Why Steemit is The Future: a Comparison of Steemit, Reddit and Quora
I'm an active user of all three platforms and have been working on this comparison for a few days, also involving some friends with opinions on the matter.
I'll try to be as impartial as possible, because often the discussions on Steemit tend to be heavily biased pro-Steemit. (the #circlejerk phenomenon)
Here's what came to our minds:
1) Anonymity
Reddit is completely anonymous, unless chosen otherwise.
Quora can be anonymous, but this significantly reduces usability.
Steemit heavily favours "verification" with selfies, social media profile links, plagiarism research and reverse-image-searching.
What does this mean?
Freedom of speech is greater on Reddit. Bad karma? Just create a new profile!
The Quora non-anonymous policy filters out NSFW content as well as illegal/grey area subjects. They also actively downvote humorous answers, resulting in a much more "serious" environment.
As for Steemit, there's more pressure to be politically correct. As can be seen by the waves of circlejerk-topics posted continuously. This is strongly amplified by the expected whales-upvoting of pro-Steemit content, leading to a mix between groupthink and fear of missing out (#fomo).
2) Userbase
Here Reddit is the obvious winner, with Quora second and Steemit a long way to go.
Reddit is also a lot older than Quora, partly explaining the large delta.
In any case, we think Steemit could use a few huge marketing campaigns to kickstart the influx of new Steemians. An idea would be to promote a "4th-of-July"-style give-away more actively than was the case now. Stunts like these cause spikes of early-adopter conversion.
3) Target audience
Reddit thrives on social news and entertainment.
Quora focuses on more serious questions, and knowledge in general.
Steemit is still developing a proper atmosphere, searching for an identity. It will be interesting to see how this develops!
4) Links vs. questions vs. original content
While Reddit discussions are often based on a link to another website, Quora focuses on questions and Steemit heavily favours original content. Several Steemians have publicly declared to actively seek out plagiarism to downvote said posts.
We're not sure how this should be handled. While original content is understandably important to the Steemit concept, modern social network users expect to be able to share anything they like. This will most likely be the source of discussions for some time to come.
5) User Experience
Reddit is completely topic-driven. It is possible to follow users, but this is a tiny minority of use-cases. Steemit is very similar, with the exception of well-known whales and devs who get tons of upvotes in anticipation of even more upvotes, all for the possible "curation reward".
Quora is more user-driven: it's a consequence of the anti-anonimity atmosphere, resulting in Quora celebrities (both actual celebrities and Quora Top Writers) having a large following on the platform.
As for the interface, Reddit is cluttered. Quora is clean and functional, the winner for this subject. Then we have Steemit with a very minimal look and functionality; something we expect to improve as more features are released (messaging, profile pages, market place, following users, ...).
As for the "search"-function, Quora wins hands-down, with Reddit and Steemit sharing second place.
6) Moderation/curation/upvoting
On Quora, moderation is solely left to the Quora employees. We can imagine scalability becoming a problem when its userbase further grows.
The Steemit curation system is very well thought-out. As you should be familiar with it, I won't discuss it in detail here. But there's one issue we think is necessary to address: the perception that the Steemit whales decide what's wrong and right in the Steemit world. This is a concern, as it could prevent user adoption if this perception starts spreading; or if this "attaches" to the Steemit brand. Worth a thorough analysis, in any case.
Reddit can have different rulesets per subreddit, and is thus a very flexibele system.
7) Summary
Quora is an evolved form of the "serious" part of Reddit. Both are very popular communities, but they vastly differ in what makes them powerful.
Steemit has the potential to become the evolved version of both Quora and Reddit, much as a result of its unique curation/rewards concept. However, there are some issues that need to be addressed, preferably as soon as possible. In any case before mass user adoption.
Feedback/ideas/random thoughts are more than welcome!
Thanks for reading,
r4fken
I like that you are writing without being too biased in one direction....so that your main points can be seen. I think the whales are aware of the power they hold but I think soon it will be amazing that most of us if we keep at it will become dolphins. We'll be able to hold weight together on this platform.
Thanks, appreciate the feedback :)
Haha, thanks :)
I also think its going to be like https://www.patreon.com/
Thanks, that could indeed be a future goal!
Given that Steemit is still only in beta, I would say that we are greatly headed in the right direction! To Steemfinity and beyond!
I agree. To the moon! :D
You've brought good ideas and questions to the table so I think the upvotes will help a post like yours to stand out as a louder voice. It's articles like this that influence devs to build onto/improve beta, and feel out what their community would like to see after all. So far I'm loving what I see though. I don't want to be a troll in the sea and I feel anonymous and safe enough here to be honest enough without having to completely open up about my personal life.
Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it. I agree, btw, and we're still in a start-up phase, so there's enough time for improvements.
Damn straight. Really excited to see where this goes.
It's an exciting time to be alive! :D
However, how can you feel anonymous? You didn't post an introduceyourself?
I did, and I guess it's not total anonymity but it's enough for me to feel comfortable here. And I don't mind if Steemit knows what I look like and what a few of my hobbies are anyway - I'm bound to blog about it regardless. A lack of anonymity discourages people from trolling and posting crap from multiple accounts at the same time. I think what's going on so far is just finding that balance so people feel free enough to post what they really think and not feel like the community is going to harass them. So far a lot of the whales I've seen have posted good content with their own perspective on things, and I think that works awesomely as an incentive for others to stay true and be honest with the world and to yourself. This place grows deep, we'll probably end up learning a bit about ourselves just figuring out what to write.
Bolt out of the Blue!!!!
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/http://wdtinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/lightning3.jpg)
Thanks, I guess... ;)
I appreciate your objectivity in comparison of these social platform.I agree that Steemit has the potential to become the evolved version of both.
Thank you!
Nice I did a similar article this morning showing what features I would like added from Facebook and Pinterest to Steemit. Think Big! https://steemit.com/steemit/@acassity/i-would-love-to-see-some-additional-features-and-functionality-added-steemit
Looks good, thanks!
True that. When people don't have anonymity they're more likely to throw up something more face value rather than digging in deep. I can understand this totally as a person having gone through a bit of social anxiety before - being unable to speak freely for fear of being judged by it and haunted for days/weeks to come. We all say stupid stuff and make mistakes at times but I guess it's up to the higher tier; the steem whales, to understand that we're all only human and that this is a social network. I think that's something all people in the world should understand as well.
Good point, the whales have a big responsibility here.
I like your comparison of Steemit with Reddit and Quora. If Steemit users could spend their STEEM on a Quora-like Q&A site - but offering bounties - that would complete the economic circle from money creation->aquisition->expenditure. Like I proposed here
Nice, thanks!
Good analysis but I would say that Steemit cannot replace Quora. I've written on this topic previously and recently changed my views somewhat. The key thing is as you said, the bandwagon effect of Steemit in anticipation for rewards. That is a very dangerous way of incentivizing knowledge. Nassim Taleb has written much about the value of risk being involved in the quest for knowledge. Risk less peer review of answers only leads to more problems. The bandwagon is already bad as it is on Quora and the Steemit incentive structure is even worse. That said, I do have hope for the success of Steemit, but its identity is else where.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree, mostly; certain aspects of the Steemit concept should be carefully looked at, better soon than later.