs up. Here, the whales are the whole time on trending, the same 10 individuals in each category
But fuck it, I'm not going to surrender just because the system is designed just for the 0.5%, this is like real life but exaggerated, with patience and hard work we can get out of the bottom
You earned my follow
That was pretty fire, and that's the kind of thinking that will lift you out.
no, i don't think we should surrender either, I think we need to change hearts and minds!
how to go from plankton to whale
re invest all that you make into SP
when the opportunity presents itself
rent some SP for your account
(as much as you can)
if it was easy anyone could do it.
it's been done.
by whom? In the last five months, name one.
why do you say 'last five months'?
how quickly you accumulate SP is dependent on how hard you work
time is irrelvant.
How many posts have YOU made?
I've made over 26K (and comments)...since I've been here.
I'm making a good living...paid off all of my bills...and I've bought some toys.
a houseboat,( my retirement project) a new computer, and a tricycle
anyone can do it..all it takes is work
Wrong. (see above). You are conflating the luck of your success with hard work. I see by your account that you joined August of 2016, LONG before Zimbabwe sent cryto prices through the roof. believe it or not, the majority of users OP is referring to arrived here in December, left in January. These people did not have the fortune to arrive early like you did. Please do not try to make it seem like someone can enter this market at this point and achieve the same success as you.
you've convinced me.
I totally failed to take Zimbabwe into consideration..
how thoughtless of me...
Well, that's a good perspective on it. I respect what you're saying, but I still say, the eco system is decidedly harder to break into at this point.
you're flat wrong.
it's easier now that it ever has been.
It is easier for YOU, but it is not easier to get started, same prize pool almost dollar for dollar as end of summer 16, but 100x more users.
Ever play the game "King of the hill"? And you got to the hill when the game started and few players were involved. So few players were here early that most could fit at the top. Sure, you had to "climb" the hill. But now there are many more players, and you're telling me everyone can fit at the top?
you've convinced me.
you guys say you can't
you're right.
i've been here 4 weeks.. accumulated only $6 SP. Mostly derived from comments.
how do you rent steempower?
$6SP in only four weeks?
my payouts were .00001 for a long LONG time.
It took me two MONTHS to get that much
at 20 posts a day.
the way to rent SP is from Blocktrades when they put it up to rent again.
right now they don't have anymore to rent.
whatcha do..is keep pluggin away..
comments are GOOD.
if you can think it you can steemit..(post a lot...learn from doing)
when BlockTrades reopens for renting SP...buy some
(this is NOT investment advice..do what you wanna do...I'm just sayin)
then keep doing that for a while..
your SP will build very quickly.
I started same month as you, took me about a week to get my first $40 payout, was up to $16k SP in five months. It was MUCH easier in the beginning. And, with the limited SP a new account has, comments are not necessarily good, they run out after about two short posts and a half dozen comments, along with ten votes. You don't know.
my votes dont count for shits.. not even 0.01 and i still have 98% voting power
you should NEVER let your voting power get that high.
if it's above 80 at the end of the day (when You quit steemit for the night)
then you have been lax.
I always vote it down to seventy.
20% will regenerate in 24hrs...it's best to leave a cushion.
if you don't use it you loose it...why waste money?
if nothing else vote for yourself.
the more votes you make..the more SP you get...it's called curation..
it starts off tiny but builds.
nothing happens on Steemit that you don't MAKE happen.
I am a minnow and working hard to grab the attention of whales to earn some good amount of support my education expenses. There should be an equal distribution definitely but minnows also need to work hard to earn their pie.
You didn't even read the post. here is a prime example of what @steemgoblin is talking about! You commented on something you didn't read, meanwhile others upvote things they don't read and read and comment on things they say are awesome, but they don't upvote. ENGAGE read it again, your comment has zero to do with this post.
Sometimes there is a language barrier too sir. I am not a native speaker so I may get it the other way.
Be that as it may, I didn't intend to say that anyone who doesn't work deserves reward.
@angelm is not a "sir" she is my very female wife. LOL Mother of eight, to be exact. HA!
I'd have to agree with @angelm, it kind of seems you didn't read my whole post. I'm not suggesting voting for anyone that doesn't work for it, just the fucking opposite.
Great read. I believe in everything you are saying.
You have some very good points but when money is the common denominator, it is so hard to change anything.
I'm just asking everyone to support real users that they relate to.
Yup, that is exactly what i am currently doing. Building myself up while helping others that I feel make credible contributions to the blockchain and community.
Change the way you act. That's all that's needed. Then convince two other users to do the same. Take away their base. What he's saying is right on, it's just like the real world, the common denominator in all of this is that the little guy at the bottom, investing in the big guy at the top, gets peanuts while the whale makes bank. Invest in yourself, instead of them.
Yes I agree with you. A lot of people will agree then go out and do the SAME thing.
I believe my fellow Steemians are all smart to realize what is happen yet still do the same actions day after day.
It is the equivalent of Meek from Game of Thrones mentality.
Yeah,unfortunately they will, then when they have no say in how things go, they'll blame the top
i appreciate your blog dare thanks for sharing
Well here's hoping it gets some traction.
First and foremost thanks to you and @markmorrisjr, the #dolphinschool challenge is doing really great, am a participant and honestly am enjoying every bit of it.
As for me I came to terms with the low pay-outs, as I work towards building a quality following and am getting one or two people appreciating my content and that motivates me. I will keep building on what I have going here and when I succeed I will repay it back to upcoming plankton (even now am trying to do that with the little I have)
I just hope a whale see's your post (they will definately), hope they will take action.
Great post @steemgoblin! I truly believe everything you've said because I continue to watch when a posting that 's only 30 words and because they buy it through bots get more payouts than those of us trying in the #dolphinschool to break out and make a name for ourselves.
I've noticed on many posts the views will be up high and the votes are low and then in other groups such as #20_votes_plus they'll have not even 10% the amount of views compared to their votes, which means it's being voted on without even being looked at. So sad.
Great post, sorry my power can't give you more than $0.01 but this deserves 100% upvote for sure.
Thanks, this is all I'm calling for. If we really read and engage, and the same people end up on top, the deserve to be there, but when the lower rung of the trending ladder is up over 200 votes and $100 in payout, wow, how do you get there without the $40 SBD to buy votes?
The voting without viewing sounds like something that could have a software solution, if both are tracked.
@novacadian Could be, I think like the article says many circles are just supporting those already on top and therefore they don't even read the content.
Wow, some how this post revealed me some of the problems that I don't know about this platform. This is really educational for me.
You're making a lot of sense...
thanks
I agree, I work hard on every post, I do one a day. You look at the trending, it's a couple of pasted charts and some text saying buy low sell high. It makes a thousand bucks. anyone could post that 20 times a day. Meanwhile minnows scrounge to get a couple bucks for a high quality creative post. My upvotes come from people like me or just a little bigger than myself. They work hard and post great content also, and I support them. What I wonder is why so much steem goes to info you can Google easily, and is outdated as soon as it's up. Is that really valuable for mining purposes? And what about all the creative original content created specifically for Steemit just sitting there making a buck or two or worse none at all? If I were a whale I would be looking for high quality content that is under exposed. Not charts that are garbage the next day. It's not hard, I find great content every day from minnows and plankton, I upvote it boom, they get a penny. You're just saying reinvest the profit where it belongs and it is healthier for the community, it's that simple. I get it, who wants to browse Steemit when you're sitting on your island sipping margaritas. It just seems to me it would be in the whales best interest to build a larger value base filled with superior content. Op is right, those creators are what will keep this platform viable. They need to see some reasonable growth, because if they are talented creators at some point they might as well go to a traditional medium to make money. Maybe rather than sell to the highest bidder a whale could find a few solid active minnows and delegate it to them so they can support solid content? Nothing sucks more than reading an amazing original story or watching a great video with .02 payout and then clicking trending and seeing a cut and paste job with 500.00. Or maybe that's just me. Great post by the way goblin.
work harder...Lately I've not been feeling well so I've ONLY posted eight times a day.
when I feel good I post 20 or more....and comment a lot (like now)
hint: most voting is done by bots...keep that in mind
hint2: most of the people who actually READ post have the attention span of a gnat.
(keep it short...)
hint 3: sturgeons law...so get cracking..to get to the 10% you got to get rid of the 90%
I could not agree with you more and this is one of the objectives I will shoot for when I become a dolphin or whale
Me too my friend, me too.
Thanks @steemgoblin. I think you make some valid arguments. Do I think someone like me starting at the bottom and investing in almost nothing ( just $200) can make it ?
I'll let you know by Summer lol
Seriously, I just do not see how I can't. Not being cocky just confident in my abilities and confident in the Plan I have set. Which is EVERYDAY blogging and interacting with Comments.
Do I think the Buying Votes is a problem.?? From what I have seen, YES !! The only thing I have done is the Minow Support Bot and Hottopic Resteem.
I really do not plan to buy votes or sell them.
In the end steemgoblin is right. Attaining success will be how can we produce high quality content on wide variety of Subjects.
Sorry, but the Crypto talk and photography will NOT cut it.
It just won't not in the long term. Because to keep attracting more and more new members you have to accomodate them and their demographics. Which will include a wide variety of interests
thanks steem for the article :)
I'm not saying you can't. Not at all, but, to do it "organically" without buying a lot of votes you might have to take everit's method to heart and make a lot of noise with multiple posts a day.
I am just a newborn/redfish but follow you closely and totally agree with what you're saying!! Not really interested in all the blogging about crypto- nor do I understand! I just roll right past em. I completely agree with what you're saying! @lindsaybowes, @hendrix22 and others say the exact same!! Hopefully more and more will jump on this bandwagon!
Check out today's post on #dolphinschool, I just read it and Mark has some interesting points along this line.
Can I ask if the big wigs know about the project? I am doing this project, and it's brilliant, not just for here, but in learning how to blog and write effectively online. It's a valuable FREE resource. I have no direct contact to a whale, and as a small fish I have no way of getting that attention DIRECTLY. Have we a conjuit? A witness or someone to pass this on to those that do have direct whale support. As anyone contacted @ned, would he be willing to discuss?
The only one I know for sure has paid attention is @blocktrades on that one day. Fishing for whales is risky. If you go after them in a spammy way, they may wipe out your rewards entirely. Mark's approach is sound, you're getting good attention, and ultimately, adding your own steady followers who upvote you, and you engage with them, is the best method. Whale votes are capricious, one week they're there, but then suddenly gone for a month, whereas, everit has consistent votes. I just think he could be getting a lot more for the work he's putting in.
Yes, i understand, just supporting the campaign would be great though for Steemit and whale reps...if that matters I suppose.
At the time of this comment this post has been up for 13 hours. It's had 144 views. The comments are engaging and informative, not the typical f4f and "nice post" bullshit. It's currently at $9.78. Content that is far inferior can garner exponentially more in a fraction of the time on trending. And that's a problem for Steemit's survival. It doesn't take long for a sentient being to realize that " just create good content" is a meaningless mantra on Steemit. I've seen absolute shit make tons on here, and excellent content receive zilch. I've been here for two months, was initially very excited, told others about it, got a few friends to sign up, but I'm considering leaving, EXACTLY the process this post is describing. At @dissfordents you would find I did far better than the majority of newbies; $10.81 sbd off my first post thanks to @troglodactyl so I'm not whining over the rewards. I've done well. But these Cassandras have a valid point - @steemgoblin and @markmorrisjr but going up against enternched self-interest is never easy.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
RESTEEMED
Thanks for your support! I appreciate it. This conversation right here, needs to happen in a hundred other places on steemit. Learn the platform, don't assume Everit's is the only way,it's not. Find a niche, build a following, #dolphinschool can show you how.
Well, Everit is a work house. It's commendable, but he did it the hard way. I've been watching this platform for 18 mos, busy with life. Now I'm here, got time to spend and for my money, follow #dolphinschool and @markrmorrisjr before you give up. It can be done, but it's not easy.
You are so right! I have been very active since early December and have noticed alot of changes. When the value of Steen was up over $10 there were alot if great posts and it seemed that everyone was voting on everything like crazy. Now it is in the $3 range there seems to be less people and less posts, but there are still crypto bussiness posts getting over $300 per post. I know for me when I get a $10-$20 post I feel like I am winning, but when it is down it feels like losing because it feels like there isn't anyone to see your work.....
but, that also means LESS COMPETITION! Now is the time to move forward,the price will be back It's still tied to bitcoin, which is predicted to rebound here in about 10 days.
I love that, but was does move forward mean? More followers? Better posts? Investing? I love the idea of moving forward! And moving up.
Keep doing what you'd do if the price was good.
And to prove his point, over 5x as many views as upvotes!
come on people!
Hello @steemgoblin,
I don't know you but I was curious to see who @everittdmickey unfollowed. I want to argue your point and hope that you do not take it personally. The system itself makes sense to me, but not when considering the recent mentality shift because some people want to abuse Steemit.
When a new user comes to the Steemit and runs into a wall for posting too frequently, their very first thought should be; "How can I use the bandwidth I have more efficiently/wisely?"
If I could change something (I know this isn't burger king) I would literally make the trending page inaccessible to new users/entirely, so that users don't become disillusioned with what they think they are supposed to be doing to make more rewards, and just be themselves. A new user is not going to be interested in the Steemit's Eco-System or ethics, but how to make the amazing rewards that they see other people getting.
All of the positive and negative things in trending work, and when someone sees it, they will naturally want to replicate it, not understanding any other person's perspective.
I'm starting to realize that it isn't as much the abuse that we are supposed to be stopping or preventing, but this reactive thinking that causes someone to view abuse as the best course of action. By having categories, tags, and front-end GUI improved upon by @steemitdev, I believe that the act of curation, discovering authors, and sorting out low-quality content would greatly improve while being the most cost/time effective solution to the host of the issues currently plaguing the entire site.
Although I won't say it's impossible to build an account from the ground up, I do believe that there are far more content creators competing now. There does need to be some reorganization to better accommodate this rapidly growing population. I learned that part in World Civilizations class c:
P.S. I still feel that if you produce high-quality content that your work would be found, no matter how many people joined!
Mahalo,
@shello
Ah, gee, did little ole Everit get his panties in a twist and flounce? Oh well. Yes, you got it, and no, hiding trending won't help, because the incentive is what brings them here in the first place, and yes, they are interested, there's 20 of them right now in #dolphinschool with @markrmorrisjr doing great things. And Everit must have missed where I told people what he had done was amazing, but whatever.
Welp, and true- Seeing what's possible makes people want to stick around a little longer. I've taken a gander at #dolphinschool and seems to be a pretty good initiative. Just my thoughts on trying to deter abuse. I think Everit does some great stuff too, rough around the edges sometimes though~
Well, his stuff isn't great. That's not what I mean. It's amazing he's been able to get where he is. He did it the hard way. Dolphinschool is really helping the authors so far. And yeah, I know what you mean, there are a lot of ideas, but not many solutions.
I'm a student in #dolphinschool. Thank you for this post. It's true that it is difficult to get started here. I am here less than a month. Huge thanks to @markrmorrisjr for guiding me, coaching me and showing me a few ropes.
I've managed to pull in a couple thousand followers on FB, but here it's not so easy. The students on this course are producing relevant posts and they are being virtually ignored. They would be completely ignored if it weren't for the other students and the instructor. It's certainly an object to be overcome.
Could we use some help? Absolutely! As all minnows could. But we tend to mimic life, I think. We will probably stand out here comparably to how we stand out in the real world. It's life. We try. We learn (or not) We try again. (or not)
Thank you again for your help and for caring.
Oh, and I don't look at trending much unless it's in a category I'm interested in. Because trending doesn't change very often after you mute the asian appearing crypto guy. (I don't believe he's Asian. But my feed sure looks better now. :)
The truth is getting followers here is drop dead easy. But, getting good followers is hard. If you want followers, just start following any and everybody, about 10% will follow you back. Especially minnows. I'll be building up my number here over the next weeks, so watch.
I would actually like quality followers who are like minded. I have found a few, but obviously not enough. Minnows (I'm told I'm yet a plankton) don't know any better much of the time. They don't understand, I didn't either before meeting @markrmorrisjr , how far an upvote will get you when properly placed.
We don't have good manners or good sense. Trying to learn or help others will sometimes get your hand slapped. I'm an Entrepreneur, so I'll probably survive, but the worker bees? I don't know. How big does Steemit need to be? Mark is actually creating quality followers out of ordinary plankton. What a great solution to the problem.
I hope he keeps it up. And I certainly intend to watch you. "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving. Step up to the table and Live" Mame
I don't know. I accept that outside steemit, life is hard. Steemit, life is hard. Steem on. Not everyone gets to be rich. But we can all wake up the next day. I wake up, I steemit, I sleep knowing the whales are never gonna help me, the community is not interested in #improv, my charts, pics or stories. But every so often I meet someone and there are pennies in between. Life goes on. Life is hard. Fighting it only makes it harder. Go with the flow and wish everyone else the best. All the best.
Check out #dolphinschool. You don't have to settle for pennies. Lots of people love improv. Life is not hard. I'm not feeling down, I just want users to vote their own SP. Good luck, man, really. you sound unhappy.