Is Steemit Described Incorrectly to New Users?

So in the past few weeks, everyone big and small has been talking about the increasing amount of spam on Steemit, and ways to solve that issue. I have put my thoughts on this in a few comments on those posts.

...But since I have no creativity and I can't think of anything else to write about,I decided to join in on the ever-profitable practice of spamming Steemit with posts about spam on Steemit.

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OK so, I think that there are 2 types of "spam" on Steemit:

1. Spam with monetary goals(self-voting comments, making multiple accounts that only vote for you etc.). These are the single word comments with $60 in payouts because the same 5 accounts,controlled by the author upvote every comment.

2. Content that doesn't necessarily have malicious intentions, but is not considered good content by the "Steemit Hivemind". These are the plagiarized posts,the single photo with no text, those kinds of things.I used that term because it seems everyone on Steemit agrees on these things being bad when they see it. Lol, sometimes, even the spammers come to a spammy post by someone else, and criticize the poster!

I think the first kind should be seen as a technical problem, and should be tackled by changing the rules of the game. This post is about my thoughts on the second type of spam.

It all starts with the first impression

The basic "pitch" with which people are introduced to Steemit is this:

It's a social media site, just like all the ones you already use, except you get paid in cryptocurrency to post, upvote, and comment.Instead of the company using your data and making money off of you, you make money through your posts,comments and upvotes.

This description is generally enough for people to at least take a look at Steemit. And if they aren't put off by the delays while signing up, that pitch is good enough to bring people to this site. But I think that's also one of the main reasons behind the spam. Because that puts the expectation in people that this is a place where, you will interact with people in the same way you interact with people on Facebook/Twitter.

And if you see the posts that the community thinks of as "spam", you'll realise that they aren't really that different from the ones that you'd find on Facebook/Twitter.

It's normal on FB/Twitter to post a picture with just a single line of text. To straight up copy paste someone's work. To reference things without sources.And mostly, that's because on FB/Twitter, you aren't creating original work.You are just looking at things other people made, or looking at the news, or looking at content that is only relevant to your friends/family and not the world at large.

And yet, those things are considered "not OK" on Steemit. Steemit at least right now, clearly is a website heavily favoring content creation, not consumption. Steemit has a lot more in common with Medium, or even Youtube than it does with Facebook/Twitter/Reddit. Hell, I'd say that there's more in common with the Google/Apple App Stores and Steemit than there is between Steemit and FB.

Of course, you'll say that Youtube is a place for content consumption, and of course, that's true. But we don't use it for sharing videos with each other. Youtube is a place where a small percentage of people make money by creating videos that everybody else watches.But if you want to take a crappy quality video that you took on your phone and share it with your friend, you don't do it on Youtube.Steemit's focus on posting will probably make it similar to these sites.

Right now, Steemit doesn't really have people that consistently consume large amounts of content. I think the reason why consumption doesn't happen, is that Steemit just isn't very big enough yet.I think if Steemit ever goes mainstream, it will look more like Medium or even Youtube than Reddit(which is what most people think it's going to be like).

So when you see this difference between what the community advertises Steemit as, and what it actually is, it's not difficult to understand why "low quality content" exists. It's not that people want to intentionally spam, or that they are "shitty writers", it's that they have an understanding of Steemit which is inconsistent with that of the "Steemit Hivemind".

This is exactly why we should describe Steemit differently to people

How should we describe it? I think the best description I have seen is in this post by @thecryptofiend:
The Missing FAQ - A Beginners Guide To Using Steemit

This is exactly what I would describe Steemit as:

Steemit is best described as a blogging platform with social media features.

This is great because it's consistent with the expectations the people here have with themselves and new authors. It lets people know that creating good content is what is valued by the community. This is a less "glamorous" description/pitch than the one above,maybe it won't entice people as much, but I believe it will also lead to less spam.

Maybe a few years down the line, when Steemit has a userbase that also consumes stuff, that description won't be true anymore. But today, that's not the case. Today, we need the high-quality content that will propel Steemit to mainstream adoption. And that's what this description will help to do.

That's it. Thank you for reading this post. I would love to read your thoughts on this topic in the comments. If you liked this post and want more, follow me.

harshallele