Plankton, minnows - I see alot of moaning and negativity going on here on Steemit. I wanted to look on the flipside today and highlight how amazing Steem is!

Free decentralised social media applications

First of all lets remember that Steemit is completely free to use (yes you can invest in Steem to boost your account), but signing up to use it is free! Steem even delegate you with Steem Power to get your account up and running - how kind of them!

Advertisement free

Not only is Steem free, but because it is decentralised it is completely advertisement free. Social media giants have gotten worse and worse in terms of advertising, as they try to squeeze every inch of profit out of their platform. On top of this social media now have to worry about how their data is being used and shared - especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal where over 80 million Facebook accounts privacy was compromised. Steem doesn't collect a lot of personal data from you - only what information you share through your posts which is completely up to you!

Freedom of Speech

Not only that but Steem users are free to post what they like, and it is up to the users to decide the value of posts - if posts are offensive, spammy or scams then they will likely get downvoted and earn no rewards, but if they offer real value and new perspectives there is the potential for large rewards.

On sites such as Youtube they are cracking down and demonetising content as they see fit. Imagine a group of wealthy businessmen sitting around a table making these decisions. In the case of Steem these decisions are made collectively by the community.

But bots and whales run this town......

This is a common gripe and argument that new users to Steem make (I'd be lying if I hadn't moaned about this myself!). Yes whales do hold a lot of power on here but it is because a lot of them are are early or large investors - and this is much how bigger businesses work - larger investors have more power and say over how things run.

There are some legitimate arguments that bots are taking over and making it harder for minnows content to be seen. However, there are still loads of users out there curating good content, and also services such as @curie are doing a good job helping minnows content be recognised. The bots probably aren't going away anytime soon, and it is up to each individual user to make a decision on whether they will use them or not. I still have faith that minnows can build their account on here without the use of bots.

Money for nothing?

‘There is no such thing as something for nothing’ - Napolean Hill

This quote is true for Steem users- Yes it is true that we can make money on here without investing our FIAT, but the way we will make money is through our time.

Yes it is hard as a minnow who hasn't invested any FIAT into Steempower, but it can be done - it takes time, effort and consistency. I see people moaning about not getting upvotes or interactions on their posts, but see they have been here for months and only made a few hundred posts, and their VP is full.

I have been here for 2 ½ months and I have made just over 2,500 posts/comments! Alot of this is getting to know people and engaging with people who have similar interests to you and might be interested in what you write about. For me this was engaging with the music community - getting to know people and starting up the #musicdiscovery tag as a way for us to share music. It has been successful and I love checking out all the new music people share - my list of new music is constantly growing and I am grateful to all the Steemians sharing music.

Remember:

‘If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got’ - W.L Bateman

The key to success on Steemit is adapting your approach and finding out what works best for you. Rather than moan about things and not make changes you are much better to try something new and see if it works well.

To summarise, Steem is a fantastic platform which incentives its users to create great content by rewarding them in cryptocurrency. Because it is decentralised it is free of advertising and corporate corruption, and data collection. Steemians need to focus on what is good about Steem, and work out ways they can make a difference.