After 6 months I got the need to reflect on Steemit. Aren’t we creating the Devil himself?

I admit, I never thought Steemit would have such an impact on my life. What started out of curiosity quickly grew into an addiction. Yes, sometimes I feel hooked. But hooked on what exactly? What makes me come back again and again? Why do I go less outside? Why do I always tend to have a quick look before I go to sleep? I think it’s time to reflect. You could say that I write this post mainly for myself, because I felt the necessity to dig up some answers. I’m afraid that this platform will not come out well.

In the beginning, I took this new adventure with full enthousiasm. You write about things you consider important: “yes, everyone has to know this.” You share a piece of knowledge, you share a piece of yourself. You go from 25 followers to 50, then number 100 comes into view. You set yourself new goals, you have the motivation to continue.

However, the more time I spend on this platform, the more often I experience a kind of physical sensations, caused by acute discomfort. A sense of unease. Something's wrong here? The feeling started when I realized that more than half of my followers are probably bots (man, I was so naive). you can imagine how demotivating this felt. You become skeptical. You see hundreds of posts coming back with the same message: how do you become successful on Steemit? Give me 1 SBD and I will resteem your post. How do you increase your visibility? Etc. Everything centered around one specific word: money. Money is what brings people together here.

How did I present this platform to friends? I didn’t say: “Do you know Steemit? It is an amazing platform where you can share your life.” Often it was more something like: “you can make money by blogging.” 90% of the people came here for that particular reason (including me). I have always blogged and if we are honest, there are many better platforms to do this. Sites that are more user-friendly, with a nicer lay-out and with an amazing community. Money does strange things with people. You can clearly see this here.

If the developers would spend a full day on Steemit, I cannot possibly imagine that they would be satisfied, that this was their original intention. Facebook also started with good intentions. They wanted to connect people. They probably didn’t realize that, so many years later, young people become addicted to their daily portion of dopamine. They couldn’t know that people get a false picture of society. Young people in particular are faced with fear, depression or loneliness. And their self-image goes down too (Instagram scores even worse in this area).

And then I ask myself the question: aren’t we creating the devil himself? Innocent looking 'likes' already have such a huge impact on society. Replace those 'likes' with the word 'money' and you get a very dangerous combination.

Obviously, Steemit cannot be separated from blockchain technology. We work in a publicly accessible system. No one can close or censor it. Services are offered on top of this. Since people are purely capitalist beings, these services often revolve around one central theme: how can you enrich yourself as quickly as possible. Because of the blockchain, there is no monopoly formation, the free market is saved ...

However, I wonder if the world is waiting for an initiative like this. Is there still room for a new kind of medium where dopamine kicks just make you happy for a second? Should we not learn from the past and realize that we are making the same mistakes again. Are you happy here? Is it really necessary to reward people with money? Would those million users still be here? And what does that number mean? A million. How many of them are real people and how many dead accounts should you have to deduct from that number?

I realize that I have only answered my questions by asking even more questions. And that is the mysterious attraction of Steemit. It’s has a kind of magnetic power. Why am I coming back here? I still do not know for sure. Probably because I am like everyone else. Looking for 'success'. Looking for confirmation. Looking for something that I think will make me happy.

I know that I generalize and I know that a lot of people will totally disagree with what I say. Of course, great things happen here. If you only look at the many applications that are being developed here, Steemit can be a jaw-dropping experience. I just think it's important to keep asking certain questions. History has repeated itself too often. And as I wrote at the beginning, I mainly ask these questions to myself. Maybe I will read this post again within 6 months and I will secretly laugh at myself. Time will tell. I'll let you know for sure.