What this place is missing... (and how so many here are just struggling against reality)
Young people.
Duh.
I bet I'm not the first to notice that. There used to be more folk in the 18-25 age group on the platform, but they' re drifting away, little by little. We're drifting away, I suppose I ought to say.
We're constantly talking about the need to onboard the masses, to draw people to Steem and yet, over here, everyone's talking about how this place is not about "instant gratification" and "short term profit". I get that, but you also have to get that it's very different. We're talking across an age gap here, one that might prove detrimental to Steemit in the long term.
I say this with no malice , no desire to see it fail. Just an observation.
I'm 20. It's summer. Literally everyone I know is going to the beach, going to music festivals, you know, living. I know, you see it as consumerism and time wasting and instant gratification. Let me repeat, I am 20, I don't care how you see it and I won't care, no matter how many times you say it.
I've got a lot of friends who work IRL, either part-time, over the summer, or even full time jobs. You know, to pay rent, booze, to be able to afford a few days by the beach. And you're coming to them and telling them to take all that money and invest it in the platform that may or may not go big sometime in the future. I'm sorry, but do you understand young people at all?
That sort of logic is not going to go very far. I and all the other people my age that I know care about having money now. I am not going to sacrifice fun summers for the next five years and invest in this platform in the hope I might make money someday. You might think it's dumb. But again, it doesn't matter.
The typical young person's mind goes something like this:
I want to attend so and so festival or go get wasted at the beach with my friends or go to Madrid with my boyfriend or whatever.
For that, I need this amount of money.
How do I get said amount without putting too much of a dent in my current (quite meager) savings?
It's simple. This person wants to have fun now. Not in five years or whenever the price of Steem might go up.
I look at the people on the platform and I see a huge difference in how invested 20 year olds are and how invested 40 year olds are. People after a certain age have placed a lot more trust in this and have staked more hope in this succeeding.
20 year olds will try it for a while, but will eventually move on to the next thing. The world at my age is full of opportunities and unexplored paths. And a year may not be a lot to you, but it is to me. If I haven't been able to live off this or do any of the fun things listed above in that time with the money I earned here, then I won't stick around.
Why would I?
Last year, I tried onboarding a friend. Also 20 (almost), one of the smartest people I know, excellent writer etc. She drifted away without an explanation and I only understood much later. Right now, she's working a summer job to pay bills and rent for her next year at uni. Steem wouldn't be able to cover that. It's that simple.
And we have a terrible attitude problem here on Steem. Whenever someone leaves, we're all like "we don't need them". I bet if you've read through this, you're thinking something similar. Take your instant gratification and fuck off, we don't need non-believers on Steem.
You know what the truth is? You do. If Steem is to ever make it big, we need a lot more people than we currently have. Not people who need to invest a couple thousand dollars into it first to gain some stake. Most people in the real world don't have $2000 to just blow on some altcoin, okay?
Also, we need young people. And like it or not, young people want to have fun. We want to go to the beach, to party, to drink, to do all that fun 20 year old shit. Maybe it's smart, maybe not. But the fact is, you'll never get hoards of young people coming over with this long term attitude. Most young people don't think that way, man....
And you need young people in order for this to ever work. They're the future. Say STEEM makes it big in 10 years, okay? I'll be 30 then, still quite young, still at an age where I have a reasonable amount of opportunities before me, both career wise and life wise.
You, on the other hand, will be what? Fifty? Sixty?
If we want to talk about STEEM as a long term possibility, we need to grab the attention of people who can actually be in that long term, you know? People who in 10 years time will be shaping society.
We're not doing that. And at this rate, we never will.
Again, not trying to be mean, just some observations from a 20 year old perspective,
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Steem as an investment layer doesn't need young people, although it would be good if young people participated. However, the interfaces and applications definitely do and hopefully some of the new games and the like will attract some in. The young masses don't care about earnings or future yet, but some might start soon enough when jobs for the young are even scarcer in a world that is continually becoming more expensive.
What a lot of the young people have failed to recognize is, the apps and gadgets they use are not invested into by the young, it is old bankers and venture capitalists in their 50s, 60s and 70s with money. No 20 year old gave Zuckerberg millions to startup and develop.
The young have a chance to be owners and investors here as young people for perhaps the first time in history and being so actually gives them sway beyond that of consumer class.
A few thoughts, as of yet, there are still plenty of jobs for young people. Not the greatest, but some quite alright. The market is not that desperate.
And rn, young people care about life and day to day expenses, not about being investors.
But that does bring up the interesting point of investing both time, energy and money in Steem. Why would young or old do that?
The platform has been dragging and regurgitating the same content over and over for a year now. I don't see too many people, young or old, coming in here thinking wow what a vibrant community, i should invest in it.
It's a nice idea, one that might be adapted elsewhere. That seems to be more along the lines...
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there are 45 years left to retirement remember.
Well, what young people have is time (at least more of it than 40-year-olds with families and stuff), and that's all that is needed really. Though I get what you're saying. But still, it's possible to have a balanced outlook where you're doing all that fun stuff, but still building towards something in the future.
It's again the false expectation where people treat this as a job, but it's more like starting a business. And part of a business is that in the beginning it might not be earning anything and the future is uncertain. But with risk, the potential upside is also usually higher. But again, the only risk is the loss of time (if choosing not to invest money), and everyone has their own values according to which they use their time.
Thinking of this as a business is a better idea also, because it means that you are going to learn a lot of new things in the process, you don't have to be stuck like in a job, you can always reinvent yourself, especially now with the new communities emerging. There's always a direction to go, a new path to discover.
Instead of marketing Steem(it) as a money making machine, maybe it should be marketed as something that will allow you to "own you're experience", have ownership of the network you're part of instead of giving your worth (which is your personal data) away for free – maybe that's what should be taught: nothing is free, especially not your social media accounts.
This phrase actually very much ties into what Stoicism teaches about having more control over one's experience. Let's say the above would be the new slogan, now we just have to make Stoicism sexy (obviously without mentioning the ism there), and then people will come. Maybe that would eventually happen when we keep repeating the slogan often enough and people start going like "man, I can actually own part of a social network?" Maybe that would be sexy, people like to own things, at least material stuff. What about a complete ownership of a social media account?
What a rambly comment... you got me thinking, @honeydue :)
Well, except for the fact that if I want to learn a business, I can intern at some local company or firm or library or whatever (loads of them around) and gain actual experience and insight in a field that interests me. Also, I may actually use that on my resume later and it may be a chance for an actual job at some point.
Is there any risk greater than loss of time? Don't seem like it to me... These years aren't coming back, ever. The important moments you missed with your significant other/child/family/friends are lost forever and many on this platform don't really seem to understand that :)
Still skeptical on that. Right now, I don't see that much of a difference or an improvement, honestly. All I'm seeing is the same five snobs using all them cutesy little new "tribe tags" to post the same shit they normally post, in hopes of squeezing just one more penny. I don't call that progress, I call that pathetic.
But if Steem is not a money making machine, what is it exactly? A social platform for like-minded individuals to engage freely in educated conversation? Right...
As I was discussing in another comment, right now, you get more engagement over on Facebook or Instagram and nobody screams at me there for posting a song or a meme, telling me it's not quality content. You need to sell it on something. Money, nope. Community, nope. I'm at a loss seeing what's left.
True what you say about not really owning your social media accounts and them not being free, but people are pretty much resigned to being spied on at this point. And if we don't have either the money or the community to offer, they won't come over. They should, at least by this logic, but they won't.
Because all their friends are on FB and they don't want to be that one awkward friend who pesters everyone to be a conspiracy theorist, not trust the government and get off social media while they still can (all things I believe, by the way).
Besides, people on social media, much like people here, are attention whores. We like to think we're different, but we're not really. What it basically comes down to for most accounts I've encountered over the past two years is they want to feel a little cooler and achieve online the recognition they would never otherwise get IRL (because they don't deserve it and are unwilling to work towards it).
We're not that different...
If yours was a rambling comment, mine was even worse. Glad I got you thinking. Hope you're well :)
Amen to that, I second every word you've said (I'm over 30, but I'm young inside :D)
I still think the problem is not the revenue though. I mean, it's ok, Steem might or might not be the key to some future gain, who knows. The problem is that as a social network, it's honestly not much to look at. Interaction is very poor, the interface is very primitive (although some of the external sites have overcome that problem). You have to search for specific groups and communities, and you won't always find them, and even when you do, instant communication will mostly happen over discord or other easier platforms.
I'd love to start posting content, but I'm not much of a content creator, and there's just no way I'm going to start posting random stuff in the hope that someone will give me an upvote. But I would love to be able to just share a song I like, or an idea, talk politics or sports with people, and maybe, just maybe, save a couple cents in the process. It's just not happening. No interaction, nobody cares about what a dude listens to and thinks about sports. They'll only care if they can make a buck in the process. Then you'll see big accounts posting about the food they eat and having a hundred upvotes and answers. And it's downright discouraging.
I so agree with this. I was just saying in another comment, why would anyone invest (time or money) in this platform when it's just the same five snobs regurgitating the same old content then scoffing at the smaller accounts?
I agree it's not just about revenue, but really, that is or should be one of our biggest draws. Right now, you're supposed to work for "quality content" and settle for the fact you'll get nothing for that. Why would I do that? As you pointed out, I might as well share a meme or a song on other social media like Facebook or Instagram and I'm get more emotional reward.
But why don't you post what you listen to or politics or whatever else interests you? If you feel like it, go for it ;) I agree engagement is at an all time low, but often enough (at least for me) I get more engagement on "shitposts" about my day-to-day life than on stuff I actually work on.
Thank you for the excellent comment :)
Thank you for the excellent answer :D
It's not really what you talk about, but how you decide to tackle with whatever you want to talk about. For instance, for me sharing songs would be a somewhat intimate endeavor, since a lot of music has some sort of emotional meaning to me, and I try to give the rest of it a bit of thought, as a listener. I guess that's why I don't feel encouraged to do it. Or maybe I've just been postponing for the fear of not being able to commit to regular posting.
And just for the record, I like the stuff you actually work on, I just miss a lot of it because I'm not always online, therefore I usually keep to myself :D I'll try being more, uhm, vocal in the future ahah
Ow thank you :) That's really nice of you.
I get what you're saying about music, I'm the same. All the songs I share (with anyone) have to do with some idea inside me, some feeling, but that doesn't mean the other person/people need to know exactly what, you know?
I just share the song in hope it might mean something to the other person, too.
The big part of what i agree with in this is, young or old, we shouldn't shame the folks who need to sell to afford their lives. It is a rare privilege to have enough financial comfort that you can hold on to a token that could be worthless in a year. If someone needs money, they need money. That's the beauty of Steem, not its downfall m
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True, but a lot of people here do just that. I m constantly seeing posts lamenting the fact there aren't more people investing in Steem.
Exactly
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Which is why we should be marketing to this particular demographic the social media aspect of Steem.
Too much investment talk and too much insistence on long form posting to hold someone's interest when there is so much more going on in their lives.
Younger people live their lives online in instants of time and without reward so the problem isn't with Steem, simply what people want from their time online. Steem is and always will be a niche application that the community seem to have adopted as a serious blogging platform and where short form blogs or snapshots of people's lives are frowned upon. If that changes, the demographic attracted will change.
I don't see this as financial investment, but I hope one day I will see some financial reward, it's just an interesting place to socialise and learn interesting stuff for me.
When people stop seeing Steem as a job or a possibility to at least 'earn' a second income then the dynamic will change for the better in my opinion and it will become more attractive.
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Good point about focusing on the social aspect more. But imagine coming here as a newbie for the first time, seeing all this bickering and caste system that has rvolved on steem.
As a young person, you won't come here to be treated like shit and like your voice doesn't matter. You got the rest of the world for.that..
I agree that when our attitude changes, so will the people we attract. But as i wassaying, we have some serious attitude problems here.
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We do, I couldn't agree more. On top of that its far too complex and another HUGE issue that I'm sure stops young and old alike, but especially younger people is the fact the mobile experience is absolutely horrendous. I've only started using a laptop again to use Steem. Before I was 95% tablet and phone but it's impossible now not to need a full PC/Mac. Can you use Steem to share at a gig or on the beach? Hardly, the UX is brutally bad.
Steem will get a shock if it doesn't quickly get this problem sorted. Websites, platforms, brands don't last forever, whoever they are, however innovative they are and if Steem ended sooner as opposed to later, where does that leave peoples 'investments' then?