The Steemit Dream, is it still alive?
The Steemit Dream, is it still alive?
For the last four months I've been on a quest of pursuing The Steemit Dream, interacting with whales, dolphins, and minnows, posting, commenting, resteeming and curating and after all this time and effort invested in this platform here's what my endless research illustrates.
Steemit is a crazy place; lately, people raping the reward pool with hundreds of self-votes on spammy comments every day, the hidden conflict between whales, the constant flagging war and the upvotes being cast only between exclusive "groups" of people that know each other. Nothing attracts the eye of a writer more than rape. It’s the kind of rape I want to write about.
Disclaimer: What I'm saying in this post may be right, or it may be just my hallucinations from too much tea but to know the real truth you will have to research everything on your own.
Can you still make money? Can you still become a whale?
When you get on Steemit, after a week of waiting for approval, your hopes are enormous; you think that you are going to be the next big shot, the next prominent writer, photographer, whale. After you start to dive deep after you get sucked in that dream, you realize that it will never happen, you know that it’s not as simple as you thought.
I think that for most of the people Steemit will remain just a dream, a fantasy.
Can you just write good shit and make big money all the time? It’s a cynical way of looking at things, but my opinion is that you can’t. I'm not saying this just like that; my experiences back it. As part of @OCD, my colleagues and I have to search for great undervalued posts, and I can tell you that there are a lot of 4-5-month-old accounts that post consistent great content and still make nothing.
If you’re still reading I don’t want to destroy your hopes but what they’ve been telling you is not true, and this is a great opportunity because now you have the freedom to focus on other things besides great content. You can get another strategy; you can make it this time.
How can you actually make it
I bet you heard a lot of the times, just write good content and make friends. Yeah, that’s a good strategy, but it matters what kind of friends. You can only know the right people, to be friends with the right people and make a shitload of constant money but what if you don’t have that kind of friends?
There’s still the option of being part of a big project, doing something radical. You have to do something great, to be part of something unusual. I have a few friends that are doing so, and they are making good for themselves.
When I joined I just wanted to make a constant $1 on my posts, without bots or whales and when that happened I realized how low I set my target. The next step is now a constant $20 on my posts, will that ever happen? Hopefully, yes but I guess that you can check my blog one year from now to see how I’m doing.
The hidden face of Steemit?
There’s more to Steemit than what you’ve been told. Under the “Everything’s great,” under the “Let’s help each other,” “Be nice to people” there is a dark side, a side not that many people are talking about. Everybody wants to make money on Steemit, including me, but there are a lot of people destroying the platform in this process, from shitty marketers trying to sell their useless programs and coins to plagiarists and spammers.
People, making hundreds from traveling posts where they stay in luxurious hotels and eat only at the best restaurants, and other people who make just a few dollars and they are living in hard conditions while traveling the world.
There's a war between the people that are behind the curtain, and propaganda is being created in the process where some whales kiss their asses for some delegation so, in the end, they can sell their upvotes, wars that drag everything down and make the situation tense.
This is the hard Truth of Steemit. The not so known by the usual Steemian face.
My final Thoughts
Steemit is still a great opportunity, but the dream itself is dying slowly, fading away as more people get in and try to abuse it.
In the end, I just want to say one more thing, Steemit is still new and no matter if it’s going to $10 or $0.10 in the future just the fact that it existed it opened the door to a whole new world. No matter if it’s going to be MySpace or Twitter, no matter if it’s going to succeed and grow up or fail and die miserably something else will come along the way, another Facebook.
All I gotta say is, I really want the slider... Definitely not going anywhere til I get one. I'm slowly showing good people to Steemit so hopefully I'm fighting our fate.
I love the slider, is truly useful. I wouldn't have one without the delegation from @Acidyo.
You'll love it, don't give up. ;)
Great thoughts. I'm sure this is a topic on all of our minds.
I think that the unreal expectations most of us had when we joined Steemit are a big part of the problem.
If we can get new users to come in free of those unreal expectations, then we'll be on the right track.
I'm committed and invested. This means that I'm determined, like many of us, to make Steemit the dream that we all wanted it to be.
Call me an optimist (everyone else does) but I think if we just keep at it, keep creating valuable content with the idea that it will succeed in the long run, the abusers of the system will simply get washed away.
For now, I'm making sure to comment on and curate only content with actual value. We call the shots. While it may be a long long time before I'm a whale, I have seen a great deal of success in just a couple months. And that's compared to doing the same thing for nothing on the classic social networks. Not too shabby.
Thanks for your post! Keep up the good work!
Yeah, the expectations are a big problem, especially that most of the people are sold on this dream from the beginning as I was too.
I'm committed too; I'll keep on posting no matter what because I really like to.
I can't complain that much, in comparison with other sites where I spent a lot of my time for nothing this is a lot more better.
Right on! Thanks for being here. Real voices are what's going to make this work.
I was lucky, the way I came in. I didn't join because someone convinced me I would make a bunch of money. I believed in the blockchain first; every word, picture and creation that I put into it, I'm considering an investment.
I have a full-time job as well, and if I was relying on Steem entirely for my income, I'm sure I would be more stressed about it.
When I started, I knew so little about the blockchain community and what it can do, but I was sure that it's going to be huge and I have to get in.
I was introduced to Steemit by Jeff Berwick, and I thought that I could actually make some money, but I realized that I need to put in a lot of work and to have patience because there's no overnight success.
I could consider Steemit as being my full-time job since I'm spending more than 40 hours here every week but calling it a job would be a disrespect, but I am a full-time Steemian, that, I think it sounds better. :)
Sorry for the delay in response but there were so many things going on in the last few hours.
Blockchain is the main reason why I'm still holding on to the system despite the fact no one is reading my contents. Take this from a noobie perspective who get disappointed by the short-time experience within the community.
For first worlders, steemit's value is community. Also, I'd like to see the rise of a third type of user: the reader/patron. Help your favourite creators by upvoting. Even better if you powerup a few STEEM. This usn't the same as a curator user because there is less time commitment but the reward mechanism (curation rewards, reputation, community feelgood) already exist on steem.
As far as I've seen, there are already a few people that are operating that way, and from my personal experience, I can say that they are vital to the community.
I'm a wannabe content creator - but actually a reader / investor in practise. Haha. It'll come.
That's a great point. I am first a content creator, so for me a challenge is setting aside the right amount of time for just reading posts, upvoting and commenting. I noticed right away, that's how you get to know people.
It would be a good idea to have an advertisement that was all about bringing in those reader/patrons. When I think of the potential rewards from just reading and commenting... $$
I bet the rise of that third type of user is coming soon. Thanks for commenting.
Steemvoter style autovoters are kinda like Patreon's pay per post option. Though a more Patreon like interface would help make that more obv.
Though - autovoters are a contentious issue.
Love this one my man, pressing it. And it's true, success on your own out here is wikkid hard. Why I decided to go the route I am and creating something different.
#thealliance.
I totally agree with you. Yes, #thealliance is pretty amazing, I should be more active there, lol :))
me either =P
Hey buddy!
Yes you should :)
May I know what you mean by that "The Alliance" thing you're talking about?
Look up @syndicates 😊
You paint a bleak picture, but it's not inaccurate. Steemit has become a creative desert, with copied quotes and one pic posts for the grains of sand. An intelligent, wel written post like yours is like an oasis. It tells me that there is hope yet--for Steemit and mankind. ;-)
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. :)
The problem is that most people don't want to put in the work. I'm trying to write 150-200 words in my photography post and is not always easy. :))
Do you think better UIs (or at least better tools for curators?) might help filter out the low effort posts?
Totally. Some filters would be really useful. You have to go through about 50 posts just to find a perfect one.
You do realise I'm digitally blond, right? No idea what a UI is... But more filtering options would be nice. A sort of advanced search option or something? I dreamt of that last night. Very sad when I woke up and realised it was a dream. ;-)
I should've written app or website instead of UI. UI is User Interface.
I should have figured that out. It's not so much that I'm dumb, but my smartness only extends to certain fields of science. :-D
There's too much to know to expect people can cover even a fraction of it. A great many smart people I know are smart in their fields and humble in other things. I'm a bumbling noob in my own ways too.
It is a great comfort to know this. ;-)
I am optimistic the Steem will survive I am not sure about the Steemit.
Best is to keep expectations low. But the problem is steemit quickly becomes addictive! The steemit dream may happen if honest curators are empowered (though delegation) instead of people clearly intent on abusing the power for self gains. Well, we'll see how we are doing one year from now :)
I try but it's pretty hard, it became addictive really quick for me.
Would love me some delegation, lol :)))
#projectgetdelegated
Your comment deserves my up-vote @jznsamuel. lul
Spammers and copy-pasters are ruining the noble goal of the system. Not to mention the battalion of bots inhabiting this community like a virus.
I'd like to help encourage those minnows who have been making dust but still keep posting quality content. You obv. come across more of them than I, so how could I help? TBH, while I think upvotes are good, comments are probably more valuable. Helping good content creators find and engage with a community probably helps more in tbe long run. I'm rambling.
Since OCD is doing great things but is uncovering more minnows than it can help, mwybe we can figure something out?
Sometimes comments are better than upvotes. If I'm making a lot on a post and I don't get comments, the money doesn't feel that good.
Yeah, communities are really useful.
If you want to help, we can chat on discord, maybe we can come up with something.
Feel free to send me a friend request there, GuyFawkes4-20#4502 or give me your discord adress and I'll send you one.
Catch you on Discord.
I know the feeling ! Also, what kind of tea have you been drinking lol ?
Haha, green tea. Try it, the inspiration will fly like crazy :D
got a nice big pack of Matcha Green Tea from Costco last week, love it
Sweet. It has a fancy name, lol, it should work like a charm :))
Green Tea is good for the health but nothing beats Nescafe classic in terms of keeping your imagination out of this world.
Guyfawkes4-20, do you have a first hand experience of the war behind the curtains or did you deduced it somehow?
Something like that but let's better say that "I know a guy". :)))
When big money is involved you can expect the unexpected.
Steemit is a game, just like life
Some people seem to be born knowing the rules of the game
Some people manage to learn the rules over a period of time
Some people go through life never even realizing that there are rules
It will always be so
Just my $0.02
Cheers, nice post
#thealliance
PS, the only rule I have worked out so far is that you can’t survive alone - kind of like The Walking Dead 😀
I love the game analogy. The only rule is that there are no rules, as long as you don't hurt other people by your actions.
Communities are my favorite part about Steemit.
“The only rule is that there are no rules, as long as you don't hurt other people by your actions.”
That’s a good rule to go by
I think that everyone needs to just take a bit of time when they arrive here - to observe and to work out how to succeed. It might be buying tons of Steem, or joining a community, or something else entirely - there are lots of ways to do it
But if someone churns out amazing content week on week, never gets noticed and just continues doing the same thing that doesn’t work, then that is, in my opinion and with all due respect, a bit stupid. They need to start learning and playing the game...
Agree re communities - they are the reason why I continue to power up
Agreed, everybody should take some time to see how the system works and to join some communities but to buy Steem is not a variant anymore. Just to have a $1 upvote worth of SP, it will require you a couple of thousands and to get a higher amount it will take you a lot more and who has 40-50k spare to invest?
If something doesn't work, change it. The best way. :D
You can't become a whale anymore really unless you put a lot of money in. I've been here for about 3-4 months now and did not put money in, yet I still have over 100SP right now, and I have been cashing out some SBD and SP in this past month or so because I wanted to buy some altcoins.
So all in all, I made about 150$ on this platform 'out of thin air'. While that's nowhere near to being a whale, I believe it is quite significant for something that I never invested any money in.
So does Steemit still work? Yes! You just have to be realistic and don't think you can just create $10K out of thin air unless this platform blows up big in the future. The big whale-level are probably out of reach if you join now, but you can still make money on this platform by working hard even if you started with nothing.
However, if you've already got a following on another platform and you can convince those to move here and upvote you, it's a whole different matter.
@pandorasbox I am just wondering how many days exactly does it take to have the crypto-money converted fully into $?
That depends on how you do it really.
First you have to send your STEEM or SBD to a cryptocurrency exchange like Bittrex.com, then you can sell it for Bitcoin. If you have the STEEM or SBD on your account on Steemit, this can be done in about 5 minutes or so.
Once you have it sold for Bitcoin you can do whatever with it.. Either keep it as Bitcoin, buy a different crypto, spend it on something, or sell it for cash.
I personally don't sell any crypto ever, but if I were to be so inclined I would find a website in my country that offers to buy/sell Bitcoin. Usually when you can buy Bitcoin from a site, they also allow you to sell Bitcoin. They take some fee, sure, but that's how you get it deposited on your bank. How long that takes is up to the individual companies, bank systems, etc. But it shouldn't take longer than a few days
Noted. By the way, can we not have full anonymity upon converting into $? I am wondering if that is a possibility.
Don't count on it, unless you somehow do it person-to-person (google 'localbitcoins', I think it offers this service).
But everything that makes it deposit on your bank account will forego any anonymity you had.
This whole blockchain and cryptocurrency thing I would not care listening to my college instructor if this was taught 10 years ago in school.
But now it's kind of we're obligated to study it outside the school. The irony of life.
It's not that hard really.. It is about as confusing as the internet was in the early days. Back then people were mighty confused when you talked about e-mail and servers and how it all works.
Once you've done it once, you will be able to do it pretty easily after.
Also, in the near future you don't have to cash out into fiat anymore. Just get a TenX credit card and deposit your crypto on there, and just do grocery shopping or whatever with it! No need to convert to dollars.
What is that TenX thing? I never heard of that before.
I know, it's pretty amazing to just make some money like that, without any investment but there are people that are doing a lot worse than both of us.
Sweet, I may start some trading but I'm still in the learning phase, I shall wait until STEEM raises in price so I can cash out some and invest them in other coins too.
If they don't fuck up, Steemit is going to get mass adoption in the future. We still got in at a good time since one year from now we will have a following so we will be able to make some decent money.