The number of people joining this platform every day is huge. I’m still really new here, but I think I grasped the basic concept of evolution of the users from minnows to whales. I decided to present my thoughts to share the knowledge with the new confused users, or to be corrected that this is not the case.  

Source

Evolution of Steemians

Start

Who would guess that it all starts with the registration? Those who has read at least a portion of the whitepaper before joining have huge advantage. Those people have a decent image of how this site works and what it strives for. This knowledge is super important, because such users can immediately start to fully utilize their potential (it isn’t anything special but better than it used to be), therefore grow more rapidly.

After introduction post that is usually kinda overrated to drag the new users in comes the first blow. New users usually concentrate mainly on creation of their blog, even though no one really knows them, resulting in drastically lower allocated rewards. There are lucky exceptions of course, whose first real posts ever are actually “bestsellers”. This is most of the times not the case.

Such user is also very likely to hit a follow button. Browsing through all the new posts is too time consuming, therefore the user tries to make his feed existent. 

Proclamation of existence

That is the time, when user realizes that he has to spend much more time reading other blogs to be recognized by the community. Those who fail to undergo this very first evolutionary step perish. Most people here are mainly interested in community interaction, not in hone-self-blog-only.

User has to also finalize the first “draft” about the issue of “what kind of information am I going to seek here?” Every person has different “content interests”, therefore (if he wants to be recognized rather sooner than later) the new user has to strategically select blogs that share similar interests. 

---

Pre HF 19

Before the HF 19 it was vital to be recognized basically by any whale in order to have any real pay out on the post. Uniting with 150 meant almost nothing reward-vise. When any whale was posting with at least some % on a post, not only it gave the user real rewards, but it also motivated less valuable users to vote on the post too before the whale next time. 

---

Post HF 19

What HF 19 tries to establish here is bigger equality. While technically the strong ones have even bigger potential power, suddenly it makes more sense to unite with 150 minnows, because they alone can now bring the post to at least few bucks, which was total utopia before the HF. 

While it is still true that users have to acquire acknowledgment of highly valuable user in order to gain rewards and visibility (understand have a possibility to make Steemit your dream job), cooperating with a lot of minnows, while more time-consuming, can actually lead to potentially higher income later on.

Those that fail to realize, that what I described above can never be obtained by comments like “Nice posts” are condemned to be stuck in the 2nd evolutionary stage, until they will perish too if they try their luck with @berniesanders. Also one would need to be a master level lickspittle to attract a whale without any informative value shared with it. 

---

Existence recognized

The Steemit’s cycle is easy. Less valuable user wants to present himself to more valuable user. When the user is recognized it means that he is now considered as more valuable by other minnows that try to present themselves to him, thus creating the cyclical rule.

This is also time when a user can be added to a curator’s trail. This is gigantic milestone. If a trail follows a user, he instantly gains some serious rewards. This is the time when the user has to choose, whether he will start to abuse the auto vote and start spamming one article after another, resulting in being dropped out of the trail, or produce even better content and seals the stable income. 

---

Pre HF 19

Recognized existence meant that the user was finally getting at least some whale up votes regularly. Because of that his posts attracted even bigger audience and the true growth finally began. 

---

Post HF 19

It’s still too early to call it and true outcome of the HF is still to be determined by gathering of the data over time. The first glance is convincing me though, that it really matters whether one gets to be supported even by minnows now. There’s no way how to guess the exact number, but receiving a lot of stable minnows votes now also pushes the account onto new evolutionary level. 

---

Domesticated user

The longer the user has been around the pickier he is about who’s he going to follow. The time of making the feed existent is long gone and is substituted by the time of feed regulation. It is normal that lot of bad follow choices occur throughout the journey. As the idea of what user really wants from the site grows, so changes the perception of what is informative and what is spam. The feed is accordingly readjusted. Also user at this state is less likely to hit a follow button, and if he really does so, its huge win. That means the less valuable user, the bigger motivation to seek new users that could provide some rewards. When one already gets some, the motivation to seek new users is greatly reduced. Domesticated users are usually dolphins+. This is the penultimate step in order to achieve the highest evolutionary rank. Whale status follows.

---

Let me know what you think about that. If you can relate, where do you find yourselves now?  

---