It almost feels like a lifetime ago that I'd snuck into the now defunct Steemit.com Slack room to troll it's users after being informed by a long time online friend and mentor that I should probably get involved with the STEEM project. At that time it was impossible for me to comprehend exactly how much my life was about to change by checking out our network.

The Early Days On STEEM

It's hard to describe the whole frantic buzz this place (Steemit.com) had when it first opened.

Payouts equaling well over $10,000+ were a common sight in these days. People in the thousands flocked to the site from all walks of life. It truly became a melting pot of different peoples and cultures, seemingly with a very low tolerance for hatred or abuse of it's users.

In these times I'd staked out a bit of fame for myself after having some artwork of mine land itself on the front page.. Almost in some kind of furious hunger spawned by the sight of my illustrations on the front page people began to commission artworks left, right and center. Some patrons still sport their drawings by myself. It's kind of an honour actually the more I think about it, to have been so widely accepted and celebrated in the community for my artwork near the launch of Steemit.com. It was a different time almost back then...

_{( Some early #klyeart from my post "How to Milk A Steem Whale" )}

It was around this time I'd decided to run a witness campaign. The skills I'd learned in previous job positions and in my own hobbyist endevours gave me a slight edge over your average bear when it came to technical work as well as dealing with other people online. The first feat I set out to accomplish to ensure I'd earned my place as a top witness was to get STEEM & SBD on a well known crypto e-commerce plugin which would allow people using popular CMS based web stores.

While it took longer than expected I got STEEM / SBD listed on Coinpayments.net

These are what I refer to now personally as the golden start of STEEM. It was a truly remarkable time of abundance and wealth for those who had stumbled upon the platform.

Many wondered back then where the money was coming from to pay out all of these lavish $10,000+ payouts. One of the terms that was frequently used to explain it is seen below:

"The Value Comes From the Content"

_{Ned Scott - CEO of Steemit Inc.}

The amount of hours I spent trying to figure out the economic model behind this whole experiment is almost embarrassing to think about now. While not entirely wrong, the phrase above slowly faded into obscurity and a new mentality towards the income model was seemingly adapted, leading to the a massive cut in inflation rates of STEEM and SBD. The once massive daily payout pool slowly began to dwindle as less and less investors capital flowed in to replace the depleting price on the STEEM token.

Well before this point it became extremely apparent to me that in order to stimulate the STEEM economy new services of value would have to be developed, tested and marketed in order to make STEEM / SBD more attractive buy and holds rather than just another token to trade for Bitcoin. In a matter of a few months I'd put down Paint and stopped doing art for the most part in favour of focusing on efforts to continue expanding my coding knowledge.

Currently a number of different projects have been dreamt up with development started on them. Keep in mind these are only the STEEM related projects I've got incubating:

STEEM.GLOBAL - Free STEEM for Everyone! 24hr STEEM Faucet

_{( Operational: Go Get Some FREE STEEM Everyday )}

Steem-Roller.com - An Ambitious Crowd Bankrolled 1% Dice Game

_{( Under Construction: This One Needs to be Tested & Perfected Before Launch )}

Streemit.Online - Free to Use Video Streaming Service for STEEM

_{( Offline / Rebuilding: Need to Fix Video Servers )}

STEEM Network Moving Forward

What I would like to see is more attempt made to create income from the content here without invading people's privacy. While generally I am opposed to the idea of advertising if it was optional / opt in with profit sharing elements attached to it I certainly wouldn't be able to complain so long as it was consensual on both the displayer & viewers end.

With hardfork 17 on the horizon I've been looking back on how the STEEM network has changed and can't help but feel that while progress perhaps hasn't been as fast as some would have liked to see what has been there is impressive. The dynamic nature of how problems arise and are coded against is downright astounding in my opinion. STEEM isn't a group of people so much as an incredibly powerful and adaptable collective mind including some very brilliant bright individuals.

Thank You to STEEM

This network has completely changed the way I think, act, feel and live as a person.

While the future may be a tad uncertain I've got faith that STEEM isn't going to flop.

We may see lower prices, we may see higher prices, it's irrelevant at the end of the day.

It's the technology and community that makes STEEM have real world value...

Everything else is just a bonus really! Keep this in mind moving forwards and you'll be fine.

---

Vote @klye for Witness!

_{( Currently Holding Down Rank #22 ... W00T!)}

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

A Proud STEEMbassador of Canada

Thank you for your votes, the opportunity and support!