[Discussion] How Do You Value Your Upvote?

A Humbling Click

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Everyone wants their accounts to be worth a bunch. We all want big payouts and we get excited when whales upvote our posts. No matter how we talk about Steemit, a great deal of the excitement on the platform will be centered on how much STEEM is worth and how much we can feasibly “make.”

My very first post got squat nil. Not even my own upvote (plus 21 other gracious supporters) granted me a single STEEM penny. Compared to then, I'm in a position that is exponentially more impactful numerically. Now, after months of consistent posting and audience engagement, I'm proud of an account that is able to, without a drop of investment, grant someone a few dollars per upvote.

This might seem low compared to the absurd total payouts we see from top authors on the “Trending” page, but let's think about this for a minute. In any given day, if my conservative upvote can grant a post $2-3 on average and I engage with at least 10-12 new posts each morning, I'm cumulatively supporting content creators I enjoy and respect with a total of $20-36 a day.

That's absolutely positively absurd.

I currently live in Brooklyn NYC, a part of the city heavily populated by aspiring creatives. Virtually every bartender, hostess, or barista is an aspiring painter, sculptor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, videographer, youtube/instagram personality, and so on. Each one fights tooth and nail for their voice to be heard in the maelstrom of creative energy worldwide.

If I could give a dollar of support to them every day, I most definitely would. But I can't, at least not with my real bank account that is constantly bombarded with utility bills, rent, groceries, and so on. It pains me, not able to support the efforts that I go through myself as a small cultural start-up.

Once I started to think of it this way, I began to consider the real meaning of what an upvote can and should be on this website.

Value Your Upvote

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It seems petty to really consider thinking about your upvote very much when it might not grant even a few cents worth. I catch myself treating it almost akin to a Facebook “Like.” But by attaching a social and financial weight to the upvote, Steemit has created a situation where you should really respect your personal use of the value-making tool.

If my hesitation to give $1 for a creative cause in real life turned into my ability online to give $20-32 a day, it would change my entire relationship with my environment and field.

I try more and more to think of my upvote as an investment in someone. It's tempting early on to just upvote proven authors at a chance at higher curation rewards. But piling too much onto established personalities with a proven commitment to the website might be dangerous in the long-term. The little bit of effort to find new users with great ambitions will go a long way in regards to the community's heartiness.

Be Strategic With Your Upvote

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To upvote something is not just some arbitrary financial infusion or social-media-esque buzz. It's your vote on how the reward pool of Steemit is divvied amongst the community. It's your vote on what content you support and want to see thrive. It's your vote on who you want to push as a serious content creator in the Steemit ecosystem.

Your upvote is also a “vote” to determine what kinds of posts the author may find successful in the Steemit world. Especially for new users, a gradual time of experimentation is needed to help them establish a strong voice and buckle down on a handful of specific topics. Your upvote helps him/her find their direction in a place where multiple currents seem to go in all directions.

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It's always easy for me to underestimate the actual monetary and social value of what the STEEM blockchain has set up for us, especially after being so blandly conditioned by other social-media “Like” systems. We all know that Steemit is not like Facebook or Twitter. The weight of one's voice and one's vote is much more consequential.

Let me know what you think below! What does your upvote mean to you?

design collective @hitheryon