[Discussion] For You, Is Steemit a Means or an End?

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In the past few months, the Steemit community has grown to a size and a rate that we would never have imagined during the winter season. The price has bounced back from the very low rates of 0.25USD per 1STEEM and irrelevant of all the technicalities, Steemit has become a much more welcoming place for new users and old-timers alike.

This surge of new user traction has really put a spotlight on a question members have tossed around since the website's inception – Why are you here?

As always, the money is usually the initial hook. But for people who started a year ago and are still here, we all know at least several accounts that were very popular, highly profitable, and seemed to be at the top of Steemit. Many of them are gone now and even to this day, we see a few big users sign-off permanently from time to time. Even among brand-new members, many try out Steemit for a few weeks, are dissatisfied for whatever reason(s), and don't come back.

Why?

My hypothesis is that because many, if not all of them, considered Steemit as an “End” and not a “Means.”

Is Steemit Your Final Destination?

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We all use Steemit for an innumerable list of diverse reasons, but for the sake of clarity and discussion, I abstractly categorize them into 2 main avenues.

An “End” is just that, the very and only reason you are here. You probably make and present content for the sole purpose of gaining followers and getting payouts. You probably identified a niche in the Steemit pool of topics and doubled-down on it as your profile's “expertise.” You log in, put up a post, reply to a few comments, and log out.

This is by and large the main thrust of Steemit Inc's marketing effort. “Blog, Get Paid” has become one of the signature appeals for attracting new members.

But this begs the question, blog about what and why? Most of us have never maintained a blog before or used any of our previous social-media outlets (Facebook, Instagram) to establish some kind of global presence. They have always been leisurely, casual, and primarily meant to be a personal outlet to established friends and family. Now that we're incentivized by money to continuously engage with other Steemians, almost all of us are “forced” to create on a regular basis.

If you treat Steemit as an Ends, you're always going to be lacking content. What I mean by this is that your main purpose is to fill that Submit Post box as best you can as often as you can. The content isn't tied to your life or hobbies, just the website. In this avenue, the best case scenario is that Steemit becomes your little hobby. In the worst case scenario, posts degenerate into “bullshit” content like the ones that constitute plagiarism, identity theft, or textless image pastes, all devoid of a personal voice and purpose.

On the other hand...

Is Steemit Your Vehicle?

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Do you have a reason to be on Steemit? Forget the payouts, does Steemit connect to and offer something to something in your real life?

I want to make the argument that if you want to sustain a sustainable trajectory on the platform, you should view Steemit as a vehicle – a vehicle to learn, better yourself, expand your personal and professional life, and take whatever passion or practice to an entirely new level.

The clearest on-site example of this is the relatively large group of crypto investors, programmers, and general enthusiasts. For a great while, this site was dominated by financial updates and code-related content. Steemit was a perfect and rewarding forum for those conversations.

Now that the platform has diversified immensely in focus and demographic, we have to start finding other ambitions for Steemit members. Here are some preliminary thoughts to spark some discssion -

1 - Does Steemit impact your profession? I've found super productive individuals like @heymattsokol and @tonesquare who focus most of their posts on not only their work but also revealing every step of the way so that others may use them as a resource.

2 - Have you regimented Steemit as a investigational and/or learning tool? I personally know many users who love supporting others on the website and use Steemit primarily as a learning device.

3 - Are you finding like-minded people to push forward a passion? If you haven't already, be sure to follow profiles like @Alcibiades who have made it a core mission to curate good content producers and bring those minds together. It's more rewarding to find fellow professionals or hobbyists on Steemit so it's awesome to see people make that facilitation their mission.

4 - Or even if money is still the main attractor, do you have solid resolutions to how you'll be spending that money? The earliest example of this was @heiditravels, using funds created on Steemit to support amazing adventures which in turn made even more great new content for the community.

Think About Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

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IMHO, I don't think it's enough to set out goals like “I want 2000 followers by Dec 2017” or “I want my average payout at $XXX.” I think this is setting yourself up for a mindless grind that has little external reward. You'll probably burn out after a few months, and I only say this because many of us witnessed it happen to even some of the bigger Steemit content makers.

Instead, my tiny piece of advice would be to determine a long-term goal that isn't directly impacted by Steemit. Want to try recording your first solo album? Want to start a podcast? Want to go on a hike through the Amazon? Want to take up screen-printing? Want to organize community events? Want to institute a non-profit or volunteer initiative? When you have a goal in the horizon, the nature of your content-making will fall more naturally into place and posting/interacting regularly will be less of a bumbling chore and more of a calculated step towards your ambitions.

Anyway, let me know what y'all think. What is Steemit to you?

design collective @hitheryon