Is Steemit Going Down? Read What I Think Maybe You See It The Same Way!

Whats up Steemians,

today I have an important topic to share with you guys.
And it will be a bit long, and I invite you to participate to share your opinion and thoughts.

Yesterday I read a post of @therealwolf, and I also spent a lot of time to read the comments and other articles which were linked. For example also the post of @heimindanger. You can read both posts here.

Open Discussion: Fix Trending & Stop Promotion Abuse
Operation Clean Trending

So, I observed, and I feel that the broken trending page and some other factors lead to frustration of this Community. A Pay-to-Win game, which totally excludes people who don't have the force or possibility to play this game with this rules.

Let me give you directly a disclaimer:
I am not writing this post from an expert point of view.
I am not sitting here, typing and knowing that I know everything, that I have the only solution and everyone should listen to me because I am the world smartest person!

No, I am just a simple human being, like you a part of this community, seeing some things, making my thoughts about different topics and sharing with you exactly that. So please keep that in mind.

I think many of you agree with me when I say that our trending page is not a trending page instead it is a gravely manipulated order of posts which don't deserve to be there right?

If you agree with that, I would say that you judge maybe too early.
I think it's difficult to change or to judge something when the system openly allows it.

Further, I would not focus just on the trending page and promotion abuse I would call it: What needs to be done, that this platform can succeed in the long run?

The answer to that question for me is simple: The factor which makes a community; The user! The user within a community create a community worth joining or not. And when the wide mass is frustrated about how things are working here, we need to listen to them, for the sake of this community. Because those people are the driving force.

And right now, from my observation, the wide mass is not satisfied because of different things as I mentioned above, for example,​ the broken trending page.

Let me make one thing clear. Never it will be that everyone will be happy. Impossible! Also, not everyone can be a winner this is not how the economy works. That means only because many people are crying it doesn't automatically mean that they are right or things should be done as they want.

A status where few people are winning from the existing system and the wide mass has not a real chance to succeed, because high power is sucking out all the chances of success for the wide mass, has to be questioned.

That's the point I want to focus on. Users here and also new users must have the feeling that they have a real chance to succeed.
In my opinion to get on the trending page shouldn't be easy. It should be tough to get there, something worth achieving. But the pure feeling is not enough. They should actually see that people, like them, have already done it, because of their great content. They need examples showing them that its possible that it's not just a Pay-to-Win game. This is what we need. At least in my opinion.

Content should always be in focus independently about how much power someone has. And everyone should be able to produce content. Someone with less Steempower for example and having not much liquid SBD can anyway be a great content creator.

And the trending page should deserve its name, that only the best content is to find there. It's like a podium worth looking at.

I am playing for Redbull Salzburg. Please read again and look which brand is involved there. What the owner Matteschitz has done with this Brand starting selling energy drinks and now having several football clubs two of them currently in the second highest competition at club level is amazing. Guys, there is money!

Also, Red Bull can't buy or boost themselves to the top. It's not how the competition​ works. We need to conquer our opponents through a better play. Of course,​ they can use your money to buy great players, but that's all. In the end, the champ should be the one who deserves it. It should be like that on the trending page. At least in my opinion.

I can't blame giant stakeholders who are playing this game that way. From their perspective,​ it's maybe a smart move. So, I am not condemning giant stakeholders. I think everyone should also see their perspective and trying to put themselves​ in​ their shoes. Not everything is just black and white this is not how our world is. It's far more complex.

I also don't have on general something against bots.
No, I am using them myself. I see them as an advertisement tool. Trying to give your content more exposure as I use on this post here.

After reading an article about the reward pool, I try to use bots after 30 min, from what I know this makes the curation reward even bigger. And also I have for a short amount of time more visibility because I am on the hot page. And I am quite happy with that. I don't know if I was ever one time on the trending tab. And of course,​ I believe​ that my content is good. Not for everyone, but surely for some people. I honestly don't know if there is something wrong with that. If yes, then feel free to tell it to me in the comment section below. I am still learning.

I don't have something against advertising. I think it is an important component of the economy.

Here I think all boosted articles should be treated as promotion. Should be marked like that. At least to a certain point. I don't want to give specific suggestions how to fix that because I don't have them. This is just a thought.

This is for me the most significant part.
Why do we even have a system that allows this hardcore game?
Yes, Steemit is a decentralized social network which brings many advantages compared to the mainstream social networks, but we can still learn from them.

What do I mean by that? Why does the algorithm determine​ a post as trending when it gets high upvotes? It doesn't matter now from where they are coming. Why is it​ even like that? This is what I ​meant in the beginning. The actual system allows what people are complaining about.

Let's take Youtube as an example.

The biggest video sharing site gives new members still the chance to succeed on that platform. Yes, they made some dramatical changes, but I welcome it because this shows that quality is the most important. thing. Ok, now the questions pop up what quality is? It's subjective of course, but youtube tries to measure it based on the subscriber and watch time to mention few points. There are still more, and I am sure that here are people who know that better than me.

I hear you: You can buy subscribers; you can buy clicks and on and on.

Guys, there will always be people trying to use shortcuts or trying to abuse the system. But I honestly believe for the long run you will not have success there when your content sucks.

What I want to say is that youtube has an algorithm which lays the focus on the content. And it should be like that. Because that is making sure that youtube has the best video content and people are coming there day by day to consume it.

Could an algorithm that determines a post as trending have similar factors? Why just the depending on the reward or? And I can understand curators because there is more to get for someone.

I think Steemit should go away that the upvotes and the rewards determine the value of a post. It should be just one factor from many, ​not the only one. For me, it looks like that. And I think that I am right when I see that some posts have more upvotes than views also in my case.

In my opinion, Steemit should be more content-oriented and the action happening closely around that. I think this would give everyone a real chance. And I think that this would be better for the future of this community.

But how changes can be made? What needs to be done for that?
I don't know. What do you think about my thoughts? Would appreciate reading your opinion.