Steem Incentives and SBDs

Short Posts or Long Ones?

I spent most of my writing time last week working on a chapter of my upcoming book, which will be a sort of "steem for normies" that I hope we can use to bring more people to this platform. At 2500 words, it dwarfed my usual posts.

When posting it, I was struck by an odd incentive structure here: it would likely have been more profitable to post half one day, and half a few days later.

Instead, I put the whole thing up at once, which forced my readers to slug through an article twice the size they were expecting. Thank you for that.

But now I'm at a conundrum: do I split my posts into two, with an artificial break that won't appear in the book? Do I serialize so I can have better visibility (showing up twice in your feed instead of once), more comments, and (most importantly) more upvotes?

Should I split the writeup into 7 articles for a daily piece?

I'm interested in your thoughts in the comments section.

Steem Engagement Dropoff

It seems like Steem engagement has been down the past week or two. Maybe it's just me not posting my usual 2-3 articles per week (family was visiting), but I wonder too if it isn't the declining price in Steem. That's understandable, as many of us don't want to think about short term losses...especially if we bought when Steem was $3...or $4...or more.

But while these stretches happen, we can't let them break our spirit. The way to play the steemit.com game is to ensure that even if you get paid nothing, you create great content that you can re-purpose: practice your craft (writing, vlogging, podcasting, whatever), build a portfolio, establish credibility in an area, gain clients in your field, etc.

People spend hundreds of hours a year writing for free on the internet. Here, you can write/draw/sing/whatever for free, with the upside of making some money. Some will earn a lot of money here, while many will earn a little. I think those of us here in the first few years are in a position to really do well on this platform, and that's why I'm spending a lot of time and energy trying to bring in friends and family...especially those who can be persuaded to install SteemPress on their WordPress blog.

SBDs

The original intention of SBDs was to be an in platform stable coin, which allowed Steem artists a refuge from volatility. Getting paid with half your reward in SBDs allowed you to cash out once or twice a month without losing your capital.

SBDs being bid up on the open market became a boon for Steemians, who quickly realized 50/50 was the best way to make bank. A post that showed $20 in upvotes once gave the author $15; with SBDs bid up one could expect $60 or more after their 7 day period.

Alas, all good things must end, and SBDs have steadily declined.

But now I've read that the SBD was "never meant to be $1", but instead, to never go below $1. That makes sense, but I'd propose to you that if that is true, then SBDs are currently broken. SBDs may be above $1, but at $2.33 they can still lost over half their value. While temporarily more valuable, SBDs are not a store of value right now.

Then again, when you hear the term "store of value" with regards to blockchain, you generally want to run the other direction.

-Jeff

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