Lack of quality content in Steemit?
I've been here in Steemit for just a couple of days, and I'm still in the process of finding out what kind of community there is here in this site. Now, I am trying to browse around and check out some latest posts, but I somehow begin to notice a handful of things that made me curious. Hence, I am posting this article both as an observation and a question. Hopefully, those who have been here in Steemit for quite some time will be able to shed some light about the matters raised. As an overview, here are the things I've noticed (which will be given more details and explanation below):
- There seems to have a lot of articles posted that lack quality or value
- How does Steemit generate revenue, given that there are no ads?
- What really differentiates Steemit with other content sites?
Okay, these statements or questions may seem extremely bold, but hear me out with my explanations below.
Lack of quality and value in Steemit articles
I am not generalizing this statement (since I also came across articles with a huge deal of interesting and valuable information). However, whenever I check out the "new" articles, I see articles which lack depth, quality and/or value.
This left me really confused. Is Steemit more similar to Tumblr where you often just re-share memes, quotes and photos? Or does it aspire to be a site full of valuable content? Well, based on the "About" page of Steemit, it looks like it's targeting to be the latter. However, again, I see a major disconnect.
Are we expecting to have enforcement of quality control? Are there no negative effect to the site given the volume of content with little value? Is Steemit concerned about search engine optimization (SEO)? To be honest, I'm asking all of these questions because I'm concerned about the future here in Steemit.
With over 5 years of experience in curating contents online, I learned that large number of poorly written articles may drag down the value of a website (i.e. by lowering or penalizing its chances of appearing in search engines). Well, I honestly don't know much about what happens on the backend, and maybe Steemit is doing something about this. Or perhaps, Steemit is not really concerned over search engine traffic. After all, this is a community, and the target audience may just be the people within the community. This however somehow leads me to my second question.
How does Steemit generate revenue?
Normally, writing network sites generate revenue by splitting the inflows between the writers and the site. This makes sense because they need to pay up some operational costs. Now, for sure Steemit also incurs some costs related to keeping this site alive. However, I don't see any ads floating when I read articles. If not through ads, how does Steemit generate revenue? Where does it get the "money" for paying the content creators here? Should we be concerned?
What does make Steemit different?
The answer to the second question/observation may also be applicable to this third question, but I'm asking it anyway. What differentiates Steemit with other content sites? Well, I am familiar that this site incorporates cryptocurrency in rewarding its members, but aside from this, are there other differentiating characteristics?
After all, if this is something that is existing long before, what will make Steemit foster in the next months to come?
Anyway, these are just the current thoughts running in my mind. Hopefully, there would be someone who can provide some illumination from my cloudy thoughts. I am having my fingers crossed because I feel potential in this site. Thanks for helping out!
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STOPYeah, the New posts section is pretty ordinary. Try chainbb or my (beta) steemfeed.social. Using one or both of them helps greatly in finding higher quality content.
Thanks for this, although I don't know exactly where to find this. Do I use a search bar here in Steemit?
No, chainbb is an alternative front end of the steem blockchain. It's structured like a forum, so it's easier to find currently active threads in subject areas that you like. steemfeed.social is a front end aggregator I have built to be able to filter out the low quality posts as best as possible. It's still beta, and I'm currently working on other projects, but will eventually get back there to make it look a bit better and perhaps add more filters for people to use.
Thanks for the time in explaining this to me! Cheers!
No worries. :) I'm going to resteem this in the hope that someone might give you some answers to your other questions. I'm just too busy at the moment with coding to put my mind to it.
@rosatravels Just wondering if you happen to have some idea about some of my observations here. :)
Great questions! I have recently written several posts that talk about how to get better quality content on steemit but they might not interest you because it is more about how to fix it but you can check them out anyway if you want.
Second, where does the money come from? This is somewhat complicated but also very simple so I'll do my best to explain it well.
I hope you are familiar with blockchain technology. If not, I can explain that too. The steem blockchain has witnesses instead of miners, they are in charge of making sure everything works and all posts and upvotes are processed, etc. They do this in batches called blocks that are added to the blockchain every 3 seconds. When a new block is created it also creates new steem. This steem isn't given solely to the miners like with other cryptocurrencies, it is split with some going to the miners and the rest going to the "reward pool." The reward pool is split between everyone that got upvotes. This is where the payouts come from.
Now the next question would be, why does steem have value if more is just created all the time? Well, if you buy steem you can "power up" which turns your steem into "steem power" the more steem power you have, the more your vote counts in splitting the reward pool. So some people's vote might add less than a cent to a post, while others add dollars. When people buy steem, the price goes up, (supply and demand, see my older posts for more details) and when they sell the price goes down. So if more people are buying steem than are selling it, the value of steem will go up and our payouts will go up while the opposite is also true.
Hopefully that makes a little sense, please ask any questions you have and I can clarify.
I think it also answers your third question. What makes it different? No one owns it, it is built on a blockchain that rewards people based on how other people vote on it. It discourages spam and encourages valuable posts. Do you think I would have written all this on some random website? Well, probably... but that's just because I'm crazy. Most people here want to be valuable so they create more connections that allow them to learn more and have more influence in the community.