@whatsup -

This post has been sitting open on my desk top for a couple of days and I've only just got to it now. I really like the positive tone. I admit to having been one of the nay-sayers when I first started reading posts about HF21, and, I admit, specifically in relation to the creator/curator split. Like everyone who has a vested interest in Steem appreciating in vlaue, I was feeling hard done by. I get the difference between those of us (as in @ats-david suggests in his post), who haven't used fiat to buy Steem, and those of us who have used the platform to generate (a bit of a head of) Steem. My reaction was that we have created and thus invested our time and contributed in a different way to the develoment of the platform. The time spent on creating posts (people's opinion of the quality aside - that is another matter), is nowhere near what I could charge in my day job (and no, it's not what you think! lol). I was beginning to question what the hell I was doing.

I will also nail my colours to the mast: I prefer the creative process to curation. I would love to be doing more of the latter, but I have a day job that pays the bills...

Which brings me to my next point: I have not powered down - ever. After HF20, and I was paralysed, I received a small delegation (now returned) and I have given two small delegations - in the spirit of both pay-back and paying it forward; I have used some Steem/SBD to buy SBI and to host my website so that I can use @steempress (I'll come back to this). In the grand scheme of things, though, that's negligible. As is the tiny head of Steem I've managed to build so far. So again, the question arises: what the hell am I doing?

It comes back to what is, for many, almost a mantra:

I came to Steemit for the money and stayed for the community

Which for someone who is not a herd animal, is quite something and thanks in no small part to the big-hearted small community lead by @jaynie and @zord189, @steemitbloggers aka #poiwerhousecreatives and its members.

So, back to my question self-examination: It was @ats-david's provocatively titled post, Oh, No! Hard Fork 21 Will Kill Us All! that nurtured a niggling feeling that whatever happened with HF21, I'd hang around (as I think it did for @nickyhavey?). The reasons have as much to do with community as with having found two dapps that work really well for my purposes - both on Steemit and "there". Using @share2steem and @steempress allows me to reach not just a bigger audience, but different audiences, including some that would do not have the remotest interest in Steemit or crypto currencies.

So, as a person for whom investing in Steem is unaffordable (even when it was at its lowest), I am going to hang around. I'm beginning to warm to the new Steem especially if it deals with some of the nasty, bullying and bot behaviour that has made some Steemians lives miserable.

Thanks to you and @ats-david for a different and more positive perspective.

Fiona
(aka one of the little guys