I'm about to give up on Steem, but should I?
In 6 months I have reached level 63 and +400 followers. I've accumulated a nice amount of steem power and some cash. Every single one of those achievements just happened. As I explained in my introduceyourself I had and still have other objectives. I'm not at the level of an average newcomer being frustrated while trying to find his way around. So what's the point? Why am I in doubt?
Spiral towards negativity
Before I started I knew little about the platform. I did some basic research but I was ignorant about a lot of aspects. By now I think I have seen most: the good, the bad and the ugly.
Being greeted by so much people on the introduction post felt good, up to the point you start realizing most of them are just bots. Welcome to steem reality. I came to steem to write, to share, to learn. I did share a lot and I equally learned a lot.
After being around for a while you start to scratch away the surface and see patterns. You learn about minnow support communities, you learn about supportive bots and voting bots and you get told a million times how to format your posts to become successful. You get brainwashed and at the same time your faced with 'success stories' over and over again. The trending and hot pages are full with unreachable success.
A phrase often heard in crypto is the wild wild west but worse. To some extend steem is no different. I learned about all kinds of fish in the sea, friendly whales and killer whales. I learned about selfvoting and circle-jerks. As I stuck around I learned that bots are not here to help us but to make profit for themselves. Even some so called supportive communities focus on profit.
Agendas
The longer I stayed around the more I learned that this is not just another social medium. Basically other social media are ad platforms, the centralized authority is a profit making company. They generate profits by serving you adds and they want to do it as efficient as possible. It's a known concept in many different variations. Like it or not, the concept is clear.
On the steem blockchain agendas are not as clear and more importantly there are a lot of hidden agendas. Accounts posting their youtube videos on steem without much addition. That's not because they care about you, it's not about the content, it's about the money.
Some agendas are very well hidden and then others try to unhide them. But then again you have to think about why they are doing that, again a hidden agenda?
And then there's steemit.com's own agenda. What is their real agenda. I try to follow up on their communication but it's not exactly clear what will happen and why. Not to mention the false facts in it. Just an example is the claim they make about development support. I can tell you from first hand experience there is none. As a developer I have never really seen such a mess. A big shout out to @busy where things are much more professional.
Why do you need to lock up my funds? And if not I loose my voting power and 20% of the value goes away through inflation. That doesn't really sound like a choice. Can anyone really explain how steem works and how it is supposed to continue working? I'm a technical guy not an economist. I'm not going to brag but I'm not stupid. I've read a lot and I still don't get it. Where does the money come from? The answer is simple: because steem has a price. But why does it have a price? I can think of a couple of reasons but no sustainable ones. Speculation on the price? Not really sustainable long term. Because people want SP? That's the same as saying they buy influence to bend the content their way. Not really a nice future then.
Anarchy vs Centralization
Decentralized social medium, it just sounds so good, like a dream. I was fully supportive of the idea. No central authority to control or censor the content, complete anarchy. Every individual is equal with equal chances. But as time moved on I realized steem is highly centralized. There are two aspects to this: the platform development and the usage influence.
Much of the technical benefits are achieved through the witness architecture. They are supposed to care about the platform and it's future. But it seems that power is still highly concentrated. I have no insight in it but I even wonder to what extend they have influence the future development choices. The usage influence is based on SP. Most of it is again in the same hands of those witnesses. So again very concentrated.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Other cryptos have similar centralization issues which is kind of normal for projects this young. I understand that this is beta, but it has been for a while. Other projects at least share their vision on how they aim to solve it.
Users giving up
I've seen so many accounts die. I've met people that were steeming before me and did well just leave. I've met new promising people just giving up because of one or more of the reasons stated above, or even for other reasons. Somehow it's frustrating to build up relations here to then reside to something else to keep in touch.
Is it all that negative?
No, of course not. So let's change the focus to the positive side.
Don't show me the money, show me the content.
I don't care too much about the money. I'm no saint, of course I like the extra buck, but if I were to do it only for the money... I have other skills that pay far better. The thing is there is so much focus on the money that it is hard to ignore it. Can't it be less about the money and more about the content? Can't it be less about the path to success and more about the content that lead to that success? There is so much good content but at the same time it is so hard to find it. After a couple of days it just disappears from the radar which is a shame. Luckily it's blockchain and it never disappears.
Curation guilds
Back at the time when I was more ignorant there were some posts that were supported astonishingly more. At the very beginning I didn't even realize why. Only later I found out this was because of @curie. Curie is one example, admittedly the best known example, of a curation guild. But there are others, and there are powerful accounts that make it their mission to only support quality content. Either on their own or by surrounding them with supportive people to help them. For the authors they can mean big boost. They give appreciation, visibility and support. That's exactly the reason why I started @steemmakers.
The people
It's a steem cliche: come for the money stay for the people. I must admit I got to know a couple of people with who I can get along quite well, with similar interests, with similar attitude, ... If it weren't for steem I would never have met them and I'm sure we would stay in touch even if steem were to disappear. Another aspect is the support I'm able to give. Even if my vote is small it feels good to give it to the people I think deserve it.
Beta
It's no secret that steem is in beta and by no means finished. This is the first of its kind and as such an experiment in itself. Time will tell if this platform stands a change of survival and how it will adapt (or not) to do so.
What next?
The title states I'm about to give up. In life we have to make choices and I'd rather focus on things that give me positive energy and not on the negativity. Because of this I'm going to make some changes in how I handle things. I'm going to recheck all my auto voting, reconsider who I follow and mainly reevaluate my time spent. For now I'm starting with a break.
You know that I'm way more optimistic about steem and I only have own answer for you don't give up. For steem to succeed we need more people like you where the primary focus is content and not only the money.
I love your @steemmakers initiative because I love to read about this type of content as a maker myself.
With your analysis of some of the problems you are right but this can and will change. But it will take time. Focus on what you like most, the content and forget about the money for now...and don't forget that there is more then steem in your life.
For me as a maker, content is just one of the rewards. If it does not get discovered, why waste few hours writing it. I could spend that time on what I realy love, sculpting, painting figurines or figuring out mechanics for my projects. There is so many things I want to make and limited time. I always need to resign from something to make something. I already reduced my dayjob to level that it only pays my bills to make more things on my own. Spending this time here, takes it from my projects.
Your right steem takes time from making... that's why I normally don't write more than one post per week. But Steem also provides me with inspiration for my projects. When I read about the projects from another maker ( like you ! ) I'm getting new ideas, learn about other technics and increased my long list of things to do further! I hope in the future it gets easier to filter out the parts of steem content that I don't want to read about :)
It is hard for me too to write more than once. I have full list of projects to do all the time. My inspiration comes from movies, facebook 3d printing groups and instagram. I follow lots of artists who show amazing work. I also sculpt in clay, and want to be better in that. I want to learn Zbrush to be more future proof :) If Steemit will filter better, we will also be filtered from others feeds and even less people will watch our work :( The 7 day window is not good for my line of work. Most of my projects are found years after I made them and this brings new orders or traffic to my website. I don't want to be forced to only do things which have a chance to go viral. And when you write long tutorial, it should earn passive income until internet exists.
This is probably going to change with SMT. We will see create more content type-specific tokens that might have smaller value but can bring longterm rewards.
I definitely agree that there is room for improvements and for the maker content Steem is not the perfect platform but I also see that in most areas it only requires a few steps in the right directions to change it. And yes a few steps in the wrong direction will also change a lot.
I hope you are right and steem will go mainstream so all makers will join, not only the ones interested in crypto too. I don't like the idea of millions of different tokens.Most of them will be useless and because of that worthless. I want one token to rule them all.
Yea it is difficult to imagine for me to manage more than 5 currencies already. On the other side, there are quite a few stocks out there and that doesn't mean they are worthless.
It all depends if the coin fulfills a use for a group of users. It doesn't have to be all users, special interest coins will find their niche. What I also saw in the whitepaper for SMTs are combinations. It seems like it might be possible to get Steem and another specialized coin for the same post and both might use different distribution parameters.
We will see how it will influence everything here. Lots of hopes about this, they could finally implement it.
Thanks buddy :-D
Man, it could be said loudly but not better my friend...
nevertheless, I am still positive with steem blockchain and convinced that we just need people like you in order to succeed...
Hard to swallow some contents and behaviors.
Rest a little, release frustration and come back again... I probably will do the same soon
I understand your points, this is exactly why you should not give up and not leave space. I understand also the time management perspective, I reduced drastically the slot I allocate to SteemIt and any social media in general.
I still continue to put the content I like even it is not worth my time and that most people do not care about, hopefully a few people like a bit of my stuff from time to time and that makes me happy.
I am also not an Economist, but It is a Topic that i would like to explain.
The Idea of a inflationary coin (ethereum is also inflationary) is the same as one of the inflation on the "real world". It stimulate people to dependendo their coins.
Basically It goes like this: If we have deflation (like bitcoin with its fixed amount) the value of each unit Will increase. This encourages people to not spend the money because why spend It today If It Will increase in value tomorrow?
With inflation added on the economy, the way to increase the value of you money holdings is to use what you have to generate more money. You put It on investments, or build a business with It. A controled inflation is not as bad to the economy as people.
Here in Steemit the inflation estimulates people to "invest" on the platform by increasing the Steem Power, since more steem Power returns more rewards from curation, and increase in value because part of the rewards generated is distributed among sp holders.
I started to write a bit more about steemit economy here.
About the 13 weeks Lock up i think It serves 2 porpuses:
About the other things you wrote, steem is a weird place. The pay-to-write model ia an experiment andonly time Will Tell If we Will pass over the money grabbing posts or the quality content Will prevail.
To me, steemit Gave me back my willingness to write. So, no matter If i dont "get rich Quick" around here, It is still a Win for me.
I understand the system. What I meant to say is that to me it should not make a difference if I have me steem as steem or as SP. Both should enable me to vote.
Because steem and sp are totally different things, even though they have the close names.
Steem is a coin, with liquidity, like Any other coins.
Steem Power is a vest on the blockchain. Its like. Property right of part of the blockchain. Similar to a Company share.
They must be different because they are used in a different way on the blockchain calculations.
When you trade steem for sp, you are taking your liquid money and investing on the blockchain. Therefore, you have some Power over what happens, via post votes and witness votes. And you get som return on this investment via an interest paid to sp holders.
Its all about the function of the token.
In the end, It Works the same way as other proof of stake coins. You set an amount aside on your wallet to be your proof of stake pile.
There is different mechanisms working on each coin, that is why It needs a distinction.
The big question Mark is around the 13 week Power down cool down. Is It needed? I dont know, but maybe this was one of the reasons the STEEM prices were kind of stable (compared to other coins). Also, since It is an inflationary coin, the removal of a mechanism like this may lead to a market crash, since there is more supply each day, and no Lock on the investment, the supply would increase by a huge amount. Wich would mean a huge price drop, and maybe loss of public interest.
I understand that, but if you have to defend it like that then steem itself is useless. Who want's a coin with a guaranteed 20% annual inflation, who would want to use that? And what's the point about steem dollars then? If steem is supposed to be a currency, shouldn't it be stable? And why are rewards in SP? Why reward in 'securities' and not in currency? I understand all the basic explanations but never the real how and why. It's utterly complex for no obvious reasons. The way I use it I never have any steem in my account, I never use it directly. And then we didn't even talk about the peg that works in in it's own magnificent ways.
This is a little bit of just rambling but some ideas that come to mind.
Don't try to focus on all the crap on here. Do your own thing you have contributed great value here and more than one person apprecaites it.
If you feel you need to break, try a short one at first. Things can change for better or worst. Take some money off the table and enjoy it. You got a nice size wallet, others will never be any where close to you. People that leave a site like this have other wants and needs. You have heard of wifm.
Take a look at some of the good in here. steempark was built in Brooklyn NYC by volunteers and steem donations. https://steemit.com/steempark/@sndbox/2u47g10w Now there is one in Korea also.
Their is a guy @Azizbd in India with some help from a person in the US they purchased and raised chikens with steem dollars. Now the chickens are for sale and the profits being donated to a school.
@Phillyhistory with help from @sndox have a college course at Temple to learn about Philly history and use steem as part of the program. Your a decent guy do what you want and forget the agendas of others.
If you leave you will be missed. You have made a difference here. Take a week off have some fun and see if it is worth coming back to. Even if you post once in awhile. Take care!
You're flattering me :-D
Sometimes a break is necessary. I have been confronted with a bit too much negativity from different sides. In such cases the crap just adds to it.
You're absolutely right. There's so much good as well. Thanks for cheering me up!
A very nice highlight of the negatives and positives of steem, and matches what I've experienced in the past few months as well.
Where does the money come from? If you ask me, it's already a lot better than the other crypto out there. You can ask the same question there and the only answer you can come up with is "speculation" that the coin might be fully adopted as the one true internet currency, which is a horse race nobody knows how it would go.
You are in a platform that attracts users naturally, by simply distributing money to participants. Even if it becomes a graveyard of junk you have something that functions perfectly well as a currency, and frankly a better one that puts others to shame in for example transaction speeds and fees. That's exciting enough on its own. So if you believe there is something to cryptocurrencies, that should be promise enough for steem.
But that's just not all. This Grand social experiment is kicking into gear, and it remains to see what will happen. This is an exciting space to follow, and looking back in the past there seem to be a great many improvements that were made as a community. (Before the inflation curves were ridiculous! And I can't even imagine how it must have been in the times before linear stake!) No it's not perfect, but beneath the crap there's a good deal of quality, engagement and excitement. It's just getting started in my mind.
Of course you've been here longer and I may just not see the whole picture, so I could easily be wrong. But I wanted to share my perspective. And to you I say, I think it's going to be alright! Your plan to somewhat unwind is a good one, and here's hoping you return refreshed and ready to influence steem in a rightful course :).
Reading your comment reminds me to look at it as an experiment again. We can't let the crap win!
Great writing!
99% of the post content mirrors my thoughts. The differentiating 1% might be the view on SD / steem price - for most if not all coins valuation is currently speculative.
Ugly side - I have just started to wander - maybe it's not bad that we can see it? I'm unhappy about bad and ugly side. But maybe in many other organizations and processes we just don't see them, as they are not as open / public as steem and steemit are?
Let's say a software company is corrupting politicians and enforcing cooperating companies to use chosen proprietary standards and software and as a result they achieve monopoly. As these actions are either in the dark or seen only by a very tiny subgroup of the community, in general company is well respected.
In public blockchain environment it's different, while it gives some anonymity, it also allows to see and track transactions and behaviours... as a result it's much easier to notice bad and ugly side.
Wow, I didn't expect to play advocatus diaboli role here :)
Not everyone profits by seeing the sausage made. It's something that I have a particular interest in because I am full of schadenfreude and a bit of a sadist, so seeing the horrible, terrible things that go on underneath the hood of various organizations that I'm only peripherally connected to – that's the sort of thing that explains why you end up as Staff at conventions.
I'm used to it. It's normal.
Steemit is different, in that it claims to be a lot of things that it not only is not but that it cannot be. In fact, the whole complicated issue of self-governance is portrayed as though it's an entirely new thing, that humans have never experienced this before. When it is suggested to be "like" a thing, it's the Wild West.
It's not the Wild West.
It's the pre-nation state period of Western Europe. It's the tribal wars of the Middle East. It's predynastic China. It's everywhere that is developing strong men, warlords, and despotism which is considered by some to be at least better than the chaos they had before.
We've seen this development pattern many times. It's nothing new.
The fact that communications and interactions on the blockchain have absolutely no privacy helps to support radical transparency in terms of individual transactions, but the absence of privacy also encourages people to make their deals outside the context of the blockchain while simultaneously gesturing in the vague direction of the technology and saying "look how transparent we are!" All the while making use of every means of interaction with that public ledger which is not public: pseudonym accounts, dispersed identity activity, automated/bot augmentation, and the fact that off-chain communication is absolutely unmonitored.
In truth, the radical transparency doesn't do anything to actually reveal bad actors. It just reveals bad actors who are bad at it. While that has some value, it's not the advantage it's sold as.
Most of the users of any organization are unprepared to actually be exposed to how the sausage gets made. Compromises are inherent. Some of them are moral. Some of them are technological. Some of them are personal. Compromises abound. In that environment, the radical transparency of activity on the blockchain such as the steem blockchain provides is just as much a hindrance as a help. It's easy to get people riled up about nothing. It's easy to get people to coordinate in outrage to "do something," even if it's wrong. It's easy to profit off of that.
We don't have to just assert that. We can point at it. It's happening right now in the Whale Wars. As far as I can tell from the activity on the blockchain itself, it's been going on since about day three.
Like I said in my original response, I'm a cynic. Most of the time it's my job to advocate for Satan, so it's rather nice to be able to take my straight up position in a discussion, while someone else plays me.
Of course, the transparency is great and the keypoint that differentiates it from everything else. This post is just to short to cover it all, it's just a summary. There are more aspects I like and there are more aspects I dislike. It's a balance, it's a learning experience, interesting in many ways and hard to draw a conclusion in any direction.
I've been right there a couple times. I completely agree with bots and many other projects being focused solely on money. You bring up @curie as one of the reasons you started a curation guild. I have been "Curied" over a dozen times on my "Super Cool Science S#!t" series, but only recently learned that once I pass a certainly reputation score, @curie will no longer support my content :( I've been doing really well on that series, but haven't gotten some crazy following that's going to make those posts perform anywhere close to what Curie has rewarded me with, so once I hit their threshold, I guess my content just loses something?
I love your @steemmakers project! I am just weeks away from opening a makerspace in my hometown, and would love to see the maker community grow into something beautiful!
I completely agree that we should be far more focused on content than money, but money being a part of it, many are only going to be here so they can get as much as they can...
If I remember correctly they support you up to rep 60. But you're right, it's a bit of a void, and that's also part of my feelings. You get recognition, and then ... nothing for the same quality... how does that make sense. But it does make sense somehow. You just need to place it correctly for yourself and draw conclusions out of it. That's what I'm trying right now.
Glad you like SteemMakers. Keep us up to date on the makerspace. Use discord to let us know.
I sure will! Meeting with our local Chamber of Commerce on Friday, and hopefully signing paperwork on our new space!
Please don't give up, you made @steemmakers and it is a great idea for people like me :-). There are not enough DIY-ers here because diy-ers are apparently not so interesting as crypto talking people and we need more DIY-ers on the trending page with the use of @steemmakers :-)
Thanks a lot @fathin-shihab! That has been my intent from day 1. We're not that many, let's group together, support each other and show others there is something. I'm working on an important feature before we can grow a bit more... ooh the secrecy ...