2017 😎/ 2018 😱 ?

After reading @eveuncovered's most recent post, 'One Year on Steemit - from Rags to Riches', and then spotting a comment from a new user asking:

I would like to hear from someone is how you would expect a newbie to stay on Steemit when joining now?

It seems clear that the goalposts have moved a bit since last year, and some might say they've also gotten a bit lot smaller - de Gea has replaced Karius, and his gloves don't have holes in them.

Is there any hope for the new accounts? I think so, but first, last year....

_{This is not @eveuncovered, and it's not quite this easy to score some STEEM}

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Eve joined almost exactly a year ago, just a month before the rewards model was changed (which produced some crazy sized votes), and a week before the price of STEEM doubled. Lots of new content creators arrived, but with a niche, a new camera, and an original intro post, a good start was achieved.

Without investing in Steem Power, Eve continued to work (as a chef, which apparently is pretty harsh on your hands!) and produce content in her spare time. Followers and support was found, and then following Steemfest 2, (paid with STEEM), this support grew enough for her to leave her job, and live solely from income via the Steem blockchain.

Good on you :)

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This is just one of the success stories, there are more than a few of us who started around this time last year, and are (still a bit precariously if i'm honest) full time in Steemland. Lots of Luck, little judgement (on my part), some fairly reasonable content (again that's me), and plenty of support from peers was the formula.

Roll forward to today, and do you think the same path is still possible? I would say no, but there are other routes.

What's changed?

• A few months later on last year, people started to realise the power of the account delegation feature. @randowhale appeared, and the Bidbots rose to fame. It was estimated that a couple of months ago, a quarter of the active (voting) Steem Power, was Bidbot driven.

• Lots of new accounts have arrived which means more mouths to feed, irrelevant of this accounts being alts. community accounts, or bots.

• And then we have the seemingly large increase in 'self-service' voting. One account set the precedent, the flags weren't enough (too many high level police delegated out to bots?) to control the outbreak, and many gave up and followed suit.

Roll all the above together and yeah, it's very much harder to find a place in the community and support of your content, than it was a year ago.

All is not lost

The first thing that can be done is to invest. (yeah thanks for that one) Seriously though, it does work! I bought about $2000 worth of STEEM at prices of between 60c and $1 last year.

The first buy was 12 times the price of the 3 month low

Today's price a year on, is less than 2 times the price of the 3 month low, so that makes me 6 times crazier than an investor today would be :P :P

I know that buying STEEM isn't an option for everyone, but to those of us who've been here a while, it's a good indication of intent to stick around, and may mean support is more forthcoming.

The second suggestion, and probably the more appeasing, is to aim your content at an account which is there to support you, irrelevant of your stake. @curie is the only one of the following accounts that was around last year and so in this regard, there is much more scope here than 12 months ago.

@dtube, @dlive, @utopian-io, @curie, @comedyopenmic, @steemhunt, @deepdives, @slothicorn, @familyprotection, @steemstem, #donaldmarshall (please if you know of more, comment below) are a good place to start (These are the new orca's and whales).

There is something there for everyone, and even if videos, science, comedy, product reviews, research, etc, are not your favourite things in the world, I would say that these community 'hubs' offer one of the best paths' to start your journey.

Hopefully while involving yourself in one of the above, you'll also start to find support from like-minded accounts, your community will appear, and things will start to develop from here.

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I do think it's tougher these days and looking back, 'we' had it pretty good last year. I'd suggest that the two year old account holders would say even more so.

Stick around though, and in a year you might be glad you did.

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Hey, I wrote 2 positive posts in a row :)

Cheers

Asher / Witness: @steemcommunity