RE: Down Down We Go – And why that might not be a bad thing
The observation that "the community of Steemit may soon be put to the test," seems necessary to address, right now. There are times, like the Project Curie post, when I feel like I see the community, but the conversations that led to that particular initiative happened somewhere else. In chat?
I read and comment a lot, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in discussion. Every time I post an article, I experience an emotional crash when I realize it's not connecting or generating conversation. It makes me feel like I'm failing at joining this community. That so many seem to owe wild success to having contacted whales and begged for attention makes me wonder if it's a community that deserves the hard work of serious writers.
Unrelated to the idea of financial investment, how do we build strong enough conversation and community here to compensate for the sense that real connection is valued less than a typed up a twist on a recipe? What am I missing?
The lack of attention that the minnows currently are getting is probably Steemit's biggest unresolved issue at the moment. This is a large discussion in of itself, and I probably won't be able to tackle it here much better than has been done in lots of other posts. There are a lot of discussions going on right now on ways to improve this, and members of the community are doing a lot as well (project Curie, @robinhoodwhale, etc.).
I will add my own theory to the mix, in risk of opening a huge can of worms - and state that the site is not truly ready for minnows yet. It is still in its early / beta stages, and I think (my personal opinion) that they are more focused on distributing the power to dolphins and growing the infrastructure of the site right now - than adding the parts that are necessary for the minnows to succeed.
Where does that leave the minnows for now? Well, basically keep engaging. If you are commenting on posts like you did here, and continuing to create interesting posts, then over time you will generate followers. Eventually you will (slowly) get more people that you are connected with, which will help your posts get more viability. I've been posting a lot on this site, and most of my posts don't make much money. I notice a lot of people engaging with me though, which I find fun - so that is the main thing that keeps me going.
Thank you for this thoughtful response! It makes sense that the site is not truly ready for minnows. The exciting conversations are largely around how to improve Steemit, itself. I've had some resistance to investing in the knowledge base it would take to truly add to those discussions, since I'm more likely to contribute better in other ways. It does feel good to know that there are lots of discussions about how to help minnows participate. People will invest if they're connecting. Great conversations are the success I'm after. Thanks again for taking the time to boost my spirits. :)
I signed up originally to invest. The minnow experience is also your potential investor experience.