New Lows, and a Late Night Reflection on What I am Doing Here
Taking stock this morning — as I have done every day since I started here, because I am a bit of a numbers geek — I noted that the market value of my SP holdings are now at their lowest point since May 7th, 2017.
No, this is not another whiny post about the price of Steem and the fate of Steemit, it's a reflection on blogging. And I want to give a shoutout to @meno, for inspiring this post.
In a post entitled If It Made Nothing from a couple of days ago, @meno observed that he would probably still be here, writing, even if there weren't any rewards.
Which isn't to say that we don't like the rewards; they just aren't the primary motivating factor.
Fuchsias in the rain
Social Blogging
I ended up on Steemit because a friend asked me to check out an article about Universal Basic Income. That article happened to be written and published by someone on Steemit, so after reading the article I started exploring the site...
And I found it to be a lot like Xanga, a social blogging site where I was very active between 2002 and about 2007.
The timing was very opportune, because I was (A) really fed up with the divisive fire storming and trolling that Facebook seemed to have become, as a result (mostly) of the US Presidential election and (B) I was rapidly losing interest in maintaining several (otherwise successful) "strict niche" blogs I had built since Xanga's slow demise.
In other words, I was ready to go back to "general interest commentary" style blogging. Fuck niches! Fuck always having to be "on topic" and always having to focus on delivering "information" without myself being in the picture. Fuck having to write 3rd person "article style" blog posts.
Garden filled with poppies
Having Fun Again!
What I quickly (re)discovered on Steemit was how much I just enjoy flow-of-consciousness writing, and how much I had missed it.
I also realized I was somewhat out of practice at it...
And even if it (the interaction) were somewhat motivated by money, I realized there was a FAR more interactive community on Steemit than anywhere else I'd seen in quite a while.
Over on Blogger (where I had built several pretty successful blogs, I would put out a blog post, have 2000+ reads in 24 hours, and end up with zero to three comments.
Meanwhile, I also published some on HubPages, and there it was all "follow a certain formula, or remain invisible." Frankly, I don't like "write to order."
Winter sunset
Why I am NOT quitting Steemit
Lately, it seems like a lot of people have either stopped posting here and have left for... what? Facebook? Or they are far less active than they used to be.
In taking a long hard look at "what I am doing" here, I realized that the primary reason I am not having thoughts about quitting has little to nothing to do with the rewards. Sure, it was fun to suddenly get paid for blogging, but that was never my expectation to begin with.
In fact, in my introductory post here in January 2017, I expressed a LOT of skepticism as to whether this whole "get paid" idea was even rooted in reality.
My point being, that any rewards I have earned here have been — and continue to be — a "delightful surprise," rather than an "expectation."
I just enjoy the free style writing, the variety of topics, and the interesting people here. And that's enough to keep me plugging along here.
How about YOU? Have you had thoughts about quitting Steemit? Because of the lowered rewards? Where would you go, instead? Or are you planning to stick it out here, regardless of whether Steemit "succeeds" or not? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
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Created at 180910 00:21 PDT
I love this attitude, and it’s one of the many things that make you such a fantastic author on this platform. I had some similar thoughts a long time ago when a change in the rewards pool essentially cleared it out for a couple weeks and most people stopped writing. I didn’t stop because I understood my motivations were intrinsic, not extrinsic.
Curious, have you ever been to burning man? I published a post about it yesterday you may enjoy.
Thanks Luke!
Good point about "intrinsic vs. extrinsic." I'm a blogger-content creator, and I enjoy this place simply in that capacity. I do remember "7-cent Steem" and I do remember... HF.18(?) when posts pretty much became worthless.
I also look to the greater "story arc" that we're part of building something — a movement, even(?) — towards something that is much bigger than just "Steemit, a social site."
I look at things like SteemMonsters, whose KickStarter is now fully funded with 20 days to go... which will take "something Steem based" to a far greater audience than we've ever had before! Consider the reach of STILL popular "Magic: The Gathering" started in 1993, which has an estimated 25 million players today, with some 40 billion cards out there.
Also keeping an eye on ActiFit. If they play that one well, it's another "broad appeal" project involving the Steem blockchain. This is all exciting stuff!
I'm going to head over and read your Burning Man report next. I have not being to Burning Man, but my wife went in 2015 and considers it a "life changing" experience... she was the executive chef at Sacred Spaces Village, as well as a Temple Guardian. At some point (maybe 2020?) when we get other obligations dialed back a bit, we might go together.
Sounds like a lot of changes in your world! I went and checked your feed a few days back and noticed you have a major move happening, too. Puerto Rico seems like a bit of a "hot spot" at the moment... several friends from our local town and beyond have moved there, in the past 12-18 months.
We’ve chatted about this a bit before; I feel like we have very similar motivations for being here and attitudes toward the financial rewards, or lack thereof 😅
I think the only thing that would make me leave for another platform would be if the level of spam/abuse/garbage posting increased dramatically. This environment of falling prices actually seems like it helps tamp down on this sort of thing: a welcome silver lining to STEEM <$0.80
I also like the idea that people who were only here to make a quick buck are leaving. I don’t want to share a platform with that crowd anyway, so good riddance I say!
I am not very heavily invested here, and I don’t have a very large wallet, so I have the luxury of participating without much skin in the game. I can see how a veteran of the platform could feel very differently about everything going on, and I can certainly appreciate that.
Yeah, I would agree with you on the spam/abuse thing. I have left other sites on account of that... somehow leaving those I left behind scratching their heads and going "But you can make MONEY here, why would you leave?"
I guess because I consider myself more than a song of one note.
I feel cautiously hopeful that a lot of the "get rich quick" schemers are folding up their tents and heading home, leaving behind content creators.
I'm not attached to the whole "quality content" issue, though, although I was (moreso) in the early days. These days I think more in terms of adding value with posts. Most people want to see stuff that interests them, not long detailed articles. Sure, some of those are good. But so is a lot of other stuff.
awesome writing brother.... I pretty much mirror your sentiments... :)
Thank you!
I think these things need to be SAID and SHARED as a reflection that we have built a really vibrant community here. Is it just a small fraction of the million+ members? Sure! But we're here "creating something."
In truth, I don't see the falling Steem/Crypto prices as a BAD thing, really. I think it shakes out a bunch of people who don't actually help this place grow.
A couple of days back @stellabelle posted about "coming back" and realized that her perception had changed because there really IS a lot of good stuff happening here. Maybe not on "Steemit" but there are tons of really good dApps being built on the Steem blockchain. Actifit, SteemMonsters and several others are going FAR beyond just our own internal ecosystem... and yet, they are based on STEEM, ultimately.
OK, so maybe it'll end up the Steemit "proper" just becomes a little "club" of 50K, 100K? deidicated users who enjoy interacting with each other. But SO WHAT? We're still part of the same greater whole...
That's good enough for me. In the meantime, I really just enjoy the writing and interacting!
Hell no Iam not quitting @denmarkguy :) Iam like you I love the freedom of free flow Blogging or however you want to call it. It's refreshing from my Niche blogging which I have done over the last 10+ years.
And its nice to see those Rewards every once in awhile.
I have enough invested that I can sit on my SP and while waitring for appreciation of Steem I can have a blast here producing Content.
I guess you can do that with stock message boards but you do not get paid with stock for posting ;)
Thanks for this great post my friend !!
I guess I just got tired of a lot of the other content formats out there, and determined I liked the openness of what was here... and that decision really wasn't driven by rewards.
I plan to stick around here for as long as things keep going... which I hope will be a really long time.
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Hey just saw the benefactor reward you gave ... thanks for that... and now I see the shoutout at the end as well. We appreciate that as well.