RE: On the Eve of Hardfork 19, a Look at "Making Money" vs. "Earning Rewards" on Steemit
I started out with only my original work. I was only doing one per day though, so it wasn't going too well, not too popular. I was seeing other people make posts about news stories, popular following, and earning more, so I said I could do that but more info and on the tings I liked. I tried that and it ended up working. The light fluff is how I got more popular (tech, health, and psych news), compared to my more serious original work, hard thinking lol. I put out the content, lower quality based on news sites, or my own work of higher quality info, and the earnings vary, there is no set return for a certain type of post at least for me.
Money is the overriding general drive for behavior on the platform. Curation would change if there was no return earning. People would just curate content for content and really represent what they liked.
I've contemplated the whole business of how too stay authentic while also creating "lighter" fare that's more likely to be popular... and there's definitely a balance in there. Much of it having to do with my NOT putting up 5000-word screeds on some of the more delicate nuances of consciousness and self-awareness. Break it into smaller more digestible chunks. But still stay on topic... I don't really expect I have the sort of content that would ever make me a top-100 blogger here, but that's OK. I'm sure I could study and research "popular" topics and churn our suitable fare... but I was doing that "for a living" once upon a time, and I just don't have any interest in going back.
I've probably missed the (Steemit) point somewhere along the way... as I tend to curate for what I perceive to be quality/value of content rather than whether I'm going to have a big payday.
Yeah I also curate what I like based usually on quality info/topics. But a lot of voter behavior isn't that way ;)