When I joined the steem blockchain there where no real alternatives to Steemit.com. It was the only portal on to the blockchain.

Back then I was a novice blogger (I still am but a little wiser as well) and everything was strange and new...

The only thing we could do was write articles and put youtube links in them when we wanted and if you wanted to do it properly it had to be done in this weird mix between normal writing and markup and html

If this would have been it then I do not think there would have been a future in STEEM. There would have been so many people trying to scam their way into a little crypto money through circle jerks (there still are way to many now) that the value would not have been sustainable.

There was also a lot of talk about the big whales (there still is in some corners) just being here to milk the blockchain dry and move on to another. That they were seeing it as a cash cow that could be cut up into steaks once it had no more milk.

The big thing would be to make the "little scammers" see that there are better ways to make legitimate income instead of trying to bleed us dry through a 1000 little cuts.

There is a lot of truth in the saying: do not bit the hand that feeds you.

I would presume different but there is a bit of truth in the sense that it is seldom that people do something for free but they can do things that help others but profit them at the same time.

Moving to becoming an Incubator

When @fabien and the Busy team came up with steemconnect he opened up a whole new door that was safe to use.

The cat was out of the bag

Then came the turnaround and the first was Busy.org (which I often use) followed by a flurry of projects that made me look at this whole thing differently.

For me the steem blockchain is an incubator that allows people to set up their own projects that would not have been possible without this decentralized coin.

Now most of the following projects are receiving sizable delegations from either steemit inc, @ned, @misterdelegation or @freedom @thejohafiles but they are slowly moving to become independent in their own right

These are some of the biggest account in the ecosystem and in my opinion they are trying to spread their influence and help others. Because the better the blockchain does, the more the coin will be worth and the more they will have. It is my opinion that helping us is helping themselves. Being greedy and selfish on this platform will not help you in any way. So they are sharing their delegations with some of the intiatives below and these are really making waves in the real world out there.

• @Utopian-io founded by @elear is allowing a whole group of developers to be paid for their work on open source projects

• @dtube from @heimindanger and @dlive are sponsoring and helping aspiring streamers and vloggers on their way

• @dsound from @prc is launching and paying fledgling musicians

• @steemcleaners are fighting the brave fight against spam and plagiarism

• @appics are building their coin to run on top of the steem blockchain

• @sndbx supporting new projects and acting as an incubator

Next there are a list of projects that have become a controversial top in the sense that a lot of people see them as cheating and others see them as promotional tools. Either can be true but they are here none the less and they are slowly turning into businesses that are employing people and are paying in steem or SBD or in the case of one example like @buildteam their own token

These are projects that started from grassroots to help and assist others by selling upvotes like @minnowbooster or @buildawhale @smartsteem @postpromoter @appreciator. Now there is a whole list of bots that sell their votes which can be found on https://steembottracker.com/ built by @yabapmatt

There are whole groups like @exyle and his @blockbrothers that are developping tools like steemify (for free, thanks for that, use it all the time) to make our life here on Steem better and easier and are seemingly living of the proceeds from their work/activities.

There are so many more projects that are out there that i have not mentioned and more are coming every day so have a browse through steemprojects.com run by @noisy and see for yourself

But if Steem is an incubator then all these projects that I spoke of above are babies like the one below. They have to be nurtured and helped so that they can grow and sustain themselves

I live in Switzerland and close to a place they call the Crypto Valley in Zug. It is an epicenter in the world for launching ICO's and I see the same happening here on a grander scale. We are running a successful meetup group and are even hosting our own conferenceown conference in june
(we kept a slot for STEEM/ steemit.inc but they are very hard to reach so if anyone can help there please contact me on discord)

There are whole communities popping up that are building new ventures on blockchain applications and through ICO's they are funded in big part by the little guys. Some are good and some are bad but my point is that this is exactly what is happening on this blockchain as well.

We are part of this process and through our votes and our behavior we can help and support some of the projects here on STEEM
and by helping them we are helping ourselves. (unless you keep taking out your Steem and SBD for fiat)

So my question to you is:

are you treating this place as an incubator or as a cash cow?