According to my aunt, $10 in PH is a day's work. $10 here in US, is the coffee & scone I take to work.
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This subject may be a little touchy, but let me forward this by saying that I'm completely okay with Steemit being an international platform. Being an American with family overseas, I think it's really cool that they can get a lot more from posting great content on Steemit and getting awarded.
That said, it begs the question however— Is it worth our time in America?
I've been looking through the wallets of some Steem heavy hitters lately and I noticed some patterns. Aside from having loyal followings as blockchain celebrity gods with the power of voting money— many profit from their own upvotes, as well as, investing big bucks into bots. What kind of big bucks? Well, I won't name names, but the kind of big bucks Minnows (and even some Dolphins) don't have invested here— nor probably will ever.
That's not to say we can't all have great days here. What I'm saying is that as an international platform— that means that places (even here in America, actually) with a lower cost of living have a greater incentive to participate and invite all of their friends. In contrast, it's not really worth it for wealthier people who live places with a higher cost of living.
In America, most users could make more money collecting and returning Pepsi cans.
This clutch has and will continue to shape the userbase of Steemit. And while I take no issue with this, it begs another question— will the larger investors and holders have more incentive to bail in the years going forward?
International economy is tricky because the cost and value of goods differs place to place. I like the idea of earning a few coins and introducing family and friends to the platform— especially those it will benefit more than I. However, I can't imagine everyone's intention here is to transfer wealth.
Is an exercise in international anarcho-capitalism really displaying a genuine transformation into a form of voluntary international socialism?
When I think of it from the standpoint of, "What's in it for me— and not worrying about anyone else" it's something— I'm more here for the experiment and to invest money supporting others (my original mission.) But just imagine if everyone asked themselves that question.
What are your thoughts?
Just a pondering...
More posts by Omi your Homie. ♥
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How To Increase The Price of Steem ✨Newbie Edition✨ — This post got curated by Steemit Mastermind Group!
10+ Basic Income Projects & New Giveaway — Resteem and enter to win free upvotes for your entire life.
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Growing Apart — This depressing post about my childhood got me a CURIE. Not sure if that makes me awesome or an inside joke. Lol.
Learn and Earn with PiggyCoin — Get your kids some Crypto. They should lose money too.
200 Followers! It's a Party!!! + 5 New Shout Outs — Curation of 5 awesome people who will soon exceed me, so I'm glad I schmoozed.
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If you can spare to loan 1 SP while I build up my own,
it will keep this little Minnow swimming.❤
Delegations are 100% refundable.
I think you raise a very valid point here, I've only been on steemit for a week so have a very much "newbie" opinion on this.
I think I could fairly broadly categorise the posts that I've seen so far on steemit into a few categories.
Category 1 are the most successful and most likely to stick around for the longest.
Category 2 will likely see some initial success but if they don't improve their formatting / presentation will slip down to category 3.
Category 3 will have a few people rise up and go through to category 2, and then possibly category 1. But most will simply either stay in category 3 or leave the platform.
Category 4 consists of people who are likely to stay for up to 2 weeks, realise they can't make a "quick buck" and leave the platform altogether.
I think a lot of people in the higher cost-of-living countries as you say have many more opportunities to make more reliable income than learning to move up from category 3, or category 2 to reach the top category, and the amount of money required to make this a worthwhile use of their time.
Just my 2 cents :)
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Thanks for your feedback. Something I mentioned above that I don't think many people analyze is that many of those $500 posts are self-upvoted using bots to the tune of $450. Many aren't even profitable. I went on a hunt to discover why some authors jumped from making $10 per post to $400+. I took a sample of 50 first go around that included persons you'd define in category 1 that clear upwards of $50 per post.
For the most part, this is the most misleading category (1.) These are squarely split between those who have a big investment so have a lot of loyal fans trying to 'catch-a-whale' (witnesses, celebrities, Dolphins, Orcas), those who believe their content is impressive (and usually is) so they bot each post into the hundreds sometimes at a loss, and those who have a whale upvoting them consistently.
I even suspect some smaller higher paid accounts ARE whales using a second account to spread their wealth around and participate in a way they cannot from their whale account. If you look through the wallets of those who have six figures+ on the platform, you start to see some very interesting transactions.
So, category 1, while including some genuinely great contributors that are earning based on talent; most is a lot of false advertising. To someone visiting the first time, the front page looks like hope. Then you get under the hood and realize that these invested in each post to the tune of the payout itself just to look successful.
How many are not self-upvoting, relying on bots and circle-voting, etc? Well, despairingly few. I found 2 out of 50. Granted my research could be wider and I'll continue to sample, but so far it's very misleading. The top players here are the top ones holding, not the top ones earning.
So what I'm saying is, your financial success here has very little to do with content quality, formatting, or even your personality- in reality. In reality, you already have the money or you are pretending you have the money with your own money. You didn't earn that money here.
I agree on your definition of category 4. These will come and will go. In a way they're not a big concern. In a strange way, it could be healthy if more of them came and went. For each user, there is some distribution of coin. Many that don't make anything significant will just abandon ship, leaving their little bits of coin vested indefinitely.
There is a category 3.5 and that is those who are fine making 10 cents per post and just do that all day to the tune of 50 posts per day using apps like steepshot or dmania. They use the platform like Facebook, and they don't make original content. They make their $5 passively and cash out a lot more frequently than others. But they stay, and every time they cash out, their coin returns to the ecosystem. When a whale powers down, the price of Steem can go down. What's the difference between 1 whale and 1000x 1/1000th of a whale, nothing. That means roller coaster prices. The only difference here is signups help bring up the price of steem. But the quality of those signups sort of matter in the long run.
I feel like I'm in category 3. I don't write well. To think I made it through college this horrible at writing. It's in part due to a spectrum condition, in part due to being a sleepy single parent, and in part to not really knowing what to write about yet. I write conversationally. I'm decent at formatting posts as far as markup, but not grammatically. I can see myself becoming a slightly better writer (a goal), but not by much. It's simply not a priority for me to rise to the top of great contributors that pay to play. I've seen many incredible writers with followings still make nothing, because they're not using bots.
Bots are healthy for the economy as well. Using them is good. However, there's something to say for an economy that relies on subsidized investments. Why can't I just make $1 per post just for posting, instead of making half, and then spending half to get a double resulting in $1 anyway- which I have to do every time.
Sneakily, it causes me to invest in the system because I'm paid in part with Steem Power. It's all worth the same, but I can't touch what I've earned unless I power down. And when I do that, I'm less powerful overall.
Lastly, and back to the point, my friends in Thailand posting their naturally occurring paradise pictures are living on $5USD today, and it's cost me $5USD in my time to make this comment- simply because of the difference in living. Essentially, they've received so much more value and I've lost so much- everyone without even realizing it. That's fine with me, but I'm just wondering if anyone else has contemplated this.
Maybe I'm missing something?
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Firstly, thanks for such a detailed response. I certainly wasn't aware of the amount of upvotes that are being paid for at the upper end of the "earning scale". I don't really see the point of people paying for the upvotes to convert their fiat to steem, but I wonder if there is an element of thinking that the higher each post looks to be more people are likely to vote on it, I guess this is where the curation rewards come in.
Personally, I think it would be better to reward someone with a small following / upvote count as each vote has more weight there than being one of 300 people upvoting a post.
I certainly don't think that you write badly though and think your content is definitely higher than what I coined as category 3 originally.
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It's interesting, there's this cycle of thinking that all of us new Steemit users go through that I've witness several times now. It all starts at that misleading Trending page. You see the post that are making hundreds and think "I can do that!, I can do it a lot better than that actually!" Then you learn how things really work and you have a choice to make.
To your original point, it's definitely something I've thought about. I've seen several people here from Venezuela, which as you may or may not know their currency is basically fucked, and the small payouts that they make here can go a long way, whereas I live in San Francisco, and on a bad day LITERALLY the guy at the corner shaking a cup did better than me.
The reason it specifically makes sense for me is because I'm posting my artwork. I'm a professional artist and I create personal artwork regardless, so this gives me a way to monetize something I'd be doing anyway. On a bad day, it gets overlooked and makes anywhere from .05 to .50 but on a good day I might make a few bucks and I've been lucky enough to get touched by curie a couple times and those made around $50 and $30.
The other reason I'm here is I'm not really thinking as much about the value of STEEM today. I'm investing in STEEM, as I've invested in other cryptos. The reason I like STEEM the most is I have a means of earning more STEEM without just putting in my own fiat. I do that as well, but this way I can be pro-active.
Many crypto's have that within their design(the ability to earn it by doing something), but most aren't released yet. There are a few on my radar, but even still, with my skill set, I think STEEM and Steemit are the best fit for me personally.
PS I found you from your comment on yallapapi's post and I gotta say
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Thanks for commenting. I would love to know of other coins doing similar things like this. I have a list of a few as well. I'm also (sort of) investing. I put some of my bitcoin in and we'll see what happens this year. What I find interesting is seeing what I have to do to keep my initial investment worth the same. That's where I realized something is up. Aside from that point, the original point stands true. There's currently more incentive for other countries to use it and it's rapidly changing the landscape— which is fine. Also, the new apps are changing how it's used. Where you would be highly valued in a blogsphere, here-now, a meme copied from Facebook is getting a lot of tips. We can only wait and see what's going to happen I think.
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