Rock and a Hard place: Investor or creator?

In a comment, @celestal linked this article to me by @rhondak about bidbots, manual curation etc. In the comments section it is an interesting read with @aggroed putting some effort into addressing concerns too. Have a skim.

Ok, this is something that I have been thinking of here for sometime but don't have a clear answer; what am I, investor or creator?

I definitely create a great deal of content here and I also support a large amount of original pieces and hundreds of coments too but, my support is only possible because I have invested. People always seem to differentiate the two positions but everyone who holds any significant amount of Steem is an investor and I have worked very, very hard to get to where I am now, just under 20,000 SP and, I have done that organically as well as through my own growing vote.

I of course want to support good content but, I also want to develop my account and have the possibilities in the future that come with it. Investing is always a risk and although I haven't brought very much of my own money in, I have definitely poured a great deal of time and sweat into this place. I have invested twice, my content and my earnings. This morning my wife said, "I hope that one day this will give us the chance to live a better life where you don't have to work so much." I hope so too.

We all have our problems to face in this world and we all have our own lives and positions to take but I know that morally, I am in a good position with myself, the only person who really counts from a moral perspective.

The problem is however that there doesn't appear to be any middle ground for creator/investors like myself. It is either use bidbots to grow, delegate to bidbots that vote on things I wouldn't or, sit back and watch my own investment trickle along despite all of the groundwork already done while others who have done much less, advance in leaps and bounds. Even with a paid delegation, growth is difficult. For the new ones in, even more difficult unless willing to pay or work twice as hard as everyone else.

I think I have made it pretty clear that I am not afraid of the work but, where does it end for me, is there ever a time I can sit back and enjoy what I have worked so hard toward? Isn't that part of the point of working and taking the risk to invest and hold Steem?

I don't see the bidbots going anywhere anytime soon as it doesn't seem to be a priority and if anything, is encouraged by those in decision-making positions or at least, ignored. But, this leaves me in a limbo between content creator and investor, platform builder and community builder. These things may be able to work together in harmony but, currently the balance through what is incentivized doesn't allow for it.

For the good of my family, I should be thinking only from an investment perspective, for the good of the platform a community view. If I only think about my family I become a maximizer who I think harms the long term perspective, if I only think community my family will continue to suffer in a multitude of ways for the foreseeable future.

I see accounts that have been here as long or longer than I have been, have earned a great deal more than myself yet, have much lower SP. Can they really complain about not earning enough or the bidbots as perhaps if they had kept their SP, they would have been able to counteract them by finding and upvoting original content themselves. Why is it up to me, a person who has powered up consistently and is yet to benefit at all in the real world financially? When I think along these lines, the investor in me says maximize.

But, I want people to flourish, to grow and to have a chance to make something of themselves in a way that they enjoy, where they can offer their best to the world. I want to support the community too. However, they should have to invest in themselves as well, they can't just rely on my (and others) charity with the expectation because I have more, I must support them. I see accounts that I have been supporting for many months yet, they have no more SP than the original Steemit delegation... How? Why?

I want my daughter to be able to have a chance to flourish and for me to provide that space in the place I live in the world, is going to take more than what I currently have here, it is going to take more work, more SP, more investment. Which should take precedence, the community or my daughter's well-being?

These are some of the questions I have for people at all levels as I am both an original content creator of a relatively high standard AND, an investor who even on the exchanges, is gathering Steem through trades. I have more SP powered up than I have earned, how about you? Considering the price of SBD over the last few months, it should be almost guaranteed for new accounts.

I seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place for as soon as I try to build my account for my own future here and in the real world, a future that supports the community ever more heavily, I will come under fire. Yet, to not build my account now is to reduce how much support I am able to give in the future. To maximize now, the content producers I support will suffer a little also but, to let others maximize who don't care for content at all will mean that in the future, there is no content-based platform at all.

Where is the middle ground where I can do what is best for my family and the community because at the moment, it is either investor OR creator with the compromises between being of personal ethics meaning, unsuitable to me.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]