RE: The most common criticism I hear about Curie is...
I value curie, as a massive upvote, it’s exciting. I did run off and tell people outside the platform on my first. I’m not sure how much more advertising it does within the Steemit community. After the excitement spike, there is always a slow fizzle back to Earth when engagement in the form of readership follows and comments that isn’t forthcoming. I’ve always got the sense, no one else (other than those who genuinely care for you) is excited for you, so best just be quiet and glad you got something to keep you going. So to me, curie is a form of life support. To give me a reason to remain on this platform and feel there’s a point putting extra effort into the posts we submit. Although, it’s a good reminder that we never got anything from other platforms.
I don’t see curie as ever abandoning me. It’s my job to work on my profile, to network to meet new people to learn about the platform. This is where the community component comes in. I don’t blame curie for not getting more follows, upvotes or comments. I just see it as human nature. But I do see curie as deeply entrenched in the psyche of Steemit, and that people can become over-reliant on curie or be upset it’s not them. I worry about that for myself, the sense that as a newbie we don’t have any other means of gaining SP traction. I’m not sure how the problem can be solved to generate more real engagement. I’ve always found this hard, and it’s this and not missing out on curie’s blessing that will lead to me leaving the platform.
Yeah that is what I meant as far as advertising - the first big Curie upvote works as advertisement outside the Steem ecosystem. Which is really, of course, where advertisements for new users have to go. You don't advertise for new users within the existing user base. My main point with this post is that I hear a surprising number of people who do not see the value of what Curie is doing from a "adding value to the Steem blockchain" perspective. These same people get excited about Jerry Banfield advertising for Steem on youtube, or some developer attracting new users to the blockchain with an app.
My point is - Curie has been advertising the core concept of Steem the entire time and gets very little credit for it. The entire Steem blockchain is based around "proof of brain", and the entire Steemit, Inc. marketing plan is based around "You can get paid to post your content". Every large Curie vote that a newbie user gets, they go running around to friends and family outside of Steem and tell them about it. This is the most valuable form of advertising you can get! You can't buy an ad from youtube that comes from the mouth of a loved one and tells a personal experience of actually getting paid for posting content. The real shame of course is that the trend is going farther and farther away from upvoting content based on merit, and is going more and more toward upvoting content based on who paid the most for the upvote.