What a Wonderful Idea This "Steemit" Really Is!

Not sure why, but somehow I found myself wandering down the echoing halls of my own memories today... perhaps slightly inspired — indirectly, at least — by @the-gorilla's lengthy exposé on voting abuses and dodgy moderators in a community.

Not that it is really related, but I had to dig up my own introductory post on Steemit from more than seven years back, which blew me away by earning $40.00 in rewards and having 43 comments.

Of course, the part of the journey that doesn't generally see the light of day is the one in which my second post (as I recall) earned a bit fat $0.00. Or maybe it was my 3rd post, and my 2nd that earned $0.04.

Or something like that.

Sorry, I have neither the time nor the inclination to use a blockchain explorer to actually look up the sequence. Let's just say that my initial "welcome balloon" was popped, in short order!

Peer Rewarded Content

I think the first way I became really aware that Steemit was different was because this was a place where the content was peer rewarded.

When I came here, I had been part of plenty of other venues — going back to 1999 — that paid contributors for content. But we were always at the mercy of the "hosts," meaning that payments were unstable and dependent on bills to be paid and profits.

But just the whole idea that you could reward your peers was really cool. And not with tips you had to buy with some huge transaction fee subtracted.

One of the reasons I have tried my best to stake as much as possible (as much as my life affords...) is that it is fun to give away money! Which is basically we we do, around here.

A Great "Sandbox!"

You don't need me to tell you that one of Crypto's great limitations is that... it is complicated.

In fact, it is complicated enough that most people's eyes glaze over before they have even gotten halfway to buying their first fraction of a Bitcoin.

It always struck me that Steemit seemed like such a great practice ground, because we have our own internal wallets, and the send-receive process isn't bogged down in 40-digits of scrambled lettering but relatively simple names, like email addresses.

Not sure why this "keeping it simple" aspect has never been exploited more in Steemit's marketing and publicity... because it is surely a feature!

Of course, the other "simple" thing is that we "mine" Steem not by having a bank of expensive mining rigs that cost money to operate and require sophisticated code to work... we mine it by doing something people are already doing: creating social content!

That, alone, takes a whole lot out of the learning curve!

And, of course, we get to handle small amounts of crypto without having to deal with commissions and "gas" fees. Again, it's an ease-of-use feature we rarely mention to anyone.

We complain a lot around here... and we're certainly not without our share of problems... but overall, this is a pretty amazing gig!

Now we just have to hope that we catch a "favorable breeze" when the next altcoin rally starts running forward!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday!

How about you? When did YOU start here? Has it turned out anything like you hoped/expected? How has the experience been for you, compared to other venues or platforms? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.06.07 01:59 PDT
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