I appreciate your sentiment, and what you say is true, but it's so hard to get people to simply open a post as indicated by the little eyeball next to the facebook symbol on the right.
I suppose that using a compelling picture header and choosing the right words at the beginning is the key here. But I think that there is so much content on Steemit, and the whales are mostly interested in curation rewards no matter what else they claim, and so are the other Steemians who would upvote and resteem, so getting read is not an easy thing.
If people would actually read my posts and then comment, even if, and maybe especially if, they don't agree with what I'm saying, I wouldn't feel that my hard work was unrewarded even without an upvote or a resteem.
Bots don't read, and whales never comment and neither do the bot trails that follow them. A nice, fat upvote from a whale does get more eyeballs on a post and quite often that leads to more comments, but the self-interest aspect of the Steemit platform is more about making money than actually sharing information. The information aspect is secondary, which is a shame IMHO.
I don't know whether I should comment this but I am going too. if all the minnows, that goes for me where to stop upvoting the high paid content and concentrated on upvoting minows, then this the money would not just go to the whales.
I feel like my post also don't get what they deserve, but for me this is more of a hobby than a way to make a living.
I was talking to a chinese guy at a steemit meet up not so long ago, and he explained to me that all his upvotes were from follows who he knew, then he would bring others in to that circle to make his group bigger. I know he is a whale, and he is one of my top upvotes on my other account.
But he started of small, just like every one else and got a circle of friends who are all now high paid bloggers on steemit.
I am not trying to annoy anyone with this comment, so i hope the whales don't get pissed with what I am saying as we do need them to knock up our upvotes. but fair has to be fair. we also want to get paid like them when it comes to posting on here.
Interesting that you fear the whales and possible reprisals. I wouldn't think they would invest in something like this to quash dissent. But who am I to question. I'm always wrong.
I see this sentiment a lot. I think it's a rationalization. @stellabelle posted a while back that in the Steemit Whitepaper that there is a reference to gambling addiction and how that helps drive the platform. I haven't read the Whitepaper so I can't confirm this, but it appears to be a valid observation. Every time I post, effectively pulling the handle on the one-armed bandit, I hope for a "winner," and every time I do win, I think that at last things have changed for me and I will now be able to make my time here worthwhile. I'll get a 150 Steem post, but then my next 10 posts generate mere pennies. It is just like an addiction. They know this and they keep us going this way until we finally give up in frustration. But for every minnow that gives up there 10 new fishies who join. It's a good gig if you can get inside the circle.
I don't have a lot of writer friends. I'm pretty much a loner. The vast majority of people who I talk to don't even have a clue what a blockchain is or how cryptos work. They won't join. They don't even post on Facebook or in the comment section of the websites they read. They only look, not participate.
I'm not one to sit in a chat room either. I find most of what's being talked about quite boring. Maybe I'm just in the wrong room but I cannot seem to find anything that interests me there.
I always give a 100% upvote whenever I read something or reply to a comment even if I don't agree. And I never upvote my own posts or replies. Doesn't seem to do much. Few reciprocate. All it does is to make my posts less valuable. But it is the golden rule I live by. I always try to set a higher standard for people to emulate. They seldom do in this world racing to the bottom.
Thanks for commenting even though you didn't want to. To me that's what make this platform interesting and valid.
Thanks for the reply.
I have two wales that follow my other account and that took some doing, I met them in person and put time and effort into getting to know them. I didn't do it for the upvotes even though reading what I have just put now sounds like I did it for that reason.
I went to steem fest and met some amazing people and thats were I met them, if I had not talked to them then i don't think i would get the upvotes I need.
While I was talking to them, they dropped me some inside information,
this thing to do with not upvoting your own posts is a good rule to follow, but some people ie myself need to power up my steem to help new users, this way with this account I can go that step further and offer bigger pay outs to newbies.
I still read through alot and up vote things that I find interesting, but this account is all about upvoting and following new users to give them a better chance.
the points I make at the top are just narrowed down from the conversation i had with them, and that does not mean that every whale does this nor am i saying they do this either, it was just implied.
That makes sense. This is really a platform about making money, not reading or writing anything of value. While there may be some philanthropy by the whales, the majority are only going to upvote posts they think will be popular, and by their upvotes they make them popular because there are bots and followers who want to jump on that bandwagon and get heavy upvotes as well.
I really appreciate this information. It clarifies a lot for me. If you've visited my blog, you'll note in my banner I claim to be a fool. I truly am. My criteria for writing is far different from most of the bloggers here.
Given your above exposé, I now understand why I'm not gaining much traction here. This has been very enlightening. Thank you.
This platform has only been going maybe a couple of years and the orriginals who came to it first have alot staked in this community, it would be nice for the whales to up vote minnows stuff, and in all fairness I have seen it happen.
I too only upvote the stuff that means something to me, I look at peoples posts and if i see something i like I give it an upvote.
I have been upvoting following and resteeming new peoples post who to me seem to be the ones who right now have took the time to write about them selves and why they have come to steemit.
if any off the people i follow start to wonder of track and post items that are copy write, i will stop the up voting and seace to follow them, as this goes for everything I stand for.
like i said before, if you find 10 people who are interested in the same thing as you, and you guys upvote each other, you would inturn make money from your posts, instead of having to rely on the odd up vote here and there, if you get me.
I like to have followers, but it seems that the big hitters on here have 1000's of followers and there posts get the massive upvotes, where i don't have that kind of following and i get pence.
its all about who you know not what you know. :)
How does one become a whale? Getting a lot of upvotes?
I believe its done in nodes, the more nodes you have the more powerful you are. this is what steem is based on.
the best way to get more power is to invest money into steem, place it in to your account and then you will have power. this in turn will have more of a posative infulance on votes, comments.
Before xmas steem value was very low at $0.80, but the price has risen massively, this would have been the best time to buy.
On my other account I watched my account go from $355.00 to $3300 over the xmas period, it has dropped a little bit but I know some one who is a crypto analasist, who i have met on here and face to face who says by 2020 the steem value will be at between $70 to $80 each. this is a massive rise, and my other account, if i stopped posting now would be valued at $30.000 thats a big peice of cash for blogging :)
I just invested, and purchased some steem power. I'm new to all of this, and I find that steem power has more value than the steem dollars and tokens. I'm still trying to figure out how much my upvotes are worth. Got to do more research on this. It's so overwhelming.
when you have $500 in steemit, you get a slider, this means you can give as much and as little up to what your steem power is worth. so my account at $3000 dollors lets me upvote at 100% will give the total pay out to $0.30. if i was to do 10% that would be $0.03 that how steem is right now.
My account on the name @drewturner is currently at about $3.30 and my upvote is 0.01c, if i am to up vote more than i think 10 times the value decreases.
On my other account i try not to hit 100% on any post as that wipes out my poswer after 10 upvotes so I tend to do 50% upvotes unless something is really really really good. :)
you can also check your stats of your account by using these two sites.
steemd.com
steemstats.com
For some reason tonight i can't get on to them, they might be down for a while. but they are worth a look, you have to enter your steemit name and it gives you all the details you need. no password so it seems safe to me. :)