The Steemian's Hierarchy of Needs

Ever since I joined Steemit, I've always been curious about the people who use the site. We've made many comparisons of the types of users based on their STEEM POWER and created class divides like Minnows, Dolphins, Orcas and Whales to denote which group every user belongs to. We have even had studies on the different kinds of Curators and their Curating patterns.

We haven't had much discussion on the different groups of people who use the site, their reasons for using the site and what benefits they seek to gain. Clearly, everybody that continues use the site sees benefit in one way or another. Financial rewards are just one aspect, and not all the users on the platform are here for that. That's a point that's often lost in conversation but hopefully this article will shed some light on other reasons.

I started thinking about the kinds of content people posted, and what relationship this had with what they hoped to gain from using the site. This lead me to think about the backgrounds of all the users and whether their perceived behaviour on the site can conclude something about their current circumstances in life.

In management school, I remember learning about a theory called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs which attempts to model human development and their stages of growth. In a nutshell, this framework is based on 5 different categories of human needs which each need to be relatively or sufficiently satisfied before a person progresses to the next level of needs.

Here is a diagram depicting the pyramid and it's five levels. It becomes harder and harder to move up the levels and as a result, each level higher has fewer and fewer people

In Maslow's theory, he acknowledges that people will act to satisfy needs from many levels at the same time, but will have one level that dominates their behaviour. Although many counter theories and arguments have been made to challenge Maslow's theories, it is still an important allegory of the human journey which obviously continues to be taught to a plethora of disciplines today.

How does this relate to Steemit?

Assuming everybody is in one of the levels, we should be able to see evidence of which level they are in through their behaviour on the platform. Furthermore, we can even begin describing the different kinds of Steemit personalities and behaviours on the site corresponding to each level.

It is hard to find many people who aren't motivated by money, but according to Maslow's theory, there are a full spectrum of people who have varying degree's of primary needs and as we move towards to the higher levels, money becomes less important.

It is inevitable that most people at the bottom of the pyramid have monetary rewards as their primary goal. Their behaviour would classify them under the Safety Needs level as such, their behaviour on the site would be geared towards making as much money as possible. Ironically, striving to make money as the only goal usually renders the process of making larger amounts of money rather hard. Without the notion of betterment, a person can get stuck at this level in a vicious cycle of spending all their time trying to make money, whilst not developing the core competencies that allow them to reach for higher financial reward.

For other's, the feeling of belonging to a community will eclipse their need for financial security. These people may be the ones who visit the site to interact with other users through discussion and taking part in community initiatives, getting to know the authors etc. These people will fall into the Love / Belonging Category. We see some community initiatives already such as the Robin Hood Group and Project Curie, the people behind those have clearly moved on from making money as their primary motivation.

A fewer number of people will seek to build a sense of self-esteem be it status, reputation, recognition, fame, prestige or simply attention. These people are sometimes mistaken for aligning themselves with financial motivations because their good monetary rewards are a manifestation of their higher desire for achievement, self-respect and attention. But sure enough, what is more important is clear to them, and that's all that matters at the end of the day. The Esteem level is interesting because it's one of philosophical pillars that founded this platform and where it derives its name from. In order to fully appreciate the site, I believe reaching this level is essential， and for some, it's already a reality, kudos to you!

The final level is the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy of needs - self-actualization, and is the tip of the pyramid where there are very few people. For people at this level, their motivations can almost seem altruistic, because their intentions can seem so self-less. People at this level will often care about using their accumulated knowledge, position and even wealth to help aid and progress society. They see this as a necessary step in doing the most they can do, and being the best they can be. On this platform, it would be the people who keep objective judgement rather than subjective, the people who see problems as challenges that require solutions and not complaints or excuses, the people who are non-discriminant and embrace all kinds of content and the people creating this content regardless of their race or content style, the people who are spontaneous and natural and stick to being themselves rather than being how others want, the people who put their money where their mouths are and support the platform for no other reason than believing it's place in humanity is significant.

It is really difficult to describe the people who belong to the Steemit level of self-actualization because the platform is so young and needs to stand the test of time. I have a pretty clear picture of a few names that come to mind for each level, even the top level, but remaining impartial, I won't name any names.
Instead, I'll let you guys have a think about who you would put in each level.

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