Does Steem Ruin Engagement?
Steem has a lot of problems. We all know that. But how far are we from creating real interactions?
From here (note that I don’t have an account on that website, it just has a lot of anti-steem posts).
From a human perspective, liking and up-voting become a chore, and it felt less like engaging and more of how I could ensure profits go into my pockets for the forced mechanism on me to press a button and “earn” through transacting with the person or post.
It dulled my sense of value and heightened my desire to click faster and hate when I had to wait based on time delay. Why? Because now, time had a monetary function associated with my engagement.
This turned my engagement with people into “transacting” with people. And now, if I transact faster, I can earn faster through (assumed) reciprocal up-voting. Now I don’t take the time to think. To respond with care. To actually care.
I don’t like transacting with people. I can do that when I buy groceries. I want to engage with people. I want to spur ideas and encourage creativity. In all people.
This statement is very true. By attaching money to commenting and posting, it creates a system where engaging can become a chore, only being done for followers and upvotes. I did something similar to this as I forced myself to comment on 40 posts per week by different people, in the hopes that my follower count would grow.
While “upvote for upvote” is now frowned upon and no longer paid attention to, the remnants of it still remain. Currently, engagement has become a chore, a job, for many people, as interactions become transactions.
But for others, the Steem experience no longer feels like transacting. For them, upvoting a post is not done to try and get that person as a follower for themselves, it is done as a normal engagement on the internet. This is something we should all strive to do, as Steemit should not be about transacting, it should be about engaging, fostering discussion and connections.
But for me, and many others, that is what Steem is all about. What we need is more people who are posting content that encourages discussion and engagement. We also need more people who want to engage, even if it doesn’t benefit them in follower count.
If this can happen, we will create an ecosystem where discussion, new ideas, and engagement are rewarded, making Steem stand out and become a truly amazing place.
You got a 23.68% upvote from @blogbooster courtesy of @shredz7!
I also see some problems with the activity and the engagement on Steemit these days.
I am participating in a writing challenge and my last two posts about it received absolutely no comments.
Some people noticed and I also think that some (or maybe a lot of) people stop writing and commenting, when the price of Steem is down.
This is a very big disadvatange of Steemit.
Under this blog post @mejustandrew said "people are doing everything for money" as a reply to a surprised comment, but how could people do EVERYTHING for money?
For example see the Facebook. I don't use Facebook nowadays, I deleted my Facebook account many years ago, but at least Facebook have real interactions.
The money earning opportunity (for the most of the people) is not (yet?) involved/present on Facebook.
But recently I heard about Facebook getting involved in the blockchain technology and creating it's own cryptocurrency.
I think that whatever crypcurrency they will make, that will destroy the real engagement on Facebook, just like on Steemit.
The problem is that when money or other rewards are introduced into the platform, people start optimizing their rewards. This works in a similar way to grinding in games. If something in a game gives you a certain reward, people try to optimize the way they get those rewards by finding a specific strategy that they repeat every single time, having a negative effect on their gameplay experience and turning it into ‘grinding’.
With Steem, people optimize their interactions because there is a reward attached, turning engagement into mindless work. @mejustandrew means that people, when there is a monetary incentive, will do everything for money.
I personally believe that Facebook’s cryptocurrency will not do all these things that Steem does, it will probably just allow people to send money and maybe make a share of Facebook’s profit from advertising. Facebook is wanting to make it super user friendly, and they have little to no experience in this space yet.
I (and @magic8ball, just read his comment) believe that we will be able to change that, and I actually believe that Steem is slowly changing for the better.
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Not this one /\
In the end Steemit is what you want to be. If you see it as merely a cash-machine, a new kind of daily-job, it can be that and that's fine because there are places in the world where no other job pays as well with so little risk.
If you are one of the many guys from Aceh or Bangladesh or Nigeria or who knows else that spend your time posting pictures and trying to turn a buck from those pictures Steemit lets you do that and that's ok.
But it also let's you engage and create community. I've met beautiful people I would have never met otherwise.
Thanks for resteeming this, @mejustandrew. BTW, i've noticed you still have a lot of place for approved witnesses (9 approved, 21 empty slots) :-)
Yes, but it is definitely possible for a Steem daily job to be much more engaging.
I have heard stories about how Steem has changed lives, as people use voting power to give people in places like Venezuela a basic income that could change their lives.
Absolutely. If I had the choice (e.g. with @ranchorelaxo's SP) I'd rather work at producing steem content than doing 99% of any other job one can think of
I will, Sorin, when I'll get home :)
I'm surprised people are doing this for the money. I would think if you wanted to make money blogging on the Internet there would be easier ways to do it.
Yeah, but people coming in think this is going to be a ‘game changer’, like people always do when they see a new thing based on new tech. It might actually be a game changer in the future, but right now if you want to make money blogging on the internet, Steem is not the way to go.
Don't be, people are doing everything for money :))
Your post got upvoted and resteemed by # BlogBooster and the curation trail.
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I also resteemed this at @blogboost, as you touch a very intricate detail of steemit in my opinion.
I'll admit, I too thinking of optimizing my rewards at times.
Have a great day!
Good post, this is exactly the idea I want to promote for so long. In time people will be able to engage better, without thinking of the money their interactions mean :D
I agree. I have a lot more to talk about on this subject, so stay tuned. Thanks for the resteem! I always love seeing my own post in my feed :)
I really don't think Steemit is different than any other social media platform. Like others have said in the comments here Steemit is what you make it. Same goes for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. If you want to grow "your brand" you have to do a like for a like, you have to go and comment on 40 similar channels or "brands". Which in reality is a horrible growing strategy, I hated this on YouTube in particular. You would spend so much time and money in growing your channel, for someone to come a long and say "hey can you promote my channel?" Like that's why I started my channel, so I can promote yours? Another reason why it doesn't work is the time and effort it takes to follow someone. Say if you follow for follow 1,000 people, it would be so time consuming just to like all their content. Let alone to truely "engage" with them. Once this happens people will start to unfollow you.
In trying to grow a "brand" this was the worse kind of support. If you want to grow a brand on the net you have to produce things, thoughts, and or art, that people actually want to see/hear, that will make them want to support you. Why, because they want see/listen to what you are gonna do next.
A perfect example of this is I was watching a great TA instructor on YouTube. I would comment often, but 0 engagement from the instructor. That was fine, in the end I was there to learn TA not to gain a friend, him providing great TA lessons was enough for me to keep watching and even engage with likes and comments.
As far as the side of the coin, I think this could be a place to meet friends with the same interests. Like most social media platforms you're gonna need real friends first though. Sharing stories, lessons, opinions, whatever your "thing" is and if other want to join then great, if not at least you have your friends.
In the end we all think we are special and we're not. We see people share photos of their dinner, or express their thoughts, or even play with toys. Looks so easy, that's because when people are good at something they make it look easy. It's not, but we still for some reason we still think it is. People think they can post some crappy photo of their dinner and be famous or make $350 of Steem becasue someone else has. They fact is they person who made the post that made $350 from a food post is probably a professional photographer, married to chef. They probably spent all day setting up (light, props, background) plus actually making the food. People want the money, without the work. You can see/hear this everywhere in society. Not just social media.
So I view Steemit the same as I view the other ones, if people are engaging with you. It's to either get what you are offering(advice, opinions, art, teaching, heck even something funny to distract them from their real life. Or people want something, if it's just and upvote or a resteem. They still want something. The only difference in my opinion is that here we control more if the income on this site, I feel the other sites not only use the content creators, buy the users as well. If you want followers anywhere you have to put out good content and do it consistently!
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Right now, I agree, it does. Will we be able to improve Steem to foster engagement, discussion, and new ideas?
@magic8ball
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Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by mejustandrew from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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