I know @robertm for many years and have been chatting to him about this platform for quite some time. He has made a few posts and did not get much traction up to know. He always has great value to add - (I have learned a lot about business from @robertm during the years) . I hope to give him a bit of a boost through featuring him as I did before.

Please have a look at his work, and follow him should you enjoy his writing!

Image Credit

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Writing for Steemit is fun!

Writing for Steemit is fun, and could be lucrative. As lucrative at least as on any other platform. I mean here I am sitting at a cricket match between New Zealand and South Africa on a Tuesday morning (below is what am looking at) having a Wellington Klippies and Cola (brandy and coke) and writing about this exciting platform.

My thoughts on Steem

I have now been on this platform for a month, and have had time to discuss it with people both inside and outside the platform. I have written on many topics, philosophy, politics, business, project management and just some fun articles. I have been kindly featured by @jacor and have made many comments on stories that interest me.
There is some interesting content on the platform, but not anymore than on any other social media platform. Content is also unstructured and difficult to engage with. As a writer of original content it is virtually impossible to be noticed on your own, and unless you are known in the community you cannot make a living out of Steem. I have recruited a top writer that has been published all over the world and has a large following in his own right and he has written content. Will be interesting g to see how he gets along.

Making money on Steem

Essentially I feel like the two batsman in the picture below (they are to the right but got cropped of, my bad), off to one side while everyone else is in a little huddle on their own. I may not be a professional content writer, but do not believe that what I write is so bad that I get no comments or votes. I do not expect or demand to get money, but do feel that for any newbie it is way too difficult to get noticed. And on twitter, linked in and Facebook, my early impact was far more significant. I believe it is because these platforms are designed to grow their user base.

To make money on Steem, you need to be followed and supported by what they call a whale, essentially the royalty of Steem and the people that decide if you will make it. A hand full of people thus get to judge the monetary value of content. If it was the intent to let a hand full of people stand in judgement of what we should see, then it is working, but I suspect that was not the intention.
The truth is that without people like @jacor that finds and promote people like me, I have little or no chance to build a following never mind make money on Steemit. Interesting that when Jaco posted an article of mine, I made $100, but made no more than 3c on any of my own posts. That is only because my own posts are not seen. My gratitude to Jaco for featuring me as it did boost me. I truly hope he will feature more of my stuff as I am sure it will build my following. And if I grow my following I will not need guys like Jaco, and can engage with my sub community on my own.

So where is Steemit going?

In my view Steemit has some real challenges. It is a new product in the market, and I have built numerous businesses and taken many technology products to market. My first concern is what is the real intent of the founders? I mean they seem to be making lots of money, so much that they can just fork some out for us. That is really nice of them, but altruistic action on the face of it normally had some agenda that is not clearly spelt out.

Call me a cynic, but clearly there is a goal they want to achieve, and I believe it is that they want to make a small house full of money. That is fine by me. Comments that this is a scam is a little over the top and miss directed in my view as I believe it simply is a platform still maturing. Yes one may question the way they started their currency, grabbing a lot of it up front. But surely if it was so underhanded, then Steem will not be valued by anyone and their currency would be worthless. Either way, it is not as if I was asked to invest anything beyond my time, skills and effort. And that is my choice to do too.

Building the platform

The true intent I believe is a longer term play, where they want to create a sub economy that use their currency and expand the crypto world to such an extent that it starts becoming main stream. If that is the case and they created Steem as a low cost and low investment way to make this happen, then their goal with Steemit is to bring in as many users as possible. And here is your challenge, how to make them come.

It seems their strategy is twofold, 1) give away money for content and 2) pull in some stars to kick start it all. I do not believe that they intended these stars, called whales, to take over the show. Let's understand that this product is 6 months old and at the very early stage of its life. Identifying pain, its cause and the fix takes a little time. Also understand that there is a small group of people making real money out of this and that most of them would not want to change. So our founders have a problem, how do they control their stars in such a way that it does not become a whale slaughter?

The platform needs the whales, but the need to grow is greater than the need to pamper to a few. Now I may be cutting my throat here as I am biting the hand that feeds me. My intent though is pure! For that reason I will give my thoughts on what I believe is needed, and hope that it helps in building this experiment to something great that we all can be proud of to be involved in. I trust we all will do this.

What should Steem do?

For me it is simple. You need to grow your community to where it is self-propagating. Like in any community or economy, it is not the strength of the few at the top, but the middle class that makes it grow and thrive. Yes, everyone has a role and a place and should be valued. But it is the middle class that drives the growth by organising the allocation of resources. And if they are secure and strong, everyone wins. They create a bigger cake, so that even those that have a small stake in it can also eat well. If the elite at the top hogs to much of the resources, control and patronize too much of the activity, the middle class will lose interest and leave and this all falls flat.
The founders and whales are the elite. In fact the top 10 controls so much that it is already starting a quiet rebellion. If you doubt me just look at some of the fights flying around. When people start cheering at the guy shouting anti-government ideas on the street corner, it is time to take their words to heart, not sanction them or shut them down.

Look inside, for their often lies the answer.

Start creating that middle class to help the platform grow. In pure numbers, in a community of 100,000 a solid middle class would be around 10 000-15000. Anything less would lead to an artificial economy, limit growth and ultimately fail. This middle class is the engine room. In Steemit parlance you need to build 500-1000 Orcas and 5000-10000 dolphins. And these guys should be able to grow and excite your community by bubbling content and writers to the top, add both reputational and financial weight to these people and not be easily overwhelmed by a few heavy weights. They are your disciples and prophets.
I am not saying we do not need the heavy weights. We do. They are the sharp end of the arrow. But like any good arrow head does, they need a solid shaft. That shaft is the middle class, your Orcas and dolphins. I believe the impact for a vote by these latter guys should be increased relatively to the whales. This change is now important because the initial impact needed from the whales to start the platform has been achieved and some critical mass has been reached. In order to move from a 100 000 to a million members, you need more people to drive the community as a collective and this could only be done by changing the distribution ratio.

In conclusion

The story of Steem is one of early stage success. There has been numerous of these that did not make it further, and many that did, no longer exist. I believe Steem should heed these lessons, and keep evolving. If the intent is to truly build something bigger and lasting, well beyond the content platform, the fruits of the platform should be better distributed and the entrepreneurial thinkers should be allowed to thrive. Indeed they should be encouraged. Like Deepak Chopra says, you should detach yourself from the outcomes to truly create value. My request, in order to not go extinct, let go of your power whales, and let more free market principles dictate how this moves forward. By all means, support and enable the environment, but do not squeeze the life out of it. If this is truly a valuable community, you should make a lot out of the rest of us plebs making something, even if it means less easy bucks. Hope I do not step on too many toes, but to be a straight shooter is just my nature. Will take it on the chin, and if I need to be filled in or corrected, please do.

Please follow me @robertm !

Happy Steeming

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@jacor features users from time to time. ALL SBD from this post will go to the featured author. I keep the Steempower as I see this as a business transaction.

If you are looking to be featured as an author, please contact me via email - [email protected]