What value are we adding?
I was thinking about my Steem birthday late next month, and what I would write about my first year on Steem... obviously it lead me to some hardcore reminiscing about the good old days...
WHAT? ARE YOU A HUNDRED? WHO HAS TIME FOR THINKING?!?
Rude.... before I talk about that, I kind of wanted to go over what I see at the moment. The Steem blockchain seems to have a renewed energy about it after the two hardforks. Even without DLive everyone is creating greatness on the daily.
Source
I can see why, with whales like @kpine, lots of people are collecting between $15-$60 per post... and given that @kpine hasn't made any comments in 8 months, I'd guess that he found the people who were getting regular Dtube/DLive upvotes and set/forget everyone to autovote.
Psst, he's still rocking in at 29 minutes - if you want to up your curation game and get in before...shhhhh.
The comparison that I wanted to make, between now and the olden days, is that when I started, people seemed to be working on their fanbase and making friends... conversations were flowing and I got a trillion dollars more in upvoted comments than I ever could with posts.
Now it looks like content is king, and comments are a chore... we're not building a community or a new friendship group as much as padding out platforms.
To what end though? Does anyone benefit from the huge amount of content created here?
Steemit's Alexa/Google ranking has been slowly slipping backwards, so the information we're all pumping onto the internet isn't necessarily helping people.
Source
Every time I've been on Facebook or Instagram I've rolled my eyes at the huge amount of content everyone is giving to Facey... but I forget that everyone gets something out of that exchange. They feel heard... heard by their friends and family, and heard by strangers... the posts and comments they make, feel like they matter.
People say that Steem has a terrible retention rate because newbies don't make the money they were promised and leave, but I personally think it's because they saw us all shouting into the wind, and felt ignored.
At this point, I'd definitely like to shout out to the work that @abh12345 is doing, and the community he's created with his Engagement League. The work he has done is amazing, and if whales did actually want to protect their investment long-term, then he'd be the one they're supporting.
This all brings me to the realization that like with traditional social media.. we are the product.
YOU'RE SO WRONG! WE CAME HERE TO GET AWAY FROM THAT MALARKY!
If we're not the product... then who is paying for the content we create?
Our upvotes mostly stem from delegations from Steemit Inc or investors hoping to profit off delegations from Steemit Inc... Once SMTs are in, and businesses arrive, we are the resources that will create their content, we are the eyeballs their investment will chase.
I'd argue what while the @kpine's and @dtube's have changed the lives of the creators they support, they've also changed the focus of those creators from 'Content for Engagement' to just 'Continual Content Creation'.
My guess is that once SMTs do come in, our feeds will be more hunts and less vlogs, more business-y content and less games/photos/opinions... if you want Steem to remain social and fun, then you really should be spending half or more of your Steem-time on your community.
Source The real value of Steem?
We all know that the whales that are currently maximising their curation to vote regular dtube/utopian contributors will move their votes quick sticks to a Nike or Coca Cola... and we'll be left to either create ads for Green Protein Tea, or we'll be insulated by the friends and community we've created for ourselves now.
It's crazy to me to see so many posts with 60ish comments that are still upvoted to less than a dollar, while other posts making 30 times that are barely read or viewed... luckily I do think these community builders are the people who'll do really well in the future because of the fun/conversations they foster, even if that community is kinda new and SP-poor at the moment.
TL DR; Worky change is coming... make friends now!
P.S) I am aware of the irony that the creators I'm trying to warn will never see this post because they're too busy creating.
P.P.S) I'd absolutely love it if you could see your way into throwing Asher's Engagement League post an upvote. It's very possible he's doing the most important work on the blockchain.
The lack of interaction is definitely a pain point for some. Quality interaction that is!
Honestly, I wish all Steemians took a leaf out of yours (and @taskmaster4450's) book and upvoted/replied to each/most of their commenters.... even though I'm sure the people commenting aren't the ones with the sizeable upvotes. If you aren't having fun with your audience, what's the point?
Otherwise you're just submitting homework for robots to not read.
I still find myself chuckling at some of the comedy gold you pulled out in the comments months ago.
I think it is only common courtesy!
Hehe, I am laughing at robots not to read!
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!
This advertisement or service looks useful...
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
Very well spoken! Enagement should be the backbone of the whole game here. I'm not sure where we lost the plot. Of course we all need to have top level posts of our own. But the true community is in the comments.
I think people are massively undervaluing comments, and responding to comments, and UPVOTING comments. Just look at it from a pure greed perspective. If you vote on a comment, and are the only one to do so, then the entire curation payout of that comment comes back to you. That's a win right there isn't it?
I've been a slacker at keeping up engagement in my posts, but I hope to get back to it one of these days.
Your point in the comment about Facebook is really on point as well. We've (Steemians as a whole) stopped caring about each other, aside from the value of the upvote you wield. If we don't care, we don't engage. Then this just becomes another blogging site with little else to recommend it.
Keep on being thoughtful! Maybe the rest of us will catch back up. Hahaha
Thank you Mike! You know that when I do write about my first year in Steem you'll have a very prominent and important place in the timeline!
I remember getting like $3, $4 and $8 upvotes on comments on other people's pages... and it wasn't always the original poster that was upvoting. It was almost random, and super exciting... I really felt like I was contributing to a deeper conversation.
I feel like maybe services like Smartsteem and MinnowBooster changed people's minds from rewarding content they enjoyed to more of ROI focus... or maybe with the downturn with the crypto-market people decided to Steemauto votes to people they knew were getting strong upvotes. I'm not really sure. I just know that every day brought the promise of super interesting and thought provoking discussions.
I know it's been super rough for you with the new(ish) job and surgeries and stuff, but I'm sure you'll get back into the swing of things.
I completely agree with you about the curation benefits of upvoting comments. I really wish I could work out the math of upvoting a comment versus upvoting a poster that always gets a @kpine vote.
It makes sense that Steemians stopped caring about each other... once people get sizeable auto-upvotes, it becomes more about the churn than the engagement, which means the quality drops dramatically, and it's hard to care about people when you know their heart isn't in it.
We need more heart!!!
Thanks so much for reading this post dude! So excited to see your comment!
I don't really have anything to add to this, so I'm just going to write, I don't have DOMS today. Amazing!
Ah, young lady... that is unbelievable! You can't hit PBs and strut around without consequence! That's not how it works!!!
I'm so impressed with your conditioning! And jealous! Mostly impressed though...
Facebook and Steemit are soooo different that I don't think you will ever get the same kind of interaction to be honest. Steemit was modeled after Reddit, so you can kind of expect the same level of personal interaction.
Now, Discord is a game changer, as it is more like the olden days of AIM, where you can private chat and that's super fun. I eventually left the main chats though because I had people PMing me and spreading gossip, and I was just done with it all. In that way, I have dropped out of the social circles in a big way. I have met one of my best friends on here though, and I talk to her nearly every night.
I have never felt welcomed or comfortable posting personal stuff on here, not statuses or pictures, I feel like people don't like that, and tbh that was the point of Steemit...to have quality blogs and now with Dtube, vlogs.
If we ever want to take it up a notch, we have to get more relaxed and used to people not dumping hours into their work.
Remember in the beginning our awesome little group that has all but disappeared? Everyone was SO focused on quality posts. "quality this", "quality that" and I bought into it too and spent SOOOOO much time on blogs and videos, and then I was frustrated if they didn't do well, primarily because that isn't what I wanted to be putting out there on this new social media. I was hoping it would be more like FB, but then ran into the "shitpost" brigade and felt like if I posted a meme and got more than a dollar for it, that I would have people breathing down my neck about it. This has not always been a terribly welcoming atmosphere for just normal content.
I think this could also be the answer to why so many people just produce.
I may eventually get back into being more social on here, but so many people have been so catty, (with the money being such a huge part of Steemit) that I haven't felt very "friendly" if you know what I mean.
Just my two cents!! :)
Hello hello! Thank you young lady! So lovely to hear from you.
I totally hear you.. and I do sincerely hope that with RCs, the days of people just spamming stolen images (remember 'a canon camera', haha) and conversely, I hope that Steem is distributed enough that people don't feel comfortable upvoting themselves hundreds of dollars for a photo anymore. Unfortunately those same people probably just sell their SP to Smartsteem and MinnowBooster.
I was never super active on Reddit, but I do think there is a difference between Reddit's category focus and Steem's person focus. I don't think I made any real connections with anyone on Reddit, even though I'm occasionally hilarious... where I've met all sorts of amazing Beth's here.
I hope someone does make a Facebook styled front end for Steem, where people can post more casual, pithy and personal posts and not feel judged by it... cos at the moment it feels like we're 99% creators 1% consumers.
I will never forget our amazing little starter group.... and I'm super excited you've made a for realsies BFF, that is amazing great! Thanks for your 2 cents... I super mega appreciate it!
It's fair to say though that commenting and communicating and chatting with people is significantly harder than just making something and hitting post (especially if you're an individual that has a backlog of blog/art/video/whatever kind of content).
You have to read through what someone else has said, think about it, formulate some thoughts, and then try to engage -- not to mention follow up comments and stuff like that.
tl;dr --> Commenting is hard.
Dude! Despite it being a mammoth-freakin' effort, you have totally smashed it today! You're a Comment-Champ!!!
Sooooooo, my partner will come home from work, have dinner, watch TV while simultaneously browsing social media on her phone. I think she does it for a couple of hours, and then goes to bed, browses for a bit longer and then reads. Sometimes she's researching something or playing Candy Crush, but mostly she's looking at and commenting on her friends and family's posts/photos.
Why does she do that there, and not here... because she cares about those people...
… so basically no one is going to care about Steem-people unless we chat, interact and make them care... which is something you've very good at.
I am noticing that I'm caring less and less about people who ignore their commenters, I guess it's just human nature really... we can't care about people who don't care about us.
Well I think you give me entirely too much credit -- but thanks. I've definitely felt myself commenting less and less, other than the core group of @RunBurgundy testers that I've been interacting with (also -- there's just kind of a lot of crypto & chart talk on here that I find kinda dull).
@caitycat is similar to how your partner interacts with instagram and FB -- much more compelled to use both of those over steem applications (though, I'm starting to break her down and get her to use SteepShot). Maybe specificially in her case, she's having a tougher time connecting with the arts communities on Steem (steem does certainly have a bit of a crypto / boys club vibe to it currently) compared to the interaction she gets on IG.
I feel the same way, and I'm starting to consider a policy of not voting on posts unless there is a certain level of engagement in the comments -- or if there's evidence that the author is active in curating and interacting.
There's a few accounts on here that I've noticed are BRUTAL for just posting their Youtube videos, voting themselves, and not supporting any real community -- and I have no desire to support those people.
I don't think I had really formalized it... but I think I'm heading in the same direction policy-wise. If you're just adding content to grab autovotes, you probs don't need me. While I don't have any massive clout to really encourage that type of behavior, I can support the people that care with my time.
I think once the Cat has a bit more clout herself, she can start to encourage other artists to jump on the Steepshot train and help support them up, and create her own little community. That's pretty much my long-term plan. Unfortunately a lot of the artists on this platform are classic post-and-run types.... but I'm sure they'll figure it out.
I really appreciate your work on Exhaust, I really do think that maybe the secret to superfun-Steem-times is interest-specific frontends. Hopefully we get to a point where we're not even logging into Steemit, etc.
I try not to add value to anything because I hate buzzwords which is starting to mean I'm hating on half my existing vocabulary because everything is becoming buzzy XD
I knew I was doing something wrong!
LoL XD I better up my content creation game and stop with the incessant
spammingcommenting XDseriously I probably do need to spend more time making stuff but there's so much stuff that I apparently should be spending a lot of time on aaahhhh send help
but I also have to venture a bit further off my feed and there's soooooo muuuuuuuuuuuch
On the posts with heaps of comments only getting upvoted to less than a dollar well the communities/friend groups that sprout up around those will eventually get big enough for those posts to earn a couple of dollars and it can only go up from there right :D
Hahahaha, I've clearly spent too long in Corporate America! Okay, I'd like to retract my title and call this post "What Ryivhnn are we adding?" - because, quite frankly, this platform would be so amazing if either all Steemians were more like you, or we had another 100K Ryis here. There are so many people just creating content, collecting their whale votes and not replying to their own comments, commenting on any other work or even really voting out themselves... it's all take and no give... and you are by far the most opposite to that.
Whoa! You absolutely crush me!
I think you're exactly right about the friends and communities going up, and I think that was the crux of my point... people shouldn't just rely on these random whales that are just trying to get in before Dtube votes... cos all that could disappear in an instant.
LoL we're pretty close in the grand scheme! XD I mean does it take into consideration how long we've been on respectively? And I know a spider who not only posts daily or near enough to but has also made over 9k comments XD I don't know how they're doing it lol.
Thanks everyone! I can't tell you how excited I am that my comments section is so hugely longer than my post... you're all the best!
Hahaha
That basically sums up my approach to steemit. I'll be honest; I came here for the money. And for me, the best way to make the money is to apply for and win contests, get autovoters and qualify for the monthly curie upvote.
And yes, I find commenting to be a chore. Between trying to complete my long overdue degree program, reading award winning novels to improve my writing skills, hanging out with friends in real life, eating playing blah blah blah, commenting seems to be hard work.
I came here because you replied my comment and I decided to check your blog out. If you notice, I keep a carefully pruned list of people I follow.
I'm not much if a social person anyway - I haven't logged into any social media site for a long time. So I guess it's just my personality in real life playing out on social media
I'm not be defensive. I'm just saying it the way it is. Even on facebook, there are accounts that rarely reply to comments. It's the commentators that provide the interaction for themselves
But then, I agree with you. If steemit is going to make it big, more premium should be based on building relationships and not just quality content that nobody reads (except for fans, contest hosts and curie curators)
The thing is... when I first started, commenting was way more fun than posting. I literally made more from upvotes than I did posts, much more... and that environment fostered all sorts of amazing conversations. Most of my posts were getting less than a dollar, but I remember one of my comments getting $8 just because a passing whale liked what I said. It was really exciting and conversation and relationship building was the way.
I think though, that once people could lease out their SP, that all dried up... and so whales who want to earn curation at all, just do so automatically be picking people that get regular other upvotes. I think most whales just lease their SP out to bidbots though.
I'm personally here for the community. I'm not super social, but I work from home and so Steem is my socializing of choice. I don't need to make a living here at all, which I think takes a lot of the pressure off... but I'm motivated enough to try and earn a bit so that if this whole thing takes off I'll have choices.
You're totally right about Facebook... but I think those people once did put in the effort to first get all those fans/followers, and dropped off once it became self-sustaining. The content creators I'm talking about aren't doing that... they're just posting for auto whale-votes and running.
Amen!
Such a well thought out post @aussieninja. You really bring a clear headed perspective and if anyone could rule the Steemisphere because of the quality comments they leave - it would be you! I don't think i've met anyone else on Steem that leaves as many thoughtful, engaging and fun comments!
The one thing I would say is that I regularly see @kpine manually curating quality content. People that he's never voted before - but are promising or have a really awesome pieces of content, or are doing something meaningful to grow the Steem community. It's been really cool to see him get behind some awesome new users like @lifesacircus. :)
Thank you young lady! After I wrote this piece I did notice he'd voted the @steemsistershow within 6 days or so of that account being created, so I've realised since that he must have his eye on the ball even if he's not writing comments. So yes, I totally 100% agree with you there. I definitely believe he's single-handed changed the lives of more than a few people on here... but I'm still nervous for those who might be relying solely on him.
I was hoping you'd see this article, because you are the perfect case study of a content creator who is actively engaging in their community. I'm fairly sure you'd still get some sizeable upvotes regardless of whether you read out listener questions or not, and I'm more sure that the winners of your contests and SBD question giveaways aren't the same people with huge SP stake, but you do it anyway, and it's amazing that you do, because you see the value in creating that community around you and you have a true audience.... the sheer volume of responses to your quiz was amazing, amazing proof of that.
So if SMTs change the landscape of Steem, and whales move their activities to support enterprises instead, I'm so super confident you'll still have an incredible community that you've built because of your interactions... whereas other content creators that are really just producing for 1 or 2 particular votes might struggle.
Thanks so much for your comment! It means the worrrrrrrlllldddddd!