The Steem Complainer’s Paradox: No Good Content to Read, Or, Too Much Competition For Votes?
There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of most people who complain that “Steem isn’t fair.”
These are the two most common complaints — and trust me, both are very common:
(1) There’s no good content on Steem.
(2) There’s too much competition for upvotes on steem.
No Good Content
I’m often hearing that it is hard / impossible to find enjoyable content on Steemit. This is absolutely not true.
If there’s really nothing on Steemit that appeals to you, then you probably shouldn’t try to build a blog here. That might mean your personal taste is somehow averse to a central aspect of this community. For most people though, the diverse range of authors on this platform offers “something for everybody.”
With that said the search features are not good right now so it can be hard to find a lot of relevant content. My best advice is to find a few popular Steemians you enjoy, then look at who they follow and who comments on their posts.
Too Much Competition For Upvotes
Here’s where I get confused… isn’t “too much competition” the opposite of “no good content?”
If the content is so good here that your own posts are not able to get upvotes in comparison, that suggests there is an overabundance of good content on Steem. Now in all honesty we know this isn’t true - there is good content, but not an abundance. Steem needs more great creators.
The idea of “too much competition” is usually a bad framing of the real problem: “It takes longer than we want to start earning steady rewards.”
The truth is that most Steem users will not earn steady rewards until at least 3-6 months of hard work here. Just like YouTube or Instagram, you need to put in the hours and post a lot of great content before you start to break out and find your audience.
Don’t Fall Into The Illusion
It’s normal to get frustrated but take it for what it is: a lack of patience. We all feel it, and we all gotta work on being a little more patient with each new day.
Whatever you do, don’t start believing the paradox of “no good content and too much competition,” as this is a weird mindset that will not be helpful. It’s better to stay optimistic and to understand that Steem is a long game.
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I would say that curators should be getting a much bigger chunk of the reward pool, as their work is just as important as the content producers, if not even more important.
That is a common opinion I've seen these days, @kevinwong was writing about something similar in a post this week. I agree. Although earlier my opinion as an author was that curation rewards would be painful to "eat the loss" on, now I recognize that if we don't have the best possible curation, the value of being a good author is not properly recognized.
Maybe curation and authorship should be 50/50...
50/50 sounds about right. The whole platform pretty much rests on the shoulders of the curators, so it makes sense to offer them adequate compensation.
Thank you.
I am maybe experiencing some burnout, but I am ready to rage at the stupidity of the current complaining.
While I don't disagree with the point you're making, I don't see how there is a paradox between the two complaints.
Here's my argument boiled down to its most basic element:
Competition ≠ Quality
The market disagrees
Exactly. The market decides what's quality and what is not.
Can you explain how the market has any authority over what is or is not considered good quality?
From what I can gather the market dictates what is popular/convenient/valuable/available, it does not dictate what is good or bad.
I know I'm a jaded, cynical individual, but even from a purely free market capitalistic point of view, I still don't see how Coke is better quality than Pepsi, even though (using your logic) "the market" says otherwise.
This post has received a 0.97 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @whatsup.
Thank you!