Although the title is probably a bit overdramatic as the real entitlement complex is linked to something like narcissism I have to admit I keep seeing it quite often here on Steem and in many different ways.

Before I go on writing this post I want to mention that this is not aimed at any one or a group of people, it's just things I remember having seen where I thought to myself that this was such a case.

The entitlement for upvotes.
This one is probably one we have seen before quite often, but it is not talked about as much. From my understanding it stems from users making it to the platform, seeing how much votes others are getting either on the hot or trending list and expecting their content to make the same rewards just because they create similar content. What they fail to understand is that building up your account takes a lot of time and commitment, it's just not about providing content but also about making connections and showing that you bring a positive effect to the blockchain and users value not just your content but your presence too. Sure it can become blurry and you may be called out for vote-trading here and there but I see so many who come here, give it a couple tries with posts and then give up forever because they do not receive any votes.

As baffled as I am of that happening and the entitlement of getting votes while you're still quite unknown, I can't help but think why users expect that to happen when literally no other platform rewards you with anything for your activity. People seem to forget that this advantage that blockchain brings and our reward pool is not something that is supposed to happen automatically to anyone in a stakebased system.

There's this analogy of flags and upvotes. If you complain about receiving flags because another user disagrees with the rewards you are making on posts, why do you never question the upvotes you received to begin with? Of course we all like receiving upvotes for our content and some may be getting more than what seems fair, but that's just the way the system works right now so you've got to either stick with it or try something else. There may be users on your side but you might quickly find yourself being ignored by many others if you constantly complain about flags because the rewards on your posts are too high. It seems as if a lot of users get used to the rewards and have this mentality that "from now on it can only go up" which gets them triggered quickly when prices drop or the auto-votes stop occurring.

This is something we have seen happen now over the past year, both rewards have dropped due to a sinking Steem price and curation has been fading more and more as users have switched to delegating to services that return a ROI or reward you with tokens from their dapp. I personally see it as a way of the "early adoption phase" ending slowly but surely. Not saying curation will cease to exist completely but I don't think it will be increasing any time soon considering the history of authors and how many of them are still around and the value they may or may not have provided for Steem or its most popular front-end.

Again this is all just personal opinion so please don't take it as if its set in stone. That's the beauty of decentralization, there are many views, opinions and people from different cultures, languages and countries sharing their own thoughts everywhere. Will the wisdom of the crowd prevail?

It's kind of exhausting seeing cases where users are very entitled about their rewards. I do wonder where it comes from. I'm not saying that I am an exception to the rule, I do remember that early in Steem's age I was one of them as well. I felt that just cause I was there early and have been involved in crypto for a long time that my posts about crypto, etc, should be receiving more rewards. I believe the majority of the issues comes from comparing with others, it's something that happens all over the world and is a known phenomenon especially when it comes to your neighbors. If you happen to be a Finn reading this you'll understand that feeling better than anyone else.

The line of "what you deserve" seems to be averaging out for most accounts now it seems, it will either depend on your reputation, your consistency in posting because of auto-votes, or actual quality of content and curation projects rewarding you for it. There are of course many other factors but it does look to me as if the "early adopter phase" is coming to an end where curation is not being thrown to users willy-nilly like it happened in the first few years. While I realize that many reading this may regret not having been here when that occurred, imagine how many users are still not here now and will think the same way about the distribution of tokens and early adoption of dapps they will be missing on. It's all in the eyes of the beholder.