Ever since I joined this community, less than 3 months ago, I was surprised by the constant polarization manifesting at almost every level of Steemit: in some articles, in the chat, in posts on other social media platforms or even in direct conversations with other members.

On one side there are the enthusiasts, those pumped up by the novelty of the project, by the price of Steem, by the potential of the community, and on the other side there are the pessimists, the naysayers, the frustrated.

For a while, I didn't understand the reason for the frustrated side. And, for a while, I took a strong position and drew a fence between "my side" - the optimist side, that is - and "the other side". But as I spent more time here and as I read more and more pessimistic articles, I realized the causes for the frustrated side were not only real, but also natural.

In this article I'll try to depict my own interpretation of the causes for the negative sentiment towards Steemit. Wether you are an optimist or a pessimist, I urge you to read until the end.

1. Fear of New and of Uncertainty

As repressed as it may be, this fear is a general human bias. We, humans, don't play well with novelty. Nor with uncertainty. And Steemit is way too young, as a project, to be predictable. It's something that has never been done before. So no one really knows if this will work out or not. But then, again, so was the case with Twitter or Facebook. In the very early days of any profoundly disruptive project, being it Instagram or Uber, no one really knew if it will work out or not, and the innate reaction of rejection was very strong. People naturally like certainty and Steemit is everything but certain at this point of its existence.

2. Natural Competition Reaction

As young as it is, Steemit works. And it works in a niche plagued by hype, volatility and underdelivery. Look for instance at projects like Synereo, which, as hyped as it was, broke before its launch. Or "fixing reddit with Bitcoin", which has a very good intention, but never really took off. In such an ecosystem, any project that will function, even if it does it just as a proof of concept (and in many ways Steemit is just a proof of concept), will generate strong reactions from competition. It may not come directly from competition, but from fans of competition in various media outlets, it's the same thing.

3. Expectations from Users, Set Too High

To the moon, right? Let's see the price of Steem rising up to the moon. And let's see it now, please! Expectations are the root cause of disappointment, generally speaking. In the case of Steemit, a certain part of users are setting up really high expectations. They compare Steemit with Facebook, which in my opinion is completely wrong, not only in terms of size or market share, but also in terms of the dynamics of the community. People in Steemit are producing content for different reasons and with different rewards. More expectations = more disappointment.

4. Generalization from Narrow Focus

Steemit is a very complex project: it’s a cryptocurrency, it’s a social media website, it’s a governance experiment, it’s a blockchain that can host other tokens and economies. When some of the parts are going “down”, like the price of cryptocurrency, for instance, the tendency is to expand that sentiment towards the entire ecosystem. Sometimes a part will function better than the other, that's just natural. In July, for instance, the price worked better than the adoption. Now the adoption is better than in July, but the price is lower. Because it’s such a complex mechanism, Steemit will always have some parts that are going better and some parts that are going worse than the rest. But this shouldn’t expand to the whole system.

5. Conspiracy Bias

A lot of content on Steemit is about conspiracy, anarchism and so on. Decentralization and lack of censorship brought up a certain type of content which is not so visible on other platforms (specifically because of censorship, most of the time). In a bizarre way, this lack of censorship backfires. The same people who are using Steemit as an uncensored medium for their warnings towards the end of the world (real or imaginary, that’s something I don’t really know) are voicing their concerns towards Steemit itself. I find this quite amusing, to be honest.

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As you can see, all these causes are natural. And none of them is really set in stone or strong enough to lead to the extinction of the platform.

But the negative sentiment is still there, so, the natural question is: when will Steemit recover from this? Will it ever recover?

To be honest, I have no idea. The project is so new, so unusual and still so fragile, that everything can happen. It may explode next month, or it may collapse.

One thing I learned during my own entrepreneurial adventures is that the future cannot be predicted. It doesn't work like that. I mean, it's fun to stand up, say something about the future and then, if that thing actually happens, look over everybody's heads and shout: "I told you so!". That's just childish.

A much more realistic approach towards the future is to actually build it. That works better than predicting it, as in "it has more chances to work out than just pure luck".

The causes for negative sentiment towards Steemit are natural because toxicity, in itself, is part of life. It's just out there and you can't just hope it will go away, just because you want it. You have to adjust, somehow.

A virus that gets into your body is not "bad" by itself. It's a living creature, just like you. And like every living organism, if you want to survive, you have to come to terms, somehow, with that virus.

All those negative reactions described above, are not "bad" by themselves, they are natural.

Steemit, as any other young organism, has to face the world. It's an immunization process. Those of you who have children will understand what I mean. At the end of this immunization process, Steemit will emerge more powerful, more stable, more lucid.

But until then, you have a choice. As a part of this organism, you can choose to be on the side of the toxicity, or on the side of the immune system.

I personally choose to be a part of the immune system and do whatever I can to maintain the health of the whole ecosystem.

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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You can also vote for me as witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses