Vlad's Diary: Why I Moved to Steemit and Love the Blockchain (December 16th 2017)

Throughout the years,  the development of the internet has pressured me into creating multiple accounts just to go with the flow. I've joined Yahoo Messenger to be able to keep up with my classmates back in the 6th grade, I've joined Hi5 (a MySpace clone) just to be among the cool kids, and I've moved to Facebook for the sake of keeping in contact with some of my foreign friends. These platforms were all instrumental for my personal development and extension of my view on the world. 

However, as soon as I found out that there's a trade-off involved and my private data (as well as the information that I generate) is being monetized for the sake of paying a service fee, I've started to feel disillusioned and less free. Personally, I resent the Google business model and deem it unfair and abusive. It's nice to benefit from all these services without paying with some kind of official currency, but a guy like me would rather keep his data private and secure while being subjected to a monthly fee. 

Sure, I can agree with the idea that the technology wouldn't have been adopted by the masses if all the applications required a form of fiat currency-centered payment. We do have to thank Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, and other intrusive internet corporations for what they have given us: personally, I don't think I would have ever created an e-mail account if I didn't benefit from this "free" business model. And it's the same with other internet services that I've gladly accessed throughout the years by giving away my private data and knowingly generating them revenue.

But we're living truly amazing times and just when we thought that the system is getting settled, a bigger disruptive power is on its way to overthrow the multi-billion dollar yet fragile establishment. 

We've only used candles until light bulbs and electricity became accessible, and we have quickly ditched wired phones when the mobile technology has acquired a greater cost-benefit ratio. 

Likewise, I think that the current internet (or, as we sometimes call it, internet 2.0) is facing a crucial disruptive moment: the blockchain technology is quickly moving into the mainstream thanks to the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies (I guess everyone's heard of Bitcoin by now), and it's only a matter of time until all the ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings, i.e. cryptocurrency-financed start-up programs which aim to create applications on the blockchain) pay off and deliver services like our world has never seen.

I'm happy that I benefit from the unique chance to try this revolutionary and disruptive technology. For the first time in my life as an internet user, I am voluntarily joining a social network without being pressured to move on with the rest of the crowd. 

I have no friends on Steemit, but I intend to use this post to promote its features. The idea that we can use a social media platform that's built on the blockchain is simply amazing. And it doesn't require any technical knowledge either!

In the grand scheme of things, who wouldn't want to get paid for the content that they generate? 

And who wouldn't want to hold onto a cryptocurrency that's still in its early development phase and will grow in distribution and value as soon as the number of users grow? 

To some of us it was nearly inconceivable to move from Facebook to something else, and the platform often tries to turn itself into a regular part of our lives (they always remind us about what we did some time ago and how many friends we've met through their website, and these days it has even become an instrument of public relations, official communication, and political discourse).

But having the chance to join a fresh movement that's on the rise and promises to treat us in a more fair way is truly astonishing. It proves to us that human innovation never really reaches an apex, and it's a demonstration that our social movements and culture are permanently bound to new revolutions.

They say that the blockchain allows information technology to finally fulfil its initial purpose of enabling free, private, secure, and equal exchange of data.

Much like the political revolutions of the late 18th century (such as the American and the French ones), we are seeing how engineers of our communication technologies rediscover the founding purposes of the networks. The internet was never intended to become a mean for mass surveillance and outrageous monetization of user content. 

It's good that the technology grew and spread, but the time has come for us to move onto a new medium that makes use of new and fairer means of distribution. If the situation from a few years ago would pressure us to bow our heads and accept the trade-off between privacy, security, and free access, now we finally get to choose.

In many ways, Steemit borrows from Facebook, Google, and the likes. They also offer the service for free and take a fee in order to maintain it up, running, and profitable. But there is no reliance on advertisement and third parties: instead, your content and activity generates coins and you get to benefit from their value. 

We write long posts and publish pictures and videos on Facebook just for the sake of expressing thoughts, ideas, and plans. But we don't get paid for it on that platform, even though generating the content requires means that aren't for free. And this is something that Steemit corrects.

This is one of the major incentives that I've found in moving to this platform. This is my first post and I have yet to explore it and discover its full potential, but I can already think of ways to use it on the long terms. Maybe that someday I will reap what I've sawn - or maybe that this will be a failed experiment. Nevertheless, the idea of being free to choose and support something that has potential to disrupt the social media market really appeals to me.

Of course, I won't give up on my Facebook account and will continue to keep in touch with my virtual friends. There are many of them whom I cannot contact any other way. But I will try to post some of the important stuff here and give people a reason to follow my thoughts and ideas.

This can easily turn into a personal blog-diary that's monetized better and more transparently than Google's Adsense ever could. Furthermore, the idea that a greater adoption will increase the value of the generated coins is really interesting for me. Can anyone become a millionaire by accessing social media and generating content? Well, let's see! Game on, Steemit!