Nobody Wants to Be a Minnow - Are we unintentionally Insulting New and Potential Users? Not a Good Growth Strategy.
Face it, "minnows" and "whales" are bad labels. Both terms are awkward, passionless, and even have a negative connotation. On top of that, they don't really fit with the Steem concept. There hasn't been growth in active content creators in months, and there is a great divide between the powerful "whales" and weak "minnows". Steemit isn't approaching mainstream use and in my mind one reason is insufficient marketing, including this labelling issue. It may not be the biggest problem, but it's one of them.
Insulting the people you're marketing to or people using your product is one of the worst mistakes you can make.
Here is the Webster's definition of minnow.
1 a :a small cyprinid, killifish, or topminnow
b :any of various small fish that are less than a designated size and are not game fish
2 :a live or artificial minnow used as bait
In other words, a nearly worthless thing that's only good for bait.
Definition of a whale
it's only an animal in the dictionary, however in investing/business it's seen as someone extremely wealthy who is typically a sales target or basically known for their numbers, not for being a real person. It is not a flattering term.
What does any of that actually have to do with Steem? I think we're more than a security investment like the whale analogy implies.
We want Steemit to grow, we need new active members. Not just scammy curators, but active authors creating content. Although many dedicated people are trying hard and sincerely and there is great content, in terms of growth we are not doing a very good job. Calling ourselves and others whales and minnows is a turn off. They are inappropriate terms, not positive or attractive, and they should probably go away. Maybe they made sense when Steem was starting I don't know. Times change though, let's just let 'em go.
I love @minnowsupport, @make-a-whale, et al. I think services like that are great and help the platform. Their hearts are absolutely in the right place. Unfortunately and completely unintentionally by them, the labels used are borderline derogatory or at best too divisive, and I believe a turn off to most people in conjunction with all the use of the terms in people's posts.
I don't think anyone enjoys being called a "minnow", and people see "whales" as not people but dollar signs. We need to close the divide and become less polarized. Getting rid of these terms would be a start. Nobody is forcing us to call each other whales or minnows. As it should be with a decentralised community we make an individual choice to participate in a group effort.
I also want to put this in context, it's not the biggest problem with Steem to be sure. Our growth issues are largely technical as well, but I do think it's worth mentioning.
Sidenote: I admit Dolphins are cool though :-) Everybody loves dolphins. We can all be dolphins in the sea of Steem. Let's cuddle in the Steem as equals, regardless of size.
Just my opinion. Thanks for reading,
This is very true, "Labels are for Jars, not people ".Lets all be dolphins! :D
I wanna be a dolphin too. pick me pick me
This ^ (is that a nuclear dolphin?)
LOL @gingerninja
yes, and we'll sing with joy through our blowholes!
Glad to know I am not the only one who is offended by those labels! Thanks for writing this!
You're welcome!
lolz I feel its more like a "video game", you start as $hit and end up the Boss lolz
I think its nothing wrong with, @minnow, @dolphin or @whale. Hack, we should add @swordfish and @maduza...
It's a good idea actually, if we added a few more levels it wouldn't just lump a huge group of people into the "minnow" category. I wish we could get away from the fish thing though. The boss term "whale" is too closely associated with money and although that's part of Steemit I don't think it's the part we want to focus on. We don't want to look like just a bunch of greedy people.
Excuse me @cryptastic!
According to the number of my vests I am labeled as a plankton, so if you think the minnow label is an insult, please reconsider T_T
Having said that, I agree with you on everything you mentioned. When I first joined I had no idea about these labels and I was abashed I learned of them.
But in all honesty, despite what you said about whales being negative, I am sure those who are called whales they love it. These labels demonstrate the reality of steemit as we live it. Forget about all the good-for-nothing speeches about building a platform with equality (These words sound great) but in reality, lots of people want to become whales and feel the power by feeding on lesser organisms.
Humans love hierarchy and divisions. Anything that makes them superior, especially to their own race!
You didnt know about redfish level don't you?
Fully agree, but on top of that the fact that a minnow can´t grow without veeeeery much patience or by buying steem is what people really turns off. We live in a world where patience is something very scarce, and if people stay minnows for months, eventually they go away or back to their favorite socialapp where they have more functionalities like good layout, chats, etc. Only few Steemaddicts stay.
On interim we could improve things by maybe shifting the tresholds for moving up the "fish rank", e.g. minnows only up until <100 SP. From 100 to 500 already a trout?
I think it's a good idea. More levels, where it's easier to get up from the bottom, similar to the reputation ranks, and I'd just like to get away from the fish thing. Especially whale because it has an implication of greed, which is not what Steemit should be about. Thanks,
Of course, but the fish thing is so common now - it would be very hard to gt rid off it. If so, this change must come from top, from the w.. OK I don´t say it :) In Austria we have a say: "the fish starts stinking from the top"
Sometimes that is the problem, i watched videos in youtube about the potential of steemit to be the next facebook of the future where you post and earn, that made me eager to join steemit, but in a long run, i felt, how is this going to happen if facebook is effortless, and here you need to work your but off. well its ok, to work hard if we are earning the rightful earning we deserve, but making a blog with alot of info and made alot of effort and you get only .1 dollar and you’ll see some posts just a picture and gets 10, 20, 30 or more, maybe because of a big friend, is so frustrating. Maybe if they could make something like activity, i dont know
Actually your experience is saying all.
I wanna be a tuna!
lol- but seriously: Nice post!
Awesome post!!! Nothing better than this !!!
Thanks!
Labels are what society used to separate the "rich" and the "poor", the big and the little, the old and the new. They are just bad and intimidating as if you are not in their circle, don't touch or don't even think about it kind of thing.