RE: We should be posting more qualitative content on SteemIt
Hi, as a senior citizen and also a relative newbie here I agree wholeheartedly with what you say.
I've so far posted just a small number of articles all of which comprise my own content and images. I take care and trouble to ensure that what I post is as good and interesting as I can manage. I'm not as tech savvy as many youngsters but do consider that if I can produce a quality post then most of them should be able to do at least as well.
I think that a high percentage of what is posted could be of a higher quality and find it irritating to find so many empty articles, cut and pastes or single pictures posted with no explanation.
On the plus side Steemit is still a young system and will I hope mature and become a byword for quality as it grows and develops.
Yes, this platform won't evolve if people don't understand that creating good content is the key for long term success. A lot of new comers still think that they can hit it big to make a quick buck, and some of them do. I think this is the wrong message. Good content should be rewarded to incite others to create good content.
You know, I understand why whales , for the most part, have decided to upvote alot of that content. When attempting to build a new platform and pull in content generators, it is necessary to prove that creating and publishing content on this site has better value than using existing platforms they currently favor (such as Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Patreon and so on). The quickest and easiest way of achieving this is through massive upvoting of content showing people living exclusively off STEEM or generate quality click bait. I understand the rationale for that.
I think there are some very serious unintended consequences of this. What they are doing intentionally or unintentionally is creating a negative self reinforcing mechanism that could seriously hurt or destroy the long term success of STEEM. When more and more of the content generators who are trying to make a quick buck, live the Kardashian lite lifestyle, and so on accumulate more and more STEEM power, they become the dolphins searching for and upvoting more of the same content for curation rewards because it's easy more than anything. In many ways since they have not really invested much time nor truly worked to create quality content. Once the platform goes, they really have lost no real skin and are not as invested as quality content generators would be.
Combine this with the downvote button, which I believe has no positive redeeming value and serves only as a tool for abuse. For instance, I generated content recently which caught the eye of whales and was upvoted for some decent rewards, but within the span of the final 2 hours, that reward was more than halved because of aggressive downvoting. If downvoting only served to push down the ranking, there might be some argument to possibly keep it, but when it also removes rewards, it's a tool for jealous abuse and is tantamount to theft (in my mind) from creators as a whole. I believe that current payouts for content serve to reinforce my argument on this topic. My reflexive instinct was to stop generating content and move to another platform. I would imagine as this continues without consequence to other creators, more and more won't rant, they will just vote with their feet. If they receive zero rewards due to abuse on an obscure platform that made large promises to content creators, then it will come across very quickly that they are better off going back to the established platforms to do it for free anyways because at the very least, there are more eyeballs which is a tool of publicity.
Quality content requires a serious time commitment to generate and asking authors who write for Rolling Stone, Vogue, Scientific American, etc., to do so without the intent of extracting value is somewhat insincere (provided that is the hope of the site). These people write and create to feed themselves and their families. It is their job. I am not suggesting that they hit a home run every time, nor am I saying everything they create deserves a reward, but I am suggesting the system in its current form is more likely to drive them away rather than pull them in and the negative reinforcement loop the whales are creating will do some terrible damage if it's not addressed sooner rather than later. I'm hoping for the sake of the platform and what it could become for creatives and writers, something changes which, I guess, is why I have not yet voted with my feet.
I totally agree with you, they are trying to launch this site too fast and are atttacting a crowd of people who are not creating value at all and getting big rewards in an attemp for them to be their advertisment billboard. It would have been much better to launch slowler with a culture of creating high quality content.