Who Are You, Newbie to Steemit?

I was curious to know who is currently joining Steemit. So I went to the Newcomers' Community and read through the last 250 Achievements 1 (sounds a little crazy 😆). What did I learn?

Average Steemit newbie is from Nigeria, he is 26 years old with a college degree.

And now a little more about the received information. My sample is completely unrepresentative, but it can give a general idea.

Most newcomers come to us from Nigeria, Venezuela and Pakistan.

If you plot these data on a map, you can get the following picture:

The age of beginners is quite diverse. The youngest newcomer is only 8 years old and is from Venezuela. The oldest newcomer is 52 and from Canada. However, most newcomers are between 20 and 35 years old.

Some Observations

While rereading Achievements 1, I noticed some small things. I was surprised that most newbies don't continue their Steemit journey after writing Achievement 1. And these are not isolated cases, the percentage of such newcomers is approximately 70%.

I came across very good Achievements 1, where a person described himself and his hobbies well, put in some good selfies. That is, the newbie really made an effort to create a good first post. After that, he even responded to comments, but that's all. Why? Is this all that this man wanted to say to the world?

Another observation is the almost complete lack of interaction under Achievement 1 posts, with the exception of greeters. And this question is primarily for me as a Representative. Perhaps if a person received more comments, more people would want to get to know him, would invite him to some community or give other valuable advice, maybe the communication itself would encourage him to stay here. When a person dares to introduce himself to a community of complete strangers, it must be an exciting moment, and he expects a warm welcome.

For example, I wonder if @gabrielaht from Romania would continue her journey if she got one or two comments in her own language and was invited to the some community? Of course, if it is a real person 🤔.

If I think back to myself when I was a newbie, it would be difficult for me to introduce myself to the world and post my selfie. Having decided on such a step, I would expect some reception. The lack of reaction from the community would probably make me feel that I am not expected here.

Another observation is that quite often in Achievement 1, people post old or photoshopped selfies of others. Sometimes it is very noticeable. The motives for this are clear, once verified, these scammers will be able to participate in the Steemit Engagement Challenge and other contests where the organizers require verification, and earn rewards.

Some Conclusions

Statistics never lie. Of course, my sample is too small, but certain conclusions can be drawn. And the first of them: out of 205 newcomers, only five were from economically developed countries. Of these, two from the US are from developing countries (or not so much 😆). So the only reason people join Steemit is for money. No illusions, only money. People try to get an additional, or even the only, income to feed their families, give a gift to their children or simply dream of becoming rich one day.

And what about freedom of speech, the absence of censorship, the perpetuation of memories, the convenience of the blockchain, the prospects of cryptocurrency social networks? After all, Steem continues to offer all this as before. As you can see, for the vast majority of people, all this is bullshit. The only thing that matters is the money, and that's probably understandable.

There is a high probability that users from economically more developed countries will be intercepted by competing blockchains. They managed to make a better image for themselves while almost completely destroying the image of Steem. Therefore, it is important to tell the world that the community is developing, that we are interesting.

Another conclusion - we do not wait for newcomers. This is evident from the lack of interaction with them (except greeters). Moreover, many people think that the more newbies join Steemit, the lower our rewards will be because we will have to share the reward pool with them. I think this is a misconception. Remember how Steem was born. it was rapidly gaining popularity and it attracted both talented authors and interesting personalities, as well as investors. Thanks to its popularity, the project grew and the STEEM token grew in value. If even Shakespeare and Goethe isolated themselves in the blockchain, wrote works of genius, earned rewards and constantly sold them, then over time STEEM would fall to 0 and they would destroy the project, despite all their genius.

And the last. Achievement 1 is probably not read by anyone except the Greeters and a few of the same newbies. As a result, posts receive only a few cents in rewards:

I think it also discourages those who had high expectations, especially financial ones. However, if Achievement 1 is verified, it can get about $2. Verification of these achievements is probably a titanic task. I have no idea how to weed out numerous fraudsters who try to slip into any loophole and impersonate other people.

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I have expressed my thoughts in this post somewhat disorganized. All because I wrote it for 5 days with frequent breaks for more urgent matters. However, thanks to this post, I now understand what else I should do as a Steem Representative 😉.