Be Optimistic Don't Be Nieve

First off let me start by saying I love this platform, I plan on being an ambassador trying to spread it to others and am super excited to see this platform grow and to be a part of it. That said at times I see people being overly optimistic to the point of even being a bit nieve.

It's not something unique to this platform, I see it in relation to cryptocurrencies, and really all new social media platforms.

Examples

VidMe

Back when the Youtube/Adsense Adpocalypse was going on many Youtubers moved on over to VidMe. People were enthused about the new platform which promised no censorship and a different way of monetizing for creators.

I heard people raving about how awesome VidMe is, how VidMe is going to overtake Youtube in the next six months, and other things along those lines.

While I would love to see VidMe gain more of a following, as I always see competition in the marketplace being good for everyone and pushing everyone to better themselves, I think it's pretty unrealistic to think that VidMe, which has plenty of it's own issues by the way, would overtake Youtube, the second largest search engine in the world.

VidMe is glitchy, I can't upload or comment from mobile. It also lacks diversity of content. 95% of the content on VidMe is video games or animation with the remaining 5% typically being posts about VidMe the platform itself.

Whether VidMe continues to grow and take off remains to be seen but I think it's silly for people out of spite to abandon Youtube, something which worked for VidMe, something which may look promising but is yet to prove itself.

Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencies

Again, let me start by saying I think Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology as a whole is the future. That said I see the same nievity going on with them as I do with VidMe.

I've seen people saying the Dollar is going to cease to exist in the next 6 months or year. Again while I do think Bitcoin is going to continue to grow, and rapidly at that as I think we're at the very early stages of mass adoption and basically Bitcoin and cryptos finally getting taken seriously and getting the respect they deserve, it's not going to knock off the Dollar in six months.

Steemit

So this brings me to Steemit. I'm very new to this site, only been on about a week at this point. I realize this platform while somewhat new, has been around for a while. I noticed one post in particular however that brought up this feeling of over optimism and a bit of nievity which kind of led me to make this post.

So the other day I saw a 15 year old kid asking if he should get a summer job or go full-time on Steemit and I think many people we're encouraging him to choose Steemit.

I got my first job at 14 working at a landscaping company and nursery. It taught me the value of a hard days worth of work. I think to my parents they had me get the job to stress the importance of an education so I didn't have to do hard manual labor my whole life. I learned a lot. I learned to take direction, I learned to work with and communicate with all different types of people from grownups to bosses to other kids my age to many of the workers who didn't even speak English, but we found a way to communicate through a mixture of sign language and Spanglish. I think there's definately some value you're going to get from an experience like that, that you can't get from blogging online on Steemit.

Furthermore, I don't think anyone can honestly say they would actually spend a full 8 hours straight on Steemit or any other platform for that matter, you'll burn out. I recently watched a great Tim Ferris video where he talked about taking breaks and a break doesn't necessarily mean taking a step back from work, but just changing the type of thing you're working on.

Lastly, I think with most things in life, diversity and moderation are important. Bitcoin and cryptos have outperformed the stock market the past few years and will probably continue to do so. I truly believe that, however I'm not going to cash out my SEP IRA and throw 100% of it into Bitcoin, regardless of how optimistic I am that wouldn't be smart.

I'm a big fan of having multiple streams of income and diversifying in that area as well. I know Steemit is different from many other social media platforms so some may argue it can't be censored and there is no way there could be an adpocalypse but you never know what the future holds. Maybe the price of Steem plumits, maybe a fork happens which changes how earnings are paid out, maybe a new blockchain based social platform captures some marketshare or maybe someone just loses interest in the platform.

Wrapping Up

I guess my point is this. Rarely is it a good idea to go 100% all in on anything. Diversifying and moderation is important in most areas of life. For the example given, I see no reason why a 15 year old kid couldn't both hold down a summer job and be an active member of this great community and even personally speaking I see no reason why I can't be a contributing member of this community and also run an ecommerce business and also be active on Youtube. In all honestly I think doing those things will make me a better member here as I have something to talk about besides just this platform.

Anyhow guys, that's my soapbox and my two cents. What's your thoughts?