Steemit Bandwidth - What I've Learned

IBM PC Convertible model 5140

Newbie Bandwidth Frustration

Ok, I'll admit, I was frustrated and mad as hell that I ran into a bandwidth issue, couldn't comment, couldn't make a post, nothing, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to publish a new blog post that I said screw it and published it to Minds where I don't run into that issue. It was truly frustrating especially being a new user that's not even a week old at this point. So I kept researching, reading, and figuring out WTF is going on and how to fix this. This is the second time I've ran into the bandwidth exceeded error in my time here. Both times, come to find out, was when I was trying to post something in the morning. The implementation of a captcha system to help curtail spam would be fantastic.

Best Times to Consume or Post

Overall, I found that the bandwidth is algorithmic based. So if you're a new user, here's what you should know. Between 5 AM and 12 PM EST, expect to not be able to post, comment, vote, etc. Just assume this is strictly reading and watching time and nothing else, don't expect to post comments or anything at this point so this is consumption only time. If you're not into consumption but rather production, then fiddle with something else for the time being. After that period of time, you'll be better set to start posting your content, commenting, etc.

Voting Power and Steem Power

Sorry to say but you're going to need to start being more greedy with your voting because voting also consumes available bandwidth. Every little acting, including editing a post, editing a comment, upvoting someone, cashing out, etc, all consumes bandwidth, and if you're out of bandwidth, good luck on trying to "power up", just wait and wait. Be sure to check yourself on Steemd by using @usernamehere at the end. Like steemd.com/@outtheshellvlog for sake of example. Just replace my username with your own and you'll see your bandwidth and other stats.

Now in regards to your voting power, you have a limited amount of power, so the more you vote, the less value it has. If you want to accrue voting power, you're going to need to be a hell of a lot greedier than you'd personally like to be. We're used to social media giants like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc where we can just upvote/like/thumbs up endlessly and not have any real negative effects towards us, this is not the case with Steemit as every action you take consumes bandwidth and as a newbie, this bandwidth is super precious so be more cautious with it. You'll want your voting power to have some weight behind it, so conserve, be stingy. I hate to say it like that but it's the best way to increase the value.

Save Bandwidth on Images

Next, your images also end up consuming bandwidth on Steemit as well, so you're next thing is to offload your resources like a self hosted WordPress blog on a crap server. Upload your images you're going to use to a cloud based storage like imgur, imgbb, tinypic, pixady, megaimage, etc, just look one up and choose one you want to use for your image uploads instead of uploading to the blockchain to conserve your bandwidth further.

If you're unsure how to use markup and would prefer something a bit easier, I would highly recommend StackEdit it'll help you format your text, insert links and images and everything else, especially if those images you're using are offloaded from another site like imgur for sake of example.

Create Content Offline

If you run into your bandwidth limit, you don't have to stay strictly in consume mode during the times I listed above, you could instead start writing new content to post later when you have the bandwidth allocation again. Use a text editor or possibly StackEdit or other WYSIWYG editor and when you're done creating and formatting your article, save it to a notepad on your desktop, as a text file. Then when you have bandwidth, create the post you're after creating and copy the contents of your text file into Steemit and submit it away.

Why you hit the bandwidth limit

I know, you're curious as to why it happened, so let's get into it now that we're at the end of my article. There's only so much space available in the blockchain at any given time and that block has to be used by who has the available credit, for a whale this isn't so much a problem but for us newbies it becomes a hassle because we have next to nothing. One single comment or a single upvote can destroy us for a while and have to wait even longer.

When there's heavy traffic on Steemit, there's going to be even more people (and sadly bots) trying to post. Unfortunately it's a system that doesn't work as intended from what I can see. If you have two new users that joined the same time, one creates long posts like I typically produce and the other posts misc garbage and just churns out the posts quickly, who do you think gets hit with the hammer first? Users like me. It's a sad reality.

I've likened it before as a Bouncer at a club that's only meant to let the hot ladies in for free and make sure the dudes pay to get in. However the hot ladies are stuck behind the rope while the ugliest guys are passing through just fine. Or another way to put it, a captcha that's meant to stop robots and let humans through easily, but the humans can't read the captcha and the robot just shrugs and walks right past the captcha.

Best Mindset to Have

If you're only on Steemit, d.Tube and dmania solely for the sake of scoring some cash or thinking it's going to be a way to get rich quick or anything like that, you're sorely mistaken. Don't quit your day job because you now have a Steemit account. It's best to think of your Steemit as a way to express yourself, to write and to connect. Treat it a lot like an old school MySpace blog or a blog on Tumblr or Wordpress.com or blogger. Write and create content because you want to. If your only incentive to content creation is money, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons.