There's more in life to talk about on Steemit than Steemit
I really love steemit. I like what it can do for the future of content. I like what it (and related tech) can do for the future of the internet.
But it won't ever happen if 90% of what gets upvoted heavily is more talking/videos/etc of steemit and other cryptocurrency.
Seriously? Look at this
There is so much more to life
Life isn't (or shouldn't be) lived online. And as a social network, the real power comes from sharing the things that happen offline. I'd love to see more well written stories and experiences make it to the top. I'd ALSO like to see the top be less extreme. There's a lot of content here that's over-rewarded and a lot that is under-rewarded.
The occasional story talking about crypto is great, IF it really provides new value. But so many of these stories are basically the same thing over (and over) again.
Is this people just chasing money?
I wonder if we get so many of these things at the top because of the bandwagon effect. We know that things talking about steemit will get upvoted, so we upvote them (curation rewards!) and off to the races we go. I think this really sucks and leads to this sort of incestuous behavior where people vote for things not because they genuinely think they are good, or valuable, but because they KNOW that everyone else will vote that way. I'm certainly guilty.
I'm guessing a lot of those votes are cast the same way. This really distorts the rewards. Is yet another bit about how steemit/bitcoin/fiat currency is or is not a scam/pyramid really adding value to this network? No. Is it making it a less interesting place? yes. Is it making steemit feel like the type of place where "normal" people who aren't obsessed with "the man" can join in and make a difference? No.
The content is there.
I've seen great series on coffee on here, on economics in general (not just crypto), articles on different flavors of linux... There are a LOT of options. Sadly, for all those that do well a lot of good content goes overlooked because it doesn't "look" like a winner. When people are voting for things they think OTHERS will like it distorts genuine curation. This should really be fixed. If you like it, upvote it.
What I would like to see
A lot more art at the top. A lot more stories from people's real life. Even political rants - goodness knows there is enough to rant about. A lot more comedy.
- Video game reviews
- Movie reviews
- Tutorials
- Opinion pieces - I know people here have opinions on things other than crypto.
- Programming topics
And probably a bunch more things I haven't even thought of.
Why aren't there more of those things?
Probably because of the way the economics on this site where the top things get overcompensated, IMO, and the medium popularity things are under-compensated. I'll be really blunt here: The economic model of this site/zipfs law (I've read the whitepaper) is the wrong way to model things. What we observe in nature and what makes the most sense for the site are not the same and by FORCING that model it's actually caused distortion. The combination of the way curation rewards and the payout distorts rewards away from that which is actually new and interesting and towards the "known popular" and really harms effective and "risky" curation of interesting content.
This model also draws away good content creators because other sites (through targeted advertising, products, etc) reward creators farther down the long tail WAY better. Popularity isn't universal. It's definitely not the same thing as value - a truth I would expect the geeks of this site to understand instantly.
In fact - look at Facebook. They became THE social network by connecting the minnows. It wasn't like twitter (which is flailing) where it was all about having a gajillion followers who listen to the trite spam of celebrities, it was about connecting and sharing between the "little people" that made it a juggernaut.
Medium is another good inspiration, and the style of steemit is much closer to medium than Reddit or twitter or FB. Allowing better branding, linking, etc to be similar I think would inspire people to join and share good content.
Write interesting stuff anyway
One of my LEAST compensated articles was about my childhood growing up next to a brothel and being friends with hookers back in the 7th grade. I'm still glad I wrote it. Steemit isn't perfect, but it's better than the other options and I trust that the site operators will keep tweaking things.
People are writing loads of interesting stuff on a broad range of topics.
But the whales are refusing to vote it up unless it is about steem. And their voting power controls the front page.
Partly. But minnows following acts as an amplifier.
got it right
I agree that content diversity is something we all should support with our votes (and contributions) since it will be key for mass appeal. And Steemit will require mass adoption to be viable long-term and to justify current market cap.
At the same time, I guess it´s normal that Steemit itself is the main topic in this very early phase of the platform. And I would even go so far to say that it is actually needed (at this stage) to have a large proportion of Steemit-centric posts in order to foster the discussions in this community on what Steemit is about, what it should be about, how it actually works, what changes need to be implemented, how it can grow in the best way, et cetera.
Thanks for bringing up this important topic.
I don't think so. I think that's been covered to death. I waited a few weeks to write this post. I'm still seeing the same stuff over and over. We've had a few big names come through here - including a playmate. Even a writeup in Vice. Yet we aren't seeing a flood of "normal" people AFAIK or if we are they are seeing it's not for them and leaving. We don't want that.
The sooner we transition to more real content, the better.
Well Brother, I'm fixin to satisfy that craving you have for good comedy real soon.
Fuck yes! Please do!
Will do. I followed you and will release my evil onto the masses when the time is right...or at least when I get enough steam power and followers :)
Good point, I've tried to write about cinema and soundtracks with little success. But will continue to create posts like this.
I'll follow you. I'm interested in both!
Thank you! I've also been following you for a while :-)
Nice post @rampant. I am hoping that as people learn about the platform and come to see posts here that the content, and the content that is voted on, will diversify.
I suspect a lot of the concentration on Steemit, crypto, Bitcoin etc right now is more reflective of the interests of the early adopters. I tend to purposely look for a range of interesting articles to read and upvote.
I saw a suggestion in a comment the other day about someday people being allowed to follow subjects somewhat like people follow other people. I think that is a great idea and would let people spread out their attention more.
I think following topics would be FANTASTIC.
I’m glad to see you’ve managed to do all right by doing things your way and I hope it’s inspirational to others.
I think you’re absolutely right about people mainly chasing the stories they think will be popular. I’ve experimented with it myself to see if I could increase my SP that way, but it’s a bad feeling. The “Popular” tab is a good idea, but most of those are whale-voted posts, and, minnows’ upvotes count for so little anyway that it’s not really possible to make a significant amount of money even with lots of love from minnows. What I hope is that if enough of us minnows bond together, a few will get noticed by whales and then get more voting power and be able to start pulling the others up with them.
I also think it's a bad thing that posts can't earn money after four weeks, because it will take a lot longer than that for communities to come together who appreciate each other's work and have gathered enough SP to make a difference.
I’ve tried to take creative approaches to opinion pieces, and to highlight interesting findings like the effects of green tea on the brain, the endless battle over the story of Captain Cook, and stories about how the future could look. I’ve gotten very little traction. Here are a couple of examples.
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@goose/descartes-mistake
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@goose/suicide-food
You're absolutely right that this is a "whale problem": unless you have a whale vote for your post or it's INSANELY popular, you'll get almost nothing. A whale vote = $200+ whereas most minnows it's worth less than a penny. If you get enough votes, there is a quadratic algorithm in play that will start amplifying them. My STRONG opinion is that they need to make this less extreme and reward the top ones less and the medium ones more.
Still, if you want a lot of votes you need something that appeals to the masses. Right now the masses are geeky.
I thought the same thing when I saw the trending page today. All the topics are about money with a couple of other famous people taking the spotlight. I love reading about what people are doing and less about the 50th article on bitcoin/alt currency.
This post is what I needed. Was feeling kinda bummed. I am not much of a writer, so it takes me way longer to write anything than it should. Seeing people link a cool article, write a few sentences about it, and getting tons of votes...
Not that I was gonna give up, just, ya know, bummed. :)
Its a bit random, thats for sure. Writing gets easier with time. It can take a while to find your voice.
Agree!
here is your upvote bro