Why I am ready to Power Down
Whales and Minnows have very different taste in content. You can see by the value of this post vs. the amount of votes it has received. As I see more and more of the same circle jerking, its only a matter of time before anything less than Steemit Tattoos on your face wont be worth the time. We've got a girl who has been paid $8000 for littering Steemit balloons all over a beautiful beach. We've got hackers who "claim" to have used dictionary attacks to change passwords who were rewarded without asking for proof. We've got more bots here than craigslist already, and I see the most powerful curators doing virtually nothing to re balance things. Its only a matter of time before this becomes a little clubhouse.
- Corporate sponsored littering is valued at $8,000 on steemit today. Yesterday, it was an announcement for billboard ad.
I am just not the type of person who wants to be associated with such shameless corporate shilling. It represents many things that don't believe in. And worse, its boring!
True intellectual thought is suppressed here while every half-baked home-made Steemit marketing ploy is valued far beyond realism. I understand the need for corporate branding and promotion, but I am a firm believer that content speaks for itsself.
I will be powering down as I no longer want to be associated with a community that supports these kind of environmentally blind corporate cult activities. I was one of the first members of the community and I deserve my voice to be heard in protest. I do not think that we should endorse such behavior. I know whales hate me, but my minnows vote is steadily increasing. We are the many. You are the few.
As an artist and a creator of original content, I no longer feel value (or valued) on this platform. I foresee the price of Steem dropping quickly as others realize that curators have such singular interests which most people will be out of touch with. I was hoping that this would be a melding pot of diversity. Now I see that as more time passes, the presence of 1: real people and 2: diverse content is decreasing.
Lots of new and interesting people are getting back into the slacks and groups and btctalks with a disenchanted view of Steemit. Some say its lacking diversity and not rewarding contributors of unique content which doesn't fit immediately into the Steemit marketing mold. For example, there is very little Ethereum support here. Not much of a bitcoin crowd either. One of the powerful whales may even be anti-bitcoin. It seems a bit like a feedback loop. I posted an introduction for my little sister, trying to garner some youthful enthusiasm but got no response.</> </> There dont appear to be many gamers here either, which is a huge demographic of youth that is already tech-savvy and I believe would contribute a lot of energy to this platform. Twitch streamers could support their endeavors by having viewers give an upvote. I was suprised to see no response to my inquiry about Twitch broadcasts. #music doesnt have a lot of support either. And apparently its more profitable to [throw a fit] than it is to contribute valuable upvotes to #photography. I even attempted to find a fellow #drinking friend amongt the mass our 30,000 Steemers. I even made a post for #beer. If we are to increase our user base and the value of the platform, we need to increase support for a greater number of interests. We have to change this perception: If, Then procedure = If we are curating our own interests, then we must claim responsibility for the limits of those topics as well. We, as curators, stand to benefit from an increase in Steem Value by consciously trying to increase diversity on here on Steemit. I was very happy to see a #marijuana post at the top of Steemit the other day. Lets keep up the funny fight :) I look forward to the next evolution of social media, be it here, or elsewhere. I am not attempting to incite a civil war, but I believe that further dialogue on this topic needs to happen. Here is the saddest piano sonata since Beethoven's Fur Elise... I wrote and performed it. Sorry its not a Steemit marketing song, but its appropriate for my mood: https://soundcloud.com/jupitermusic/the-power-of-limits?in=jupitermusic/sets/beyond-the-sky
I can't find enough motivation to read more here. It is difficult to find good content. I am waiting for thing to really change. I hope it does.
I will hodl.
Will you Power up or Power down? Power up and you may lose it all, power down and you'll live... At least awhile...
Any dying in your beds many years from now, will you be willing to trade ALL your posts on Facebook from this day to that for ONCE CHANCE just one chance to tell Facebook that they take our posts but they'll never take our STEEM POWER!!!!
AWWWJJEEAAHH AWJJJEAAHHH AWJJEAAH
I get more votes from me bitching than I do sharing my amazing photography, original music and stories. So I stick with what curators want...
And then I realize Im selling out... so I power down. Thats my logic. Im no sellout, so Im selling-out of Steemit haha
I understand. Well I hope things get good here. If this platform turns out well I would expect people like you to be the part of it. People who can say what needs to be said, who can see without bias.
I am not sure if this is as per your liking, I am sharing one of my content with you if you wish to look https://steemit.com/steemit/@dev/just-steemit-just-steemit-probably-the-first-song-on-steemit
Thanks.
Yeah, I hear you both but at least you can get paid if lucky. Facebook and Twitter make billions on us sharing our lives online, well google makes more.
Yea good point
There are good content, but the UX, the voting system and the inability to customize the feed don't contribute to reveal those content yet.
True. I agree
I wonder if there is a word for people who were in early beta of projects that became big later, but dropped of before the beta was over cause they couldn't wait for the real thing.
While I agree with a lot of what you are saying, realize that the majority of people here are crypto enthusiasts. It's been along less than half a year, is still in beta, and has already made a great impact on many. Yes it's true I don't always understand why some content gets more love than others, but a look through #introduceyourself is always entertaining as allows you to find people with similar experiences and interests. It's our job to introduce new people to steemit to diversify the content. Almost everyone knows how to make a social media post, but many are wasting time trying to get traction for their art, photos, fashion etc on instagram twitter or youtube. I do feel limiting the number of posts to four a day is a great idea. I feel the developers do listen to suggestions, but in all honesty even if i made a dime, for ten hours of browsing cool content, I'd still stay here. I've wasted far to much time and energy padding zuckerberg's pockets. If you do find a platform that has something better to offer than steemit I would be very interested to research it. So far having paid $0 dollars, I can say the investment has gone extremely well. This could be retirement money for someone who knows. I think you may kick yourself in the future for powering down at such an early stage, but people are free to invest their time and money in whatever is satisfying to them. Hope you can find whatever it is that you are searching for. I do think you have brought up a valuable point, and new content should be rewarded higher. But you can also make some money showing up and commenting ten minutes a day. Totaly up to you. I do love that about this platform and am trying to treat it as if it is a job, and keep my reputation as someone who adds value to this ecosystem.
We need more comments and discussions like this.
agreed, but whales dont upvote them, so they wont happen.
Yes and no. It is annoying when you see a comment on a weed post get $300, but essentially I equate that with winning the lottery. That's not going to be the norm. Every comment should at least show you took the time to read someone's ideas or thoughts/experience. And I do feel that steemit should be a place where people can have respectful debates about a variety of topics without animosity. There are many improvements that could be made to make steemit better, but there is enough wealth to go around. I get excited to see others success even if my own posts only garner ten cents or less. I like to add value and ideas through comments. Something facebook and youtube comments will probably rarely ever get. People actually can make money commenting, so using that as a way to encourage or debate the creator is awesome. If you respectfully disagree, I'd have no animosity towards you. We can have opposite opinions and both be valid without any need to troll or disrespect each other. I think the people looking to make a quick buck and cash out are missing out on what steemit is all about. There are plenty of pump and dump schemes to try to win your hand at. We as users help determine the value of steem and your reputation is important. Every person can see all your posts. There is no friend request or privacy in that regard which means that if someone posts negative or hateful content frequently, a dolphin or whale will prevent them from even showing up anywhere. Does the troll really win then if their comments are shown at the bottom? I guess haha, but I take this platform very seriously. At the moment I don't have a steady job. I see this as an opportunity to put out my ideas, help others, and inspire people in any way I can. Is there circle jerking? Yes, but when someone makes a positive honest post about steemit, then I guess people may need to reevaluate their definition. Most of these people are not having success and blaming others instead of looking to learn from the many people who are happy to help. If people instead of blaming boobs and pictures for garnering all the attention instead brainstormed ways to get more new users to be successful through cool contests or promotions, I think there would be a lot more successful people. Unless you are already a blogger, it may be hard to jump in and post great content or have power to curate much. But nobody has an excuse to not make a good comment. It's one of the simplest forms of feedback to provide and tells the author something more than some else simply saying great post. If a bot that can't read content could make the same comment you are thinking about posting, maybe it's not worth your time to post it. I for one appreciate comments that make me want to engage with the person. This is not a knock against people that do this, but a call to make the comment section valuable instead of simple three word responses and trolling. That's my 2 steems (which is not original to me someone else posted it, but I can't remember who).
This is a fantastic response, thank you.
Voluntary voting will always lead to disparity among content. People are pretty horrible at determining somethings value and we certainly can't see everything. Community consensus through automated processes would go much farther, and I wouldn't be surprised if something like this is already in development.
True! Whales and dolphins who have much invested would be wise to delegate certain people to find good content, flag poor content, and only regularly upvote things that can't be found elsewhere. It's true that there is so much content that if you have not established yourself and have people reading most of your posts, it's likely it may fall to the bottom even if it has a great idea or way of presenting something. To be scalable things will need to be changed, because right now it would be very difficult if there were soon 1 million users with rapid non stop content like twitter. I don't know how to achieve this, but better minds than mine I'm sure are figuring this out, as I'm sure they knew users would continue to want to sign up and tell their friends.
Your spot on.
I agree with you pretty much on everything you wrote BUT you should keep in mind that this uncharted territory and still in beta (I'm sure many spammers and non-valuable posts will start disappearing where new features and functions are implemented). We are still discovering where this is going. First tits and travels racked up all the votes, now it appears anything related to promoting Steemit is getting the attention (which makes it look like a scam to the outside world if you take that POV). Who knows what will happen in a month or two.
The phrase "power down" suggests to me that you are tired. So rest. Reconsider your strategy, if ever you want to.
When you say "I am just not the sort of person who wants to be associated with shameless corporate shilling. It represents many things that don't believe in. And worse, it's boring!" I start getting excited. Yes! But then, I hear you saying in the comments that it's the only option. You're fed up with selling out but can't bring yourself to stop because, what? The money's too good? I thought your point was that it wasn't, though.
The solution to being fed up with the approach that is making you dislike the people you are sucking up to is to stop being a suck up. If it's not working, investigate whether you are putting the work in. If committing to broad statements about diversity decreasing or whales having fundamentally different taste than minnows, show the work to make that case. Not just anecdotal evidence, but compelling arguments. And not for love or money, either. I know I'm being brutal, but that's because I'm rooting for you, even with the tough love. I appreciate that there is insight, humor, and a real conversation being started in this post and you even shared a song. But it's just a complaint, at this point. It doesn't really deserve all the attention it's getting.
Very well said. I had similar thoughts, even though I've spent only few hours here.
My issue begins with seeing a dollar sign, which is associated with monetary value in my brain. So there will -probably- always be a more important parameter of motivation than creativity, inspiration or unfortunately even originality.
For example, so far I love the content in Medium. I feel like the biggest push there is to get more people to read and interact with your content. The moment a dollar sign is added to next to the number of engagement, whether it's a comment, a like or a retweet, that automatically changes the most important aspect of posting/creating content. At least, for some or most.
But, then again, we are here for a reason to see if it would actually work. Myspace was a very big social network, but it definitely wasn't the biggest and it's completely obsolete now. So steemit actually does not have to work, but definitely has the potential to spark the idea that could. And that's why I'm here.
It's up to us to to promote and bring the content we want to see man. We can't get mad at people for not sharing the same interests as us.
If we have no power and the whales have lots of power, we are forced to be at their whim. Its corrupt. I do not trust the whales anymore, they've done a terrible job at promoting diversity, and as long as they are in power - we will see more of the same. Lots of other truly decentralized social media sites popping up. I dont need to waste any more energy on these typical corporate beasts.
Give it time, its ony been 4 months and they are doing their best. They wont be like facebook overnight and they shouldnt.
The whales have financial incentive for the site to prosper. This will hold the site together and keep it in line for the most part.
That worked well for Reddit, didn't it?
It can be really disheartening but I would urge you to keep trying. You can only make change from the inside.
Ten minutes ago I found myself in the middle of terrible battle. I just wanted to comment something and all of a sudden multiple red flags appeared here and there. Real battle for content is still in the beginning. Positive moment - this creature cheetah-bot, twitter-bot etc..
Look at Ethereum community - real war is there.
Is this another one of those things were people say I quite FACEBOOK and then comes back a couple weeks later? Dont forget Steemit is in BETA, it will be far far from perfect. Im just saying, I sincerely wish you luck on your new venture