Is Steemit the place to get
Something for nothing?

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Hello Steemians! I wanted to address a viewpoint that many seem to hold, that just by being on Steemit: posting, commenting etc., they ought to be making tons of STEEM/ SBD, even though they don't hold much stake (SP) in the platform. Is this really true? Let me know what you think after I share my perspective! Here are a few common complaints I hear about the operation of the platform (mainly from a minnow's perspective, as this is the highest % of users on the site.)

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1. Whales/dolphins are greedy and only support other whales/dolphins.
2. There is so much undervalued/overvalued content on the platform.
3. It takes too much time/energy to become successful on Steemit.
4. The whole thing is a Pyramid/Ponzi scheme!
5. The interface doesn't look good/work well enough.
6. You have to buy STEEM and power up to have influence.
7. I deserve higher payouts because my content is such good quality!

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Responding to these complaints

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"Whales/dolphins are greedy and only support other whales/dolphins." - Whales and dolphins are people who are taking a huge risk leaving large amounts of value in Steemit. They are inherently more valuable to the platform (at least economically) because by holding STEEM power, they are showing they believe in the platform and are willing to sacrifice security for future potential. Also, this is a generalization. Some whales/dolphins behave rather selfishly, while others give away insane amounts of value to minnows.

"There is tons of undervalued/overvalued content on the platform." - This is a complaint I can get behind, to a degree. It is painful to visit the trending page of certain tags (I won't name any specifics, go see for yourself) and see abysmal, poorly made posts being upvoted over $100 complete with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, very short length, and general lack of substance. This is very bad for the platform as a whole because when new users come on the site for the first time it makes it hard to take the site seriously, making it look somewhat scammish. I tend to lean towards the problem being overvaluation by those who made prior agreements to always upvote certain posters, regardless of their quality, using automating tools such as Steemvoter, Streemian, etc.

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"It takes too much time/energy to be successful on Steemit." - Becoming successful in anything takes a huge dedication of time and energy. Steemit is no exception. Often the people making this statement have never purchased any STEEM with their own money and they don't really care about the potentially revolutionary aspects of the platform, they just want to get rich quick. That is not what Steemit is for! Other times, it is said by people who haven't found their niche/ passion/ area of expertise. If you find that, you will be determined to do your best each day, until you achieve success.

"The whole thing is a Pyramid/Ponzi scheme!" - What a joke this assertion is! Steemit has very little in common with either of these scams. This is said by people that are uninformed as to what these terms even mean. First of all, there are no multi-tiered "levels" such as Diamond, Gold, Silver, Bronze etc. where Steemians are arbitrarily rewarded disproportionately for their actions (as would be the case with a pyramid scheme.) Instead, the returns of curation and posts are dictated by algorithms and by the decisions of people of where to place value. Of course, the rewards do increase as the user's stake increases, but it has a solid backing in economic theory, because they are holding SP to achieve this, which is dissimilar to a pyramid scheme.

Second of all, there is no aspect of taking new investor's money and returning it to the earlier investors, as there would be with a Ponzi scheme. In fact, no one is required to invest a cent into Steemit and you can still earn (albeit rather slowly and inefficiently.) There are no similarities whatsoever between Steemit and a Ponzi scheme.

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"The interface doesn't look good/ work well enough." - Well, the site is in beta, and the focus is not on appearances for the moment, but functionality. Once the underlying mechanics are refined to a point that the development team feels very confident it can handle millions of users, then surely the front end will look equally streamlined to other popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. In fact, it could very well end up looking and working much better than any of those sites!

"You have to buy STEEM and power up to have influence." - To a degree, this is true. It is a very good aspect of the system. Only those that care about and believe in the site enough to save up a little extra and put it into STEEM (even if it's only $5) should have prominent voices by default. Now, if this is unfeasible for an individual, yet they have powerful, important, and/or unique contributions to the platforms, they will get recognized and receive assistance by bigger stakeholders eventually. Notice I said eventually. Most people quit before they even get started. Post and engage consistently on Steemit for several months and I can almost guarantee you will get somewhere, whether you can afford to power up out of pocket or not.

"I deserve better payouts because my content is such good quality!" - No one "deserves" anything. Everything we receive in life is a gift! If you keep doing your best consistently, for a long enough period of time, eventually you will receive a response from others/the universe. People in this era are so impatient! Try posting every day on Steemit for 2 years and see what happens with your payouts.

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Now I want to know...

What are your thoughts/ feelings about it?

Comment them below. Have an awesome day!

Written by @d-pend
10/10/17

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