I don't understand people's motivations, much of the time... sometimes to such a degree I sincerely believe I must be from another planet.
Of course, my more rational side recognizes that when folks spout off things that seem to make no sense whatsoever, they tend to be in a place of reactivity, and generally trapped in one of their psychological complexes.
How Dramatic!
Grand Declarations of Nonsense!
If you have been part of this community for a while, you have probably seen statements similar to the one I used in the title of this post.
"It's just not worth my effort to post here! The rewards are just too insignificant and hard to earn! I'm LEAVING!"
I see. What are you going to do instead?
"I'm DONE with this place... I'm just going to go back to posting on Facebook and Reddit and a few message boards!"
I see. So you're going back to spending 3-4 hours a day on Facebook and twitter engaged in intellectual masturbation for absolutely nothing?
Makes me want to give them one of @whatsup's "Drama Tokens..."
The weeds are blooming! It must be spring!
Welcome to Our Little Identity Crisis
If you've dealt with friends, family and other "objectors" and their feelings about Steem, you probably relate to the above "conversation."
It would be easy to dismiss all this as needless drama, but there's more there than immediately meets the eye.
As I see it, the issue here isn't about comparing social content platforms, but about the fact that many people see Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Reddit and others as "social content venues," but they see Steem as "a place to make money," but NOT a social content platform.
And certainly — in fairness to them — Steem may not be worthwhile as a place to make money."
And so, what we have is an identity crisis, more than anything else.
View of the Grand Canyon
It's All in the Sales Pitch: You GET What You ASK For!
For as long as I have been here, I have been wasting my breath telling people that pitching this as a place to make money is the wrong approach because it brings in people who have (A) no interest in creating content, except as a means to make money and (B) no interest in building community, just an interest in filling their pockets.
Here we are, soon to be three years later, trying to dig ourselves back out of the consequences of that particular approach.
You might wonder why I still give a damn...
Because I still see the potential here, IF the "opportunity" we have here is presented properly, to an appropriate audience... and we continue to put effort into building, rather than just filling our pockets...
Thanks for reading!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190412 16:03 PST
0974
I don't see Steemit as a social media TBH. For me is a blogging platform and it should stay that way.
This is not facebook and it shouldn't be. Not a place to hang selfies or memes. But a place to share knowledge and good content, real content.
But I agree this money-making thing is a problem for the platform. It should be advertised for what it is: a blockchain -based blogging platform. The money is kind of a consequence of the good content.
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Well said.
That was pretty much what I hoped it would be, when I started here in January 2017. I like the old "social blogging" format of the days of Xanga, LiveJournal, Diary-X and others... but clearly that was not to be, and the original direction was somewhat lost when @dan and @ned parted ways...
But regardless, I think the platform would benefit from emphasizing the rewards as a consequence rather than the primary objective.
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There is no doubt the mindset changes when you bring money in to any equation. You may want to read Pre-suasion to get the full picture but in essence, people's motivation to do anything as soon as money is involved drastically changes. There should be no mention of money at all when advertising this platform but rather focus on the social elements.
It took me a while to shake off the mindset about posting for "money" (I've only ever powered up so don't consider anything as earnings here) and go back to doing it for the social aspect with any payouts considered as "a bonus".
Then joining communities and feeling like you're part of something really helps keep me motivated. I'm sure that's why people stay past the "6 months make-or-break stage"?
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I think we see this place through pretty similar lenses @nickyhavey; the rewards, to me, are definitely nice, but they basically represent a sort of long-term savings account that may (or may not) end up building to where it has a fair amount of value... some day.
I definitely recognize there is money involved... which actually inspires me to do a better job, because I am a firm believer in the idea that if I get paid for something I should provide value. Which evidently is "backwards" to how many people approach Steem.
Seeing what I have seen here — in terms of community spirit and connections made — now makes my primary motivation to do what ever I can to help make this venue "look good" so more people will be authentically attracted to the idea of being part of it.
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Yes, there are always "destroyers" everywhere... I see you've found the crosshairs of one of them. It's one of the ways this reminds me a bit of Reddit, which is a site I never liked much....
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I know you're pretty active with @steemitbloggers and I also know you don't get in that door unless you have something of substance to offer!
I am grateful for much of what I have learned and accomplished here, and I plan to continue helping build this venue as long as there seems to be a good reason to do so.
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The other day, I was feeling snarky and I wrote but did not post an article entitled "Stupid Things You Hear on Steem". :)
I should rewrite a nicer version.
This style of rage quit was included. I'm trying to be nicer.
Although, even I am starting to wonder what we do say...
Old feeling UI, duct tape wallets.. Flags, it's messy... I still love Steem. I can't leave it. I'm a bit addicted, but it is hard to tell what it looks like to new users now.
Not trying to be negative, I just really am wondering what the "Draw" will be.
!dramatoken
Thanks for the mention.
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I could have been snarkier, but I realize that most of my snarkiness doesn't so much have to do with the site or community, but the debacle we might call "Dan and Ned's divorce."
HAD this place continued along the path of some of Dan's original vision from the earliest versions of teh White Paper, this might have been a very different story.
But now we're here, and I still enjoy the aspects of this that I choose to participate in, and I choose to participate in the various "Minnow Building" initiatives and the bits about "building a larger middle class."
Will those make a difference? Who knows... but at least it's a direction that makes a bit of sense...
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Finally. Someone said it.
I was thinking about ways to actually put Steem as a real social media and throw that "money-making" concept out of the damn brain, and the way that comes to mind is actually funny...make a Steem UI that hides payout, does not allow payouts on posts by default, and has a way to make content "only visible to friends" (either with encrypted memos or some fancy new stuff that people can invent)... And we'll turn Steem into a blockchain for socializing, content sharing, community building, and the money making part is reduced to being an easy way to pay content creators and reward them for it. Hilarious, crazy, but it is a possible way to finally show Steem without focusing on the money part. Heck, sometimes, I can't stop facepalming myself when I see people advertising Steem on other places like "YOU KNOW I MAKE MONEY BY POSTING ON STEEM" - hey, that's not the main point; being decentralised and uncensored plus having real humans and finally an easy way to reward authors, is.
They say Steem is for everyone, but somehow sometimes we already got the first step of advertising wrong...
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It was steemit itself and the ones who advertised for it who brought the "money-making" members here. Of all accounts probably 10℅ is active.
There is nothing wrong with making money with good content but I see mainly bad content making a great income so that makes one think...
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Indeed, there's nothing wrong with getting paid for content. The problem arises when "getting paid" is given 100% emphasis and the idea of creating content is merely an afterthought or a "cheap placeholder" that serves as the vehicle by which people fill their pockets.
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People who create platforms like this always end up having anxiety attacks over whether or not the place is going to "grow fast enough" and the result is that they direct that anxiety at "overselling" what they have to offer... specifically going for what I call "FREE Stuff Marketing!"
In plain English, if we just promise people lots of free stuff for little or no effort, we can attract millions.
And that's absolutely TRUE! But what kind of people are these? They are the people who go around looking for free stuff for very little work. Which is pretty close to the exact opposite of people who create quality content and build social communities.
It's also why I have some hope that the current movements to build a bigger middle class here is our best hope... we have to expand the community from within before we can hope to attract the right kind of people from outside.
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It kinda sucks as a social network too TBH. #justsaying I actually interact with my friends on here more often on Steem.chat, and that place is dead nearly all the time because everyone left for Discord. If I post an #AskSteem I'm more likely to not get an answer than to get any semblance of a response to my question. Whales have better luck.
But, I still like this place, and I have built up quite a bit of Steem and bought things that I possibly couldn't have otherwise.
So, it actually in some ways works better for money making than as a social network for me. But I think in some ways it works perfectly fine in that regard. You just gotta realize that you won't always get what you think you deserve...while at the same time many others will make what they obviously don't deserve. That's also an exercise in humility.
But, what I said in regards to whales having better luck on getting responses...they also have a lot more brown noses hanging around their comments hoping for an upvote. Even users you might otherwise think wouldn't do something like that have a tendency to be...overly supportive and nice. At those times, I'm glad I'm an asshole. I don't have to try to be nice to anyone; I can just be myself.
So, the long and short of it is: this place is broken and I don't blame people for leaving. But they're missing out. We're all building up crypto for the next moon when they just look at the current value. This place is more of a learning experience than anything. We learn about crypto and humility and how a dollar today can be 10 tomorrow if we're only patient. We also learn that there are times when we should just cash out and wait for tomorrow to buy back in.
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Without a doubt, this place is "broken." We've gone off the rails a number of times, but I'm feeling increasingly hopeful that more and more of the big mistakes have been worked out.
Whereas I am well aware that @dan is a creative genius who tends to create marvelous things... and then move on... the "divorce" between he and Ned led us down a bad, bad road. The entire Steem ecosystem concept was misappropriated and turned into a cesspool of... I'm-not-sure-what that deviates considerably from Dan's vision as it was outlined in the original whitepaper.
But oh well, things change and you have to roll with the punches. I expect we'll see lots of the people who ran away come back here and start to frantically use their accounts again when Steem suddenly pops back up to $5 again. At which time, I will be really grateful that I stuck to my guns the entire time and just kept building my own base!
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To be honest I seldom (never) read a title like the one you used before and I spent whole days here (thanks to my slow connection).
I write a lot and cannot say I made an income over here (which I can somewhere else) but I learned some things because I am between people with the same interests now.
It is the 2nd time I join, those who asked me left (partly because it is too difficult to understand if your English is not that great and nobody helps you out and partly because the interaction is close to 0 over here. You can comment as much as you like but not build a relationship if an answer never shows up.
And yes I know we all are busy, we live in a time nobody likes to read and if it's not about the money it's about the free points or whatsoever and be honest... Via Facebook, you can scam someone way easier and earn fast if you play it smart.
I wish you a great, stressless weekend with 💥 and 💖
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Well, I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment @wakeupkitty!
One of the challenges here is definitely "being seen" and when English is not your native language, most people seem to find best success being part of various sub-communities here, organized by language/country. At least for some nationalities that seems to work really well.
A lot of my early posts made from 0.00 to a few cents... including at a time when the value of Steem was 0.07 USD... definitely NOT a time to earn anything!
What I like about here — compared to Facebook, for example — is that the interaction and people here seem more authentic and respectful.
Thanks for the good wishes!
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Hi Denmarkguy
I agree with a lot of what you say in this post but
There is an option C in this scenario. People who came to steem with a high level of writing in whatever genre; travel writers, story writers and people who write quality articles that you'd see on niche websites. These people quite rightly hope for more than a few $ for a 2000-4000 short story or a long well researched science article. But it's not right to say that they only do it for the money, they also do it for the love of the creative process. But having said that, why would any decent writer spend 4-6 hours creating something polished and not feel disappointed when it makes a few dollars when you look at some if the sht on trending 😉 There are communities and curation guilds that reward these types of long form content creators... sometimes.
But the inconsistency in value/quality that happens on steem is something that many decent freelance writers won't stick around to experience over and over again. I've stopped putting my best writing up on steem for this very reason. I earn my living from writing, and that ain't gonna happen on steem at the moment, so the large part of my short stories, articles etc go to various websites as commissioned work. But I'm not 100% down on steem. Sure it has its problems, but also potential. Instead of leaving, I've simply changed what content I create for steem and the time I expend here.
You said it well when you described steem as having an 'Identity Crisis.' At the moment the content is a mishmash of blogs, vlogs, travel articles, short stories, serielised fiction, competitions, poetry, fitness dapp logs, DrugWars spam posts, steem-centric articles etc... the list goes on.
This all looks very messy and confusing to a new comer and generally most people who don't have a curious nature to figure it all out leave soon after joining. This is one of the problems that needs addressing tbh and it might be solved if steem develops into a more focused platform, rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
Anyway, that's my two cents 😉 I stick around on steem because it's an interesting place and it's still early days.
No drama from me m8, these are just my thoughts and opinions. Ha ha, that's something else I've noticed on steem and it's not necessarily a bad thing; people get riled up about things so easily. I guess it's an indicator of how much passion people have for this platform.
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Well @raj808, I agree about professional writers being justified in their disappointment when they only get a few cents. On the other hand, if they are merely republishing something they have already published somewhere else, then any extra coin they get is basically icing on the cake... and since this is an "alternative" sort of venue, they also get to pick up new followers.
I say this, coming from a background as an article writer for magazines and a number of writers, as well as 20-odd years of contributing to "get paid for content" sites of many varieties.
Building a following is tough, no matter what you do, and where you publish. There are about sixty BILLION web pages out there, and this post is just one of them! That's a lot of competition! In a sense, it's a small miracle that maybe 50 people have read this post!
You're quite right that the feeds often look messy... one of the top things on my "wish list" is the ability to filter posts by "site of origin." I'd love to be able to view content purely through the lens of Steemit, SteemPeak and Busy, for example...
On the whole, I feel the good outweighs the bad... so I am still here, and still promoting the venue and interacting... as I close in on my 1000th top level post.
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Since the first day here on steemit, I got addicted, even though I was making nothing and it was and still is hard to get up there, but the friends I have made and all the things I have learned is so wonderful and so, so worth it.
I don't really like or belong to any social media, but like I said from day one I was hooked on steemit and still am after almost 2 years.
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You have been here almost as long as I have @joalvarez, and it sounds like our experiences have been somewhat similar.
My intent in being here was to start a brand new social blog... and that is precisely what I have succeeded in doing. I "got lucky" in that my intro post was hit by @curie so I got a really fast start, but by my 5th post I was making $0.00 for my efforts!
Much as we may complain, I really like the active community and people I have encountered here. There may be lots of easy-come, easy-go people, but there's a very strong core community that now seems to be expanding and growing... and that gives me some hope for our future.
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I'm new. Those conversations make/made me wonder too. I came for the money but am finding an artistic side of myself. I think this outlet is giving me value I didn't expect.
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Well, welcome to the community @willowwisp! Had to poke around a bit; you're new here, but appear to have assumed responsibility for an older account? Doesn't really matter...
Personally, I came here to start a new "social blog," and thought it was really cool that the possibility of getting rewarded was there. Going on two years and some months now, and glad I made the decision to make myself part of this community!
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Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm looking forward to some of your thoughts and opinions. They seem well thought out and along my line of cognitive dissodence :-)
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Ive on boarded several people. Now that I can make and give away account tickets it is really easy. I mention a few reasons:
I think it is completely reasonable to tell someone they can make like 20 a month after 3 or 4 months which will cover a few online services like vpn virus scanner netflix etc and grow their account.
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Which sounds like a really good approach @abitcoinskeptic. The point here being that you are keeping it realistic with those you are onboarding.
Which is very different from those who go out there and try to recruit people to Steem by pointing to Jeff Berwick's infamous "$30,000 Steemit post" as a recruiting tool. Makes me want to bang my head against the wall and scream "are you f!cking NUTS???" Sets the wrong example of what this place is, IMO.
I mostly pitch this as a social content venue with many options, and it has a "long term savings account" attached to it.
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Hahha 30000 from a single steem post. 1000 is rare these days even if you spend 99% of that tranderring to bid bots. You would have a much better shot at just playing magic dice.
Some people with like 500k sp who post every day and average 90 a post not including transfers can do it in a year, or some people very talented, already making money on other platforms and just adding it.
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dont know who is leaving? but i hope they change their minds✌
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Mostly just referring to the general practice of people "rage quitting" over things that make no sense at all... mostly related to the fact that they came here thinking it was going to be "easy money" and then they discovered that it actually takes work to build and maintain a following...
The specific case I was thinking of here wasn't actually a direct connection, but a follower of someone I follow... long story. But still silly.
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I believe majority of us are guilty in bringing in people to build community, entice them to earn money. We all have our lessons. Are we a blogging platform or a social media site? I think we are both.
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I believe we are both of those, too, @juvyjabian. And with additional dApps coming online, we're extending even further into becoming a gaming and music venue.
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You've got
DRAMA!To view or trade
DRAMAgo to steem-engine.com.Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
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Thank you! It's good to have a little Drama!
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This post was spotted by @theluvbug and has received a 100% upvote and/or a resteem.
If you would like to possibly receive future support from @theluvbug
then please make use of the #theluvbug tag.
Spreading the STEEMIT LOVE with upvotes and resteems of AWESOME Steemit content. Use #theluvbug to get my attention :)
In Proud Collaboration with The Power House Creatives
and their founder @jaynie
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Thanks for the support! I appreciate it!
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We are SO proud to have you as a member of our
FANTABULOUS Power House Creatives family!
uvoted and/or resteemed!
❤ MWAH!!! ❤
#powerhousecreatives
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Thanks for the support! Best little community in SteemLand!
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So your sayin We are NOT GOING TO THE MOON IN A LAMBO...??? WTF...!!!
I was hoping to see....... One hundred million dollars.!!!
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