The way I see it, the main advantage to using Steemit in conjunction with other content creation platforms is that it opens up the earnings process and democratizes it. YouTube serves up revenue based on ads. Likes and subscriber counts are nice, but neither one directly affects a creator's ability to earn, just their potential for exposure.

Steemit, on the other hand, allows every content consumer to decide, based on their own 'wallet' of voting power, if the content is worth rewarding, and at what level: 100%, 50%, 5%, doesn't matter: once you have enough Steem Power, you have direct influence over the ability to reward the work of others in a financial sense.

This is the crux of Steemit's power: rather than relying on a soulless corporation to determine the value of one's work, the entire community can come to a group decision about the value of any given creator's output and choose to reward them (or not) individually, AND get a piece of the action when something they believe in performs in excess of expectations.

There's a reason to follow, to resteem, to upvote, to interact. YouTube offers none of this: nothing I do save watching an ad can create value for the content producer, whereas virtually everything I do on Steemit can contribute in some small way to another person's growth.

Is it about the money? No--the money's nice, but I've been writing, blogging, and reviewing online for free or basically free for seven years. I'd keep doing it if I'd never found this platform.

Would it be a bad thing if the earnings were the only thing drawing people here? Yes, but I'd like to think this place is more of a 'come for the cash, stay for the community' zone. Who knows what it'll look like in another year or five years, but right now that's the vibe I get. It's new and exciting and making dreams come true...how can you fail to like that?

Do I plan to ditch my day job and go Steemit full time? No, I don't see that happening. I live in the US, and my employer-provided health insurance and other benefits are far too valuable to sacrifice right now. Maybe in the future. Right now, Steemit is generating investment opportunity and play money. I suspect I'm not alone in that. :)