RE: STEEM Voter Update (Voting Realizations)
I have been talking about this a lot lately! Everyone keeps pushing this idea that we have to rely on the community for votes, but the reality is that if you aren't getting a major payout from a whale or a delegated app like DTube, you aren't really making anything. I have watched two users on here in particular that have 2k and 3k followers respectively, and they rely seemingly on 1-2 upvotes for their 80-100 dollar daily payout. On days when that whale hasn't upvoted them yet, their posts sit at about $3. If that whale ever left them, they would be screwed, and I think a lot of people are in this position! I am too. I only get heavy upvotes because of DTube and a very kind, dolphin I guess? I realize that it's only a matter of time before YouTubers come in and start sucking all of the DTube delegation dry, and that dolphin probably won't support me forever, so I have been trying to get a real following, but there are two problems with this:
1.) Even if you have an awesome following that really love you, most people's upvotes, especially in the beginning are only worth a few cents. You would have to have tens of thousands of followers to get anywhere.
2.) A lot of the followers you do have are most likely inactive. A lot of people start on here excited, and following different people, and then get discouraged and leave.It's hard to tell how many of your followers are inactive unless you go through them all manually. This isn't just a problem with Steemit though. It's the same on Facebook. I think of the George Takei page I follow, and while he has a following of like 15 million, he only gets a few thousand likes and just a few hundred comments on each post. You'd probably see a similar phenomenon on YouTube. What makes YouTube more ideal however, is the only thing someone needs to do is watch your video for you to make money. They don't have to decide whether to use their SP to upvote you. They don't have to leave you a comment to make your post any more visible.
I love Steemit so much, and I am busting ass to try to claw my way into a stable position so I can help others. Right now I feel as though I am on a floating door in the waters of the Titanic crash, and I can hardly help anyone from my current position. I need to move up to a boat. The move up to a boat here though is nearly impossible now unless you put your own money into the system. I am, like you, failing to see how my investment into Steem will compound and grow, frankly because I imagine for Steem to stabilize, it will tether itself to the value of USD 1:1. I could be wrong there, but as I see it there are only two choices: Steem is always crazy volatile and no one can really use it because it's all over the place, but we as Steemians can still make money on its peaks, or Steem stabilizes and drops back down to being worth a buck, and we never make any "investment" on it. The "investment" talk is coming from people who think Steem has the capacity to be the next LTC or BTC but I don't think that's possible. The system is set up too differently, and it's too easy to get new Steem.
Well that's my rambling for the day. I would set up autovote, but my SP is so small, it wouldn't make a huge difference in anyone's posts! I haven't been on here as long as you, but I do understand where you are coming from!
That is a great analogy "on a floating door in the waters of the Titanic crash." I think one of the toughest things mentally is the timing and when to power and when not to. It will differ for everyone depending on their financial situation. It isn't a good feeling when the price starts to sink and your time investment erodes. That is pretty much with any crypto though but this one more so depending on how much time was spend creating content. Early on a person is going to have to put in a big effort to gain more attention. I have been on here for over a year and a half and there are people looking out for me to some extent but I guess what I'm really trying to work toward is earning $300 / day everyday even on down days. That is going to take a longtime to get to that point but ultimately I think it will happen and at that point I will be expanded out upvoting like 500 people's content. That will be cool for sure.
I think you are right about the DTube upvotes. It has been great for sure but ever since I first joined the platform there have been people who have joined who are going to "save" the platform or who garner huge amounts of upvotes and ultimately either left the platform or slowed down on really posting that much.
I think the new popular YouTubers like @furiouspete123 and @hodgetwins are great addition but we run the risk of them being in the same situation where it will be short lived. Then when the next popular people join they get the attention and it ends up sort of being a revolving door in a lot of ways. I was actually planning on doing a post about this issue. I think those two additions will ultimately be positive additions ultimately but only time will tell.
This may freak you out but when I first got on there was a girl from Colorado who had no following who did a "makeup tutorial" and for some reasons all the whales piled in and upvoted her post like crazy. Her first 5 posts made $53,161 and ultimately she didn't stay on the platform.
https://steemit.com/beauty/@guerrint/the-first-steemit-makeup-turtorial-bringing-youtubers-to-steemit
There were some other examples of that sort of thing but that was the most ridiculous situation. Ultimately it hurt the platform more than anything because it made the whole thing look like an unfair casino. LOL
The thing that has always gotten me though is that the people who have stuck on the platform and broke their back for it oftentimes weren't able to obtain a fraction of that type of money even when prices have blown past what they were in mid 2016.
I don't mean to complain because I am bullish on STEEM for sure and want to keep building here but the struggle is real for sure.
I think it's really interesting to see what happens when new big names come on here be it @grantcardone @furiouspete @hodgetwins.
I like all those guys and honestly those are all guys I followed on Youtube prior to seeing them on here. That said is their content really worth hundreds of Dollars per post? Are there posts really worth 300x some of the other great content on here?
@kenanqhd has really been killing it lately, lots of great content, lots of media in the posts, well thought out, interesting posts. I especially liked his post about what it's like living in a small town in China, that one actually earned pretty well over $100, however this post of his only earned like $3...
https://steemit.com/life/@kenanqhd/canadian-celebrates-chinese-new-year-with-chinese-family-awesome-feast-with-handmade-dumplings
Is that post above really only worth $3 and the hodgetwins post a sorta kinda meme with no words that was screenshotted from their phone and they didn't bother cropping out the top and that's worth $18? I probably could have found a better example of a pretty basic post making like $400 but I didn't feel like searching for an example.
https://steemit.com/scam/@hodgetwins/bitconnect-did-what-motherfucker
I think there's a lot of truth to what you said is that new big Youtubers are going to come on here, everone is gonna know they are going to do well and is going to try to get into their good graces like people do with whales, it builds up their accounts hugely, and then the next flavor of the day from Youtube comes on and they are the big earner.
I'll be curious to see how this plays out but I can definately see larger Youtubers comming here, making thousands for a few weeks until the next big Youtuber or celebrity comes on and do the same. I'll be curious to see if the numbers are sustainable and if people stick around for the long haul
Jesus @ that girls payout. Made over $50k and cashed most of it out. Unbelievable.
Thanks @rulesforrebels for the shoutout. Appreciate it man. Things seem to be getting better as I have been testing out bid bots and the highest paid posts of mine were always upvoted by curie's team.
I don't think payouts will ever be "fair" in terms of content. This already is the case on YouTube. There are many videos that deserve more views and money than some shitty videos made by a well known YouTuber. Success on any platform has to take into account many factors like networking, social status, timing, etc. That is the case in business as well.
What Steem has to be careful of is greedy YouTubers that are here just for the money. Some YouTubers have joined that I am a fan of, but I get a strong feeling that they are just trying to get as much money as possible. They even posted their crypto portfolio on one of their posts and it was all pumpcoins like ripple and tron. Just because they are popular YouTubers, it doesn't mean they should get free handouts. Being desperate to attract big YouTubers over here will allow some of them to exploit their platform for nothing but monetary gain and ruin the reputation of Steem again.
Yeah the cashout was pretty insane and there were other examples of that where people for some reason were heavily rewarded but then didn't really stick around. Then some of the people who stuck never really got solid consistent payouts....etc.
Lets just go to youtube and facebook, we can make a cool $1.56 monthly lol
What you said is so true. I see people who get like 70 upvotes and earn $3 and then someone else gets 8 and makes $77.
It was way worse before HF19. Dude there was one post I made in the fall of 2016 that got over 100 upvotes and made $1.50. That is when I called it quits for awhile. The platform looked like it might die actually at that point. It was very sad. After HF19 voting behavior changed a lot. When people's votes weren't worth anything people would vote. Then suddenly even when people's votes were only worth $0.10 they stopped voting as much. It was very strange.
I'm ready for the say when my vote will be $10+. That will feel good when I'm able to control larger amounts of the reward pool. Not to harp on it again but the distribution was so skewed that then catching up and being a tangible piece of the reward pool is going to be extremely tough. Kind of off subject but if I was smart I guess I would just be like @exyle and just talk 100% positive about the platform and never say anything bad. I have him on autovoter because he does seem like a good guy and wants the platform to grow but I can't keep my mouth shut even when it could make me a lot more money.