I feel like I'm doing this backwards, but it's probably because I'm only ~2 months-old... I have a far easier time writing a comment than writing a post. Personally, it's my respect for the amount of html/markdown Steemit allows that is getting in my way. There's a lot of users now who don't know how to format, so I get a lot of flak for trying too hard... but... it certainly helps. It makes it easier to read, and makes it look like you care about what you're writing about. Enthusiasm is contagious.
But I think that's the crux here. The rub that is rubbing us (who are actually working at this) the wrong way.
Everyone who's commented already has a piece of the puzzle. Frankly enough, a LOT of posts aren't making content which tries to engage others and much less looks engaging to start reading. There's not much meat. In other words, it's not that we aren't engaging each other enough anymore... it's that things are getting watered down, and the chain is starting to drown in posts which need no comments. The content is short and sweet. Statements instead of questions. Criticisms instead of prompts for open discussions. A picture or a video. The issues concerning memes a while back had this at the eye in its storm: "Look at this, and give me the upvote (the money/power) if you like or agree." The price for exceptional content started taking backseat to simplicity behind tl;dr.
And there's a lot of these around:
Awesome, you took a pretty picture of a flower.
Great, you learned something meaningful about Jesus in your life.
Oh, you walked 10,000 steps today. Congratulations.
Oh! Another funny meme!
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Of course the whales are flagging each other again.
Upvote. Upvote. Upvote... (or you give a bot the power to do it for you). It is the like button equivalent of Facebook. Easy peasy to just approve and move on.
Only a portion of the devolution into this state is due to people not commenting anymore. From what I've seen and understand of the human condition thus far, it's really quite obvious what's actually happened: There's money here, and people are trying to milk the system now that they see profit. Simple content with 70 STEEMs-worth of rewards in a couple of hours seems to be a solid indication that the focus has changed.
And you're definitely right--there's no escaping it, especially if the overall price of STEEM increases again. That won't happen if people 'take their money and run', so to speak. Proper combat against this is to further improve the backend and make it easier to navigate around the inevitable junk that flocks towards an easy buck. Communities will stay intact if we make them visible on the platform itself. Newcomers need to know the place isn't just a monetary free-for-all as long as you post something kind-of-interesting. Discord integration could also prove useful if done correctly.
I'll ramble if I don't cut my train of thought, but your post has been a concern of mine ever since I joined Steemit, so there was a lot on my mind. I hope it wasn't too much.
Wait a second.... are you writing a Choose Your Own Adventure on Steem? That's incredible! I'm so massively impressed!
To be perfect honest, Discord is the real gem I've gotten out of the Steem Blockchain. The good friends I've made here have been solidified and the friendships expanded on Discord... which is great, I didn't know about it before, but it's also a little sad that Steem almost perfectly acts as a gateway to a greater community tool than being that community tool.
I honestly have no problem with people posting simple Facebook-esque memes or pics... if people want to do that, and other people want to consume it, that's totally fine... in fact I do think that all levels and types of content should be available - all types of content can be consumed here.
However, like Facebook, if someone just kept posting in a group but didn't engage much with the others in the group, the group probably isn't going to let them stay for very long... and I think the same thing will happen here.
And you're absolutely right... people join traditional social media to see or be seen, people blog because they have something to say, but people are mostly here for profit, and I sincerely hope people can change that viewpoint from short-term profit to long-term community building before their gravy train dries up.
I'm so super impressed with your posts, especially with all the formatting. It makes your fiction so much easier to read and not get lost in a wall of text. It's brilliant!
Thank you so much for finding my post, it seriously makes it all worth it...!
You're very welcome... though, perhaps it's not remotely a coincidence to admit that I found your post through @curie's SteemLookup. I hope the filter gets integrated into a more comprehensive backend in the near future since the vast amount of content already needs it. I honestly can't find anything (outside of post-promotions in Discord servers) without it.
There's so much hat-tipping to everyone at @curie for their hard work and dedication. It's hard to tell what they're not doing these days to improve the platform.
Ahhhhh, I forgot about SteemLookup. Did you find me through a wordcount search? I remember loving it but still finding it slightly hit and miss.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like @curie is the only thing holding Steem together... I can't think of any other organization that has helped so many people... I know I was on the verge of leaving because I just felt completely ignored, when I suddenly got the Curie-tick and it introduced me to a whole new world.
Have you seen this? I haven't looked at it myself yet... but I'm very, very excited.
Did you delete a reply you wrote yesterday about the new front-end? I can't find it anywhere...
Yeah, I wrote it wonky, so decided to just delete it instead of edit it. The short and sweet was that I've been using Steempeak for a couple weeks now, and really (really) like it. Also, my set-up on the Lookup is calibrated for finding newbies, but I have to filter out a lot of tags first. x_x