A hard question to start off your monday - Maybe @ned could share his point of view on this (here is to hoping)
Source Credit @sndbox
I guess the reason why I'm even thinking about this, is because most of us learnt, maybe through negative experiences that the expectations we may have had for this blockchain were not met. Meaning, that we believed it to be one thing only to embrace later on the fact that it did not work exactly that way.
The reasons why are probably connected to promoters who do their best to bait would be viewers into clicking their overpromising "tricks" to make a lot of money, but then again that might not the whole picture at all.
The psychological implications of this very message were probably not very calculated, and if they were, they might have been a bit shady and that is putting it lightly. Why would I say such a thing? Why would I accuse the marketing department (there is probably none, but my point stands) of being evil? - You might say.
I won't use the word evil, because that implies I believe in some sort of absolut. But the right word might be deceitful. Yes, that sounds harsh but I'm not willing to say otherwise, as much as it might anger a few people.
Your voice is worth something
Implies a valuation to your opinion, an implicit understanding that if you don't get anything, if the payout window expires and you happened to see a flipping 0.00 the whole time, that must mean your opinion, your thoughts, YOU are worthless.
Is this true? Is this even a message we would like to put out there? Are we telling people, come, let us be the judges of you? Let us punish you with indifference if you can't cut the cheese?
Do you see where I'm going with this? - The message has a lot of hot cognitions, implicit associations that cannot be ignored and in my opinion should not be ignored.
I know that: Steem != Steemit
I know this very well, but I also know that to 90% of the world who knows about Steem, it's not. And this little fact is what bothers me. In truth the platform today has to do with content yes, but not so much. Meaning that the relationships, the social aspects, the ones that can't be measured by metrics have more weight on the payouts of posts than the quality of the content itself.
Is this fair? Do I like it? What does this say about merit? - I'm not entirely sure, but possibly that part of the conversation is not as relevant at the moment, at least for this particular post.
I can't help to wonder if when I write about these things, I'm screaming into the abyss or if someone at Steemit Inc actually considers my words.
Other posts by yours truly
• Open Mic Week 92 - Top 5 Selection and Honorable Mentions
• Sell it all... - thoughts of abundance and scarcity
• Innocence is more important than life - Controversial thoughts for a common Sunday
• I've been playing around with Musing.io - Loving it so far
• Are you thinking about running for witness?
Depends on whom you speak to. Most of the people I try to introduce to steem are people interested in blockchain, not bloggers (I don't know enough bloggers, otherwise I would try with them as well). And for someone interested in blockchain steem is a true pearl - it goes to show that the worth of the blockchain comes not that much from back-end software architecture but from the front-end part and from the user community.
No argument from me there my friend. As a blockchain Steem is probably king (currently that is). But, the "trick" into getting more investment is probably connected to the solution of this conundrum. Probably.
I agree. But I don't think it's going to be solved "gradually" but rather "suddenly" or "not at all".
Some day, after the HF20 and maybe the SMTs as well will be up and running, @ned will (possibly) rise and say "Good, now let's get to work on the front-end side".
And the rest will be history - the steemitude will be unleashed unto the world and life will never be the same.
Then again, ... maybe not!
Steemitude
The birth of a new word....
lol
Would you do a brother a favor (if you can)? There is this interesting dude @mattclarke you seem to read from time to time and he has available witness slots and some approvals for dead witnesses.
I was wondering whether you could say a good word or two about @lux-witness (which you don't approve because you are already maxxed out at 30, I know :-)
Thanks one way or the other
I one upped you...
Great subject brought up
i think if you chose right, there would be no regret.
Who is Right person?
the last issue is even an intention to invite someone! After all, steemit is not PERFECT!
I have onboarded dozens of people but stopped almost entirely in January or so. It became a place I wouldn't want friends and family to enter into expecting a good time.
When it comes to the marketing, the issue is likely that those who are doing the job are not necessarily the most socially or behaviourally minded in the world. I have seen it numerous ties where tech people produce things with normal people in mind. Their best intentions not only usually miss the mark but create unintended negative consequences that would be pretty obvious to a behaviour expert. Maybe it is time to bring in some people who understand people to create the material for marketing.
Maybe this is precisely what a new project needs to focus on.
They needed smart economists and psychologists, not more coders. Lay the right foundation from the start and build on top of that, nothing stable can be built on a weak foundation.
Right as rain there my friend.. right as rain.
Oh, thanks ! That was unexpected ! Thank you !
Steem has some real edges that appeal to some of my friends: particularly long-form posting, and feeds on most of the front ends that show you all the posts of your friends in chronological order. Most of us are old and remember when the whole internet was like that, and we liked it.
Those aren't even financial rewards, and yet I'm not really making a lot of effort to bring them over at this point. Everything here is so hard to understand that I feel like I need to give them a financial incentive to stick around and learn it. When I could give them a floor of $1/post I started to talk to some people, but now that it's more like forty cents I don't feel like that's enough.
Maybe that's a metric for how easy to use any of this is. In an ideal world interacting on Steem would be so easy and enjoyable I wouldn't feel the need to pay people to show up at all. We're not close to that but at least we can think about moving in that direction.
I've stopped onboarding myself, but really because it feels as if right now I don't have the time to dedicate all the work it requires to show someone the ropes on a one to one basis. I'm sure in that sense we probably are on the same boat.
your second paragraph-- so much! i recently invited an incredibly talented blogger and am kinda teaching her the ropes. i hope she stays, but what's the incentive? crazy ppl like me who got hooked early on in my steeming (when steem was at $8)... if you live in the US or another country with a high fiat currency value, the amount we can earn here (especially in the downtimes) doesn't incentivize many to come and then to stay and continue to produce.
40 cents is a lot more than I'm able to upvote someone with...
Honestly I'm constantly questioning everything I do anymore as if it doesn't matter anyway. The internet has had a negative effect on attention span and I'm just as guilty using Steemauto for the vast majority of my upvoting. I'm trying to do better on that. With everything I've tried for years I remember Lemmy's words in Decline of Western Civilization - The Metal Years "Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it". I think about that every time I hit the submit button.
I'm not against autovotes per say... I try to hand curate, but in between my pride and efficiency, i rather lean on the latter.
I try to support as many people as I can, but the key word is try...
Indeed with as busy as I am with 4 kids at home the auto upvoting is the most efficient
If you want someone at Steemit Inc to read your post, you have to get their attention bro. Title your post "Hey Ned, what do?" or something and tag him in it.
Let's try this... I doubt it, but let's try...
Unfortunately , the "voice is worth something" mimics the real world , quite painfully so !!
I would still feel comfortable recommending it to fam/friends...with the qualifier....
I get you 100% - That makes it not so appealing tho.. you must admit that much.
Is distribution of rewards an issue , definitely it is , we are an oligarchy in the Steemit world.
I have several family members on Steem. Not all have enjoyed the process much. :) I definitely don't think it is for everyone.
To be honest, I don't think that anyone at SteemIt, Inc does pay any attention to the community. I am fine with that. They built a platform and have been telling the community for a long time that they are focused on the blockchain. If we don't like what we get from SteemIt, build a front end. :)
I've had so many friends quit, I'm kind of done inviting friends and family. At least for the moment being.
I think if the overall market stays low things will keep getting nastier until every or at least many end-users realize nobody is going to save us and they start doing whatever little thing they can to fix things.
We will see some quit, puke, sell, holla... And eventually, decide to either get busy leaving or get busy staying. I admit it's hard some days watching a bunch of people talk about Freedom and call for others to behave the way they want or cry for Authority. Acceptance is the solution. When it starts to dawn on each user that every one controls their own stake and do not have the right to control anyone else. Sigh. Most of us don't have a lot of practice with Freedom and it shows. :)
After saying all that... I'm bullish and I will be gathering Steem as fast as I can while everyone else tries to control the actions of things and people they don't control.
That was not meant as a funny line (i think so, at least) but it made me chuckle!!
I've finally crossed the dolphin line.. so I'm with you 100%
Not meant to be funny, but I totally get why it made you chuckle! haha.
CONGRATS on crossing the Dolphin line! Celebrate success.
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
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Having to onboard is an issue in itself. Ultimately it would be perfect if anyone outside of the block chain community could create an account and hit the ground running.
Instead of the white paper being the only source of information for how steemit works there should be a video that explains the main points in layman's terms (this may exist already?). Another hurdle for new users is learning the Markdown formatting system, which is better than raw HTML, but both provide a challenge for the average Joe who wants to start writing immediately.
For those reasons I have never even considered introducing steemit to my circle of friends and family because none of them even know what blockchain is. Steemit will remain a niche product unless it evolves to be more user friendly for the masses.
BTW while I am fan of the alternative interfaces like @SteemPeak I think it makes zero sense that we end up marketing to users to join steemit to then redirect them to a different interface because steemit's is sub par. Not the best first impression.