RE: What If You Treated Steemit As If It Were Your Pension Fund?
I have been over at Google+ for the last five years watching it slowly die. Even with 11K followers there, the conversation is mostly dead. The majority of accounts are not used anymore, and people simply do not log into the site.
Google is censoring content. Facebook is even worse, and people there are banned for "offensive" content which isn't offensive but apparently hurt at least one person's feelings. There's no reason to be on Facebook anymore either.
Social media, to me at least as it sounds like it is to you, is a place to go and have intelligent conversations with people who are seeking to further the same causes in life. It is a place to learn from others and share what you know at the same time.
No other site does that better than Steemit. I wish I had been active back when I first opened my account, but at least I'm here now. This is a wonderful place with great content, many friends (people furthering the same ideals), and lots of good discussions!
The type of hierarchy here on steemit has a pretty similar structure to tribes, where the elders have the greatest influence over the direction the tribe will take, our steemit whales are the elders and whether you start a steemit account now or earlier being a contributing part of this community/tribe will eventually lead to becoming an elder, just be happy we made it in before the masses catch wind of this. :)
Yes, I almost feel sorry for the other platforms. People will be leaving them in droves. I invested in Minds.com and liked the idea of Liberty.me, but I believe those sites are going to lose out to Steemit too.