I finally watched this and now I'm not sure I belong here
Guys, I think I understand now a bit of Steemit culture
I wasn't privy to before creating this account in December. Seeing Andrew Levine's guilt play out in this video has made me realize that I may not have brought the type of content to Steemit that senior Steemians seem to expect.
Absolutely everything he says is true and valid.
It's actually his plight that made me realize that this might even be keeping many other artists at bay. And that's sad because: art.
Then I finally watched this video by @jerrybanfield
(who I've now come to realize is truly a great content creator!) and I've started to have some serious doubts about the integrity of the Steemit platform.
As an artist and an artist representative, I'm not sure Steemit has the integrity necessary to represent art,
which is ironic because art is the best content Steemit could ever hope for. The integrity I'm referring to isnt' the blockchain, it's the culture; the people who are currently here participating in this "experiment".
I'm going to stick around mostly because money has already been put into this account and because I want to see this all play out from the inside. However, my blogging may be sporadic, contain unrelated content, and will probably just be ramblings such as this post. Why? Because blogging quality content is hard work and honestly, Steemit's attitude and culture have unmotivated me. After some thought I've realized it's because of this effect:
From The Steem Whitepaper
The actual distribution will depend upon the voting patterns of users, but we suspect that the vast majority of the rewards will be distributed to the most popular content…
The impact of this voting and payout distribution is to offer large bounties for good content while still rewarding smaller players for their long-tail contribution. The economic effect of this is similar to a lottery where people over-estimate their probability of getting votes and thus do more work than the expected value of their reward and thereby maximize the total amount of work performed in service of the community. The fact that everyone “wins something” plays on the same psychology that casinos use to keep people gambling. In other words, small rewards help reinforce the idea that it is possible to earn bigger rewards.
Then you do some research on gambling addiction and you read in Psychology Today:
Gambling is, by its very definition, a random event. Yet, many gamblers firmly believe that they can devise a system to win at gambling. This includes trying to predict patterns in random numbers (there are none), trying to select “hot” slot machines and avoid “cold” ones (e.g., continuing to play a machine because it is “hot;” playing a machine that hasn’t paid off in a long time, thinking it’s “due”), or performing some ritualistic behavior in order to keep getting wins (I know of several gamblers who tap slot machines with a lucky “talisman”).
As you know, gambling can be terribly addicting, and these psychological processes often work to increase that addiction. Neuroscience research has found that gambling addiction has many of the same neural processes as drug addiction.
The very fact that some posts pay out well, and other's don't, coupled with the fact that it's all very random despite the same amount of effort put out by the content creator, does indeed create a gambling like addiction to posting on Steemit. That this is by design in order to facilitate this culture I'm not sure Steemit in it's current form contains the ethics, integrity necessary to facilitate the very "quality content" it was supposedly designed to uplift.
Ahhh, sad to say because this is a decentralized platform... that is why people can just continue doing what they're doing, good or bad.
When I came into this platform, Steemit, I was definitely looking for more money as a side income because of my current job not paying well. I joined Steemit in September 2017. It was a really hard grind when I came in, I was actually brought in by one of Jerry Banfield's video "promising" me that he would follow and support me back. Entering Steemit with that in mind, my expectations wasn't met. But hey, that is the real world and Steemit IS very much like the real world.
As an artist myself, I hurt to see that you've met this ugly side of Steemit and I'm sorry for that. But I also want to assure you that, you are not alone in this. For the next couple of months till today, I have met some of the most amazing people from this platform! People who are so rich in their culture and personalities. People who are genuine. Yes, there are definitely those who aren't but hey, real world it is u know. I began to fall in love with the community around me. My #teammalaysia, #steemitbloggers family and many more friends around the world.
What kept me from continuing Steemit was that I enjoyed posting my passions about animation here. At first, it was all about the money, now it just feels like it is the added incentives we have through Steemit. Though I understand that we would all like to earn that money than "some people" who just post one or two photos and earning way more than they should. It is definitely sad to see the 'unjust' in that area in this decentralized platform.
I do however also see that there are people who cares for the striving and the good quality contents. There are indeed initiatives started by people who cares for the community and what Steemit is all about. Initiatives like @curie and @ocd-resteem, just to name a few. There are thousands of people who actually invest their time and effort to reward good content writers here. BECAUSE they understand this is what is going to sustain Steemit for the long term.
I understand how u feel, I have friends who have come up to me who are at the verge of just quitting or posting bad quality contents. It pains me to see that they've been so disheartened to have given up on this platform. I still believe Steemit as a really good system, and I'm hoping that I can find more like-minded people who are in this together.
I hope that you will see the light in all this! If there's anything, feel free to dm me in discord zord189#7776.
Take care :)
Sorry @zord189! @derekrichardson has set me straight!
No probs bro. Sorry, got back to you a little late. Have been busy everywhere! :D
Thank you very much for that thoughtful reply. And I completely agree with you. I too have met an incredible number of amazing and talented individuals from all over the world. @curie is who helped get one of my posts to earn over $100 STU when I first got here. it was definitely a good feeling to be rewarded so heavily at the beginning.
But if you take the time to actually read this blog post all the way through and not just skim it so you can get to writing your lengthy comment, you'll notice you missed the mark by quite a bit.
Fuck man, now that I look over your comment again, it seems that it could be just copy pasta. The only thing you mention from my post is @jerrybanfield and that could be a coincidence. I suggest reading my post again and then re-commenting with something more relevant to the post.
Ironically enough, though, your comment fits into all of this somehow.
It is a thoughtful reply. Zord is my friend he's not spamming you with copy pasta I promise. I had been talking with him on Discord and was telling him about how I felt bad that you've gotten so disheartened with Steemit because I was the one that got you on here by saying how awesome it is and then you got on and I thought you were doing so well... but now you are not happy here. So I shared this post with him, and he left this comment just as a bit of positive motivation to you. He was in no way trying to counter your points. Just trying to show that there is good happening here too, not just the bad. There is not only the great friendships and communities that are built here like Zord said above, but also for some people in 3rd world countries Steemit is helping them get out of poverty. I think that's so great. And helping and supporting those kinds of people really is one of my favorite things about Steemit. Anyways, Zord is an A++ individual who is always there to help me when I need help. So please don't think he is spamming or anything like that, he only commented here because of me.
Oh ok, gotcha. No offense @zord189!
Are you on Discord @artopium?
Honestly I haven't made time for that yet. I'm not much of a "chatter"
Thank you for all the kind words man. I just hope at the end of the day, we'll get some good out of Steemit.
I'm not really unhappy per se, but rather disappointed as many aspects about Steemit keep it from being as revolutionary has I had originally believed it to be. It's no doubt a great first start and leaps and bounds ahead of many other social platforms. But to find some of these things out makes me believe now that Steemit is unfortunately not a replacement for facebook.
If someone takes the Steemit concept, and removes some of the hurdles.... for instance, if it were made with no reward pool, and less complications, and none of this "forced investing" as I've decided to call it... maybe a blockchain based social media platform that dispenses tokens for various types of work might be plausible. Steemit is a great concept for those who designed it: their rich friends, and not many others. You say poor people are getting money and although singularly that is fantastic, on the whole I feel Steemit missed the opportunity to be something truly revolutionary. Greed and perhaps even skewed morality and ethics will eventually bring Steemit to share the same fate as Facebook: a nice historical footnote.
I never invested a dollar into Steem. I've made thousands and spent hundreds of dollars worth of Steem. I have real stuff that I have and use that was provided to me via posting here. I just got a new sluice, a nice display case for my gold, a wireless mic for my computer... that's just the recent stuff! So whatever flaws Steemit has it's still worth it to me. I never made money on youtube or facebook. Didn't make nearly as many friends there either. Definitely never had the ability to help out someone on the other side of the planet with a like on facebook. ...So is Steemit flawed, ya I'm sure that it is, but I just think that it can create lots of good as well. That's all man. And I just kinda feel like you are overblowing the flaws and turning a blind eye to the good. Hopefully something even better than Steemit will come out, but until then I'm gonna be Steemin'. And BTW I think posts like this one are great. I love that you get deep into the psychology and stuff, you had the gears in my head really turning. I dig it. I just don't see any reason for me to dwell on it. Anyways, I feel like I made this into a little drama fest so sorry about that lol. Oh, and if you do totally give up on Steemit, keep your account up and be sure put me on autovoter!! lol!!
I'm not giving up. Just remarking on my realizations. I have also made a good amount of money here and have nice new things to show for it. However, that has come to an abrupt end as those who were supporting me are no longer. Perhaps because I used bid bots, but really I think I only got a little attention at first because I was new. I've noticed the same tappering off on many other accounts.
Most of my realizations did indeed come after a friend invested into Steem Power for me. Most of my Steem Power is really his. At first I decided to embrace Steemit for how it's designed: a capitalistic money dispensing machine. After seeing that most of the high earners were using bots, I figured that was the more appropriate way to actually use steemit. It seemed rational because of my realizations about the capitalistic nature of steemit. So I got some capital. The thing is that if you start from zero you're happy with anything... for a while.
I think that you have had a very different experience on steemit than anybody who showed up in december. I believe that the massive influx in newcomers changed a lot of attitudes, and now getting a constant supply of upvotes from senior steemians is almost impossible. You are earning as much as you are because you picked up loyal followers who have a decent amount of steem power to make it worth your while. It's MUCH harder to get such followers now. None of my 300 and something followers upvote my content, and if they did they have so little steem power it amounts to nothing.
It's because of this that many people inlcuding myself wanted to emmulate the success we see other senior steemians making. We see they're using bots so we use bots. But the bots are another thing I came into too late, as now there's a battle going on and it's obvious big whales are making bids at the last moment in order to ensure that the bots are unprofitable. It's a total shame, because without senior steemians support, and without functioning bid bots, and without a decent amount of capital, steemit really is no better than facebook. And on facebook I have all my friends who DO interact with my posts (as you can see you are really the only person I know that truly interacts with my posts here). So although I see a lot of potential here, I also see the writing on the wall.
When I got the capital it was only supposed to be the beginning. My friend is quite wealthy and was willing to put at least $5000 into Steem Power. But I decided to wait and see what happens. I truly love the concept that I can just give away free money to artists! And with $5000 in steem power that's well over $1 upvote. At that level I could definitely generate a profit and interest in my blog, simply by self-upvoting. I'm absolutely sure that's why self upvoting is allowed: it's a guarantee that an investor can make money here.
But alas, we will see. I am willing to bet that we see a pretty significant hard fork coming up. If not, than I'm willing to bet everyone moves to whatever EOS is promising when it opens it's supposed competition to Steemit. I'm also looking into busy.org and the other services that interact with the steem blockchain. I might have better success on those platforms.
OK, talked too much already! Peace.
That nobody is replying to this post only reaffirms my belief. How can I feel motivated to create content if I can't even get a reply, which literally costs you nothing, not even voting power. How the hell am I gaining so many followers that don't interact with my blog?
I feel the same way anout the interaction. Cant unterstand how simple posts with just a photo and MAYBE one sentence will get a crap load of comments and a few bucks of upvotes. Then I'll do somthing that I've put a lot of thought into with several photos and I'm lucky to get responses. I may not be the best writer, never have done writing like a blog in my life, but is it really that bad that it gets past by, or is it something else......? It's a bit frusterating. I was simply wanting a place to share my work, passions, thoughts, dreams, and life, but it isn't panning out like I had hoped. Don't care so much for the earnings:\
So what do you propose? Changes to Steemit? Or a whole new improved blockchain to make Steemit irrelevant like Myspace? Or what?
Maybe stop using it as much and wait for the next best thing.
What do you think about upvote limits? Do you think that would help anything? https://steemit.com/steem/@theferalone/a-path-toward-proper-distributions-on-steem
I thought you were against socialism? Aren't you a capitalist? And what about the free market? Adding restrictions to voting or other "hard fork" solutions are all simply "market regulations", which would be a centralized, governmental control. The problem with Steemit is at it's core in two places: the underlying psychology that was used to drive steemit as designed by Ned Scott, and the culture that's permeated because of said psychology. In essence, Steemit might be able to "fix itself" but it would take *group self-discipline" which history has shown repeatedly normally doesn't exist spontaneously in humans, and requires some sort of external force or circumstances. Perhaps Steemit will fall into a cultural abyss, and the mere fear of losing investments will force Steemians to open their minds to what "good content" really is.
Also, as a response to your comment on my other post, I think you should watch the Andrew Lavine video less for what he says, and more for the wide variety of emotions he displays. In this one video he goes through almost the entire spectrum of human emotion as he describes getting a negative comment from a Steemian. The whole thing showed me the psychological effect Steemit has on it's users. Once I saw this I dug a little bit, and sure enough, Ned Scott has a degree in both economics and psychology. Then watching videos of Ned speak about Steemit, I feel I hit the nail on the head. This guy is more interested in making people addicted to Steemit in order to further large stake holder's investments. Steemit is not really designed to help promote good content as advertised.
When you juxtapose the Andrew Lavine video with the Jerry Banfield video, it REALLY spells the whole thing out.
Haha. 1st video is all about popularity and power.
With great power comes great responsibility or so they say.