Why are we here?

in #blog6 years ago

I mean this in the terms of what has brought so many people from such different backgrounds all into the same space, working towards a goal. Not in terms of having an existential crisis into the meaning of life just for clarification.

Why does steemit work for you?

Looking at reports from @penguinpablo, who does a very interesting daily report into the numbers behind steemit, there were 20,000 new accounts created yesterday bringing the total number up to around 700,000. In my last post I put down my thoughts on where steemit will move towards this year and my overall prediction for the crypto market / blockchain technology as a whole.

https://steemit.com/blog/@niallon11/the-short-term-future-of-steemit

So now that I have covered the where, I decided to look at the why.

  • Why did I join?
  • Why did you join?
  • Why do we log in every day and spent our time that we could put into hundreds of uses here?

As a person and somebody who always enjoyed writing it's important for me to ask questions. I like to understand people and what makes them move in a certain direction. The first one is easy to answer. Why am I here?

I am here because I have an interest in crypto first of all and steemit has been a great source of information into how it works and what is going on.
I don't like facebook, I don't use twitter or instagram and have no interest in trying to portray my life to others in a way that doesn't reflect me as a person. I love steemit for the fact that it is so more honest as an outlet.
There are no celebrities, no advertisements and it's user base contains a hardcore group of highly intelligent and genuine people. What's not to love about that?
I know that there is a monetary value to be taken into account here as well and it is a factor as to why I post and put in time but personally it is only secondary to me growing as a user and progressing on the site. So that's me. What then about all of you?

I would like to think that people are inherently good and that it is just the minority that cause the largest amount of issues. I know that a lot of you will have seen or read about the flagging and rewards pool issues going on at the top end of the user base. It is not something that I would like to get involved in while both sides are going for each other. What I would like to focus on are the people who do so much work to improve the site and encourage more people to get involved and grow.

As a writer at heart I take part in the fiftywords challenge by @miniature-tiger.
I enjoy the free-write hosted by @mariannewest and have gotten great use from some of the servers on discord.

From a community view, I have seen users like @reggaemuffin, @fulltimegeek and various others delegation voting power to various good projects instead of just trying to grow themselves which is a very decent thing to do.

I have seen some brilliant posts with help for minnows, votes and comments to help them along their journey and having been helped many times will try to give back where I can.

I know that the time I have put in here has been beneficial for me and I would hope that others feel the same. While a few of my friends have now joined the site, originally it was kind of nice to have absolute anonymity at the start and could feel a lot freer with some of my writing compared to sites where I knew everybody from home was following. You can present a fresh version of yourself on the site and that really appealed to me for finding the people that you connect with rather than connecting based solely on geographical reasons. (Disclaimer: Still love the Irish as they are a crazy and unique bunch of people but also nice to branch out as well.)

I feel that steemit has presented us all with an opportunity to do things a bit differently than previously and I for one will relish the chance to have my say on how it moves forward over the next few years as wee will see a lot of changes from the growing user base.

Thank you.

To anybody reading this, feel free to comment, follow, advise or challenge. I hope to meet many more interesting people on the site as it grows over the next months.

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I'm mainly here because I wanted to push myself further by doing something that I was always scared of doing: writing.

For me it's a bit weird to publish blogs and have them viewed by people who might be critical. It's fun though and I'm sure that my writing will keep improving as I post more.

Thats a great attitude to have coming into the place. Having a goal is really good to keep yourself buzy on here and post regularly. I know its not easy to share certain things but you can only hope to improve from the people who read and comment on your work.
It might not always be nice but its how we learn and grow.

Yeah, even negative comments can still be motivating to improve your work. I also forgot to add that it's very good practice to improve my English skills.

Probably even more so if the commenter is good. Its just important to make sure that critiques help the person to improve and not just tear down their hard work which can be a fine line to tread sometimes.

If you are on discord there is a channel called "the writers block". There are some brilliant users on their who help and encourage other writers along the way. I found it a great place to chat about writing and projects.

I know what you mean about the freedom of anonymity. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take off the mask (literally) and show myself, maybe in a while. To be free of all the pre-existing baggage that comes with being who you are is nice for a time, even if you know it ain't gonna last! :)

Thats a great way to describe it really. And where i am in life i would like to change how people percieve me compared to when i was younger and had different priorities but it is very hard to change people opinions. It so nice then to start from nothing and build something fresh and new.

It is very hard to change people's opinions of you, especially if they've known you a long time. I've always liked a verse from the Rascal Flatts song "I'm moving on" that struck a chord with me,
I've lived in this place and I know all the faces
Each one is different but they're always the same
They mean me no harm but it's time that I face it
They'll never allow me to change.

True, in any aspect of live its tough to change peoples views on a subject. I have seen it time and time again myself and been guilty of it as well. Not impossible to change but very difficult.

I only joined a couple days ago but I like the idea of an alternate platform to interact with people and share whatever nonsense I happen to come up with whether it's random gaming moments or pictures I take throughout the day. Discovering DLive was probably what made me finally sign up though. I've always wanted to stream more and I figure why not give it a shot here (when I finally do get around to it.)

100 per cent. It does take a while to get used to the format and unless you are very luck then you will earn very little on your posts for a long time. The important thing is to do it because you want to and not for money. If you are good then people will notice and you can grow from there. Enjoy.

Oh yea I'm coming into this expecting nothing and not knowing exactly where I'll end up but plan to have fun along the way. Worst case scenario I still come out of it every day with a new experience.

yup. I've learned lots of new skills from the site and gained some computing knowledge along the way which will always stand to me. I've started to earn a few rewards alright but all of it is going into powering up my account right now which is my short term aim.

@niallon11 Nice writing man, new member here and a fellow Paddy :) I too like the freedom of not everyone knowing me, and I've grown to really dislike Facebook , Twitter etc and don't use them anymore.. Steemit is an exciting new approach to social media and will drive out the trolls hopefully

You seem to be running off the same page that I am then. There will be a lot of Irish on here eventually and i have seen a few popping up here and there in the past couple of weeks.
Originally i only saw a handful for a long time. It's worth to follow @steem-dublin for some info and if you join the discord servers we have a channel even though it is just starting and fairly quiet. Let me know if you want the link.

Thanks for the info. I've followed @steem-dublin now. I see there have been a few meet ups for pints, will try make it up to Dublin for one of these. Ya I can definitely see this platform becoming more and more popular in Ireland, there are only something like 700,000 users I think, sure there are more people living in Dublin. It's cool to be here early on.

Absolutely. Some of the other lads that i have met on the site were here a good bit before me and are very helpful. I live out the west though so i've never made it to one of the meet-ups myself. Working weekends is a killer for my social life. One of the days it will work out and i will call in.

Thank you so much for the shout out!! I am glad that you get value from the freewrites!!
And I so agree. This platform gives us an opportunity to try different things, have fun with it and earn a bit.

You were actually one of the first people that i came across on steemit. I've been following your efforts with a while and all the time and help that you have shared does not go unnoticed on the site. So thank you.

Yeahh freewriters rulez! 😛✌️

Best group on steemit. 👏😎

We're here to earn money.
We're here to earn more money.
We're here to help.
We're here because we're addicted.
We're here to find love.
We're here because we want to learn and explore new things.
We're here with no reason.
We're here because somebody promoted steemit and we just clicked the link then got hooked.
We're here because now we feel this is what we're looking for online.

I'll go about 50/50 with you on that one. But everybody has there own motivations for being on the site. I will definitely agree that it is what we needed online.

Good luck to you as you continue to learn and grow as an adult. We have no doubt that you will make all of us proud in your new role!

Thank you. Thats a very nice sentiment to put across and is what i am aimimg for.

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