What should you write on Steemit?

in #steemit6 years ago

Note: this post is an English translation of my post, originally written in Korean.


I've thought about what to write on Steemit as a user of this platform.
After all, I should know what is the appropriate thing to upload here.

To do so, I've looked up the payout scheme of Steem, and found this post.

Based on that post:

  • You can receive the financial reward by getting votes.
  • The voting window is 7 days, and only votes that have occurred within this period counts toward your financial reward.
  • You cannot edit what you have written when 7 days have passed since the writing.
  • Comments are exceptions in that they can be deleted. (Is this true? Don't know...)

So, based on these points, what is a good post to write on Steemit?

  • A piece that is going to receive many votes within the 7 day window.
    In other words, it needs to be 'current'.
    ex) news, column, ...
    You don't get paid by writing a classic that does not get noticed right away.
    While you can get reputation points from such writings even after the 7-day window, you won't get any financial reward. Incentive-wise, it is much better to write a lot of moderately interesting and not-so-hard-to-write posts. A classical work? Not gonna happen on Steemit.
  • A piece that you will NEVER want to delete.
    Don't write something on Steemit that you'll regret later. It cannot be deleted.
    Don't declare your love to someone whom you might not get married. Who knows? Your future wife/husband/significant other might see your post and begin to have some thoughts.
  • Don't post things that may be used against you in the court of law in your lifetime. For example:
    NSFW stuff, copyright infringement, marijuana-related information, and whatever else that the law enforcement can turn against you someday in the future.

When you think about it, posts suitable for Steemit are a rare kind.
To maximize revenue, you have to write posts that will

  • be an instant hit, within 7 days.
  • never going to cause you any problem, both now and future. (and to decide whether it will cause you a problem, you have to rely on hopelessly incomplete information.)
    Very hard indeed. Still, I think Steem has some potential. So I will use this platform/blockchain...
    But as it stands, Steemit is not going to be my main blogging platform.

IMO, the 7-day payout window is one of the most glaring weaknesses of Steem. Competing revenue platforms like Adsense may have lower pay per post, but they certainly have much longer monetization window.
Also, the immutability (non-deletablity) may be another big weakness depending on your viewpoint. While transparancy can bring some good outcomes, you are really giving up privacy entirely.
(And don't give me shittalk like "I have nothing to hide because I'm a good person." If you really don't have anything to hide, give your entire set of personal information to me right now. For example: Your social security number, phone number, e-mail address and account password, all of your bank accounts and their passwords, your home/work address, pictures and videos of your naked body, and written testimony of every embarrassing memory that you have, etc.. I'm sure you won't, if you are sane. Let's just take this as an example of an argument against transparency. Why do you think the Chinese government ban trading of cryptocurrency and yet study them? They would love to make everyone - maybe with exception to Xi and his subordinates - transparent, I think.)

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