Looking at the ground and seeing Steem
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I heard a story that may or may not have happened that my brother @galenkp was involved in when a teen. It isn't incriminating so is Blockchain friendly, but it illustrates something that I think will happen in the future both in the entire crypto industry and on Steem.
What happened was my brother stared at the ground in the middle of a busy open-air mall. That is it.. Then, a couple friends came over one by one and in a small circle, stared at the ground also. However, while they stood there quite still staring, passersby became curious and slowly sidled up to look at the ground as well, trying to see what they were seeing. Soon enough, more and more started to crowd around the group thinking there must be something interesting going on and they didn't want to miss out. FOMO.
Now, you might have seen this video before but, give it a watch as a refresher
This demonstrates the first follower principle and speaks through what is happening clearly enough.
This is how I see all of us on Steem at the moment - the crazy leader. But, slowly the first followers are coming in to see what we are staring at, what attracts us and in many cases, what makes us crypto fanatics. Stare at the ground long enough and slowly, others will crowd around too. The difference is, this isn't kids in a mall playing pranks or a guy at a rave high on ecstasy dancing to a bass beat on the side of a hill, there is substance here.
We aren't staring nothing, there are protocols, apps, economic opportunity, security, learning, games, data matters, creativity and solutions to many kinds of issues being formulated daily. The blockchain industry is a hive of activity that is continually growing to include more and more aspects and people into its folds. These in turn are attracting, more and more.
If there were suddenly 1 million active Steem users, how long does it take to get 2 million and then 4 million? There is a critical mass where the gravity starts to attract more toward it and that mass is going to have a different experience than it did on the centralized platforms. Rather than being pulled to one point, the mass will gather around distributed nodes, the applications and services that deliver a more tailored experience, rather than one-size-fits-all.
Because of the distributed and organic nature of the process, this happens more slowly but grows stronger with overlapping strengths that shore up individual weaknesses. The failure of one node doesn't kill the organism.
What is also interesting is that at some point, the first leaders can step away and the pattern of behavior continues where the followers and users keep acting. In the case of my brother's group, they slid away fairly early and then watched from the outskirts as the crowd gathered. In the case of Dancing Guy, the last people in had absolutely no idea from where the movement or trend began as they didn't see it develop, just joined in through others. A distributed network.
As I have said many times before, eventually crypto and Steem will be ubiquitous and those coming in will naturally join through one of hundreds or thousands of various channels in and will not necessarily know of the humble beginnings, the drama and scam and most likely, the first names at all. Steem is a protocol and will hopefully become part of the backbone infrastructure that is the tokenized economy - most people aren't interested in learning the name of protocols, let alone how they work - they just want to be able to do what they need to do and have them work. This takes development.
Steem is getting there as is the entire industry but, it takes time and a lot of growing pains along the way. It is definitely not ready for millions upon millions of users, even if the infrastructure can handle it because, the community isn't ready for it. When they do arrive though, it is going to create an attractive mass that draws attention toward it and, there needs to be enough to see to hold that attention long-term. That is happening slowly too.
The people who have been here the last three, two or one year and made it through to this point are proof that it is sticky, even in bear markets. Sure, a lot of people think we are crazy people staring at the ground but, more and more are staring and seeing what we see.
Steem, Steem everywhere...
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Yep, that happened.
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Haha well done lol.
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A story for the Mallsballers
The last time I starred at a spot it was a UFO in the sky. I didn't want to take my eyes off it in case I was dreaming. Others saw me looking and also looked up. After it flew off no one wanted to talk about what we had seen.
I just hope Steem isn't a UFO
Me too.
Hello,
yes I agree totally. It's the same with the #Seven77 pushups challenge by @nathanmars on Twitter, the people staring on us and asking themselves what these people are doing, they get curious to know what's happening there.
The success is slow but it's the long term what matters.
Happy Easter
Tom
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And it will slowly start bring them in one at a time and eventually, larger and larger influencers too which drives it even harder. @nathanmars is a good example of influencing to bring people together to act with coordination.
The long-term is looking very strong.
The momentum will pick up at some point and then it will be waves of new people. We are not there yet and it is only a matter of time. Time for us all to grow more.
Keep on going, keep on growing :)
Mother and daughter are alike. ..my best wishes to Smallsteps. ..yea i read your story here... but i still enjoy the Smallsteps stories more😜
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:)
I will try to convince her to write some more for you :)
Please please please there are more than 600 persons of my followers on other platforms are waiting her to show up again with new pictures and new stories...omg she is now so popular. .. I really love her as if she us my daughter. .
God bless her.
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I million active steem users will be like the Eureka moment for us... There will be no stopping us after that
Yep, I think there will be a massive drive after that point - even though it is impossible to tell when we reach it due to all the alts.
That is so funny! I think we do much more than stare here as it continues to expand given the things we can now do here despite the challenges. Amazing to see the difference a year makes!
Posted using Partiko iOS
There is a lot of organised activity for a group of crazy people :)
Totally agree and the video def made my day !😊![f4klcaf4z9.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://img.esteem.ws/f4klcaf4z9.png)
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