Well said. And agreed.
I'l add two more points, both of these from a more distant perspective.
(7.) Every rewards-for-content site over the past 20 years (almost ALL of which have failed) have had the central flaw that the founders/creators grossly underestimated the level of greed and selfishness inherent within human nature... as soon as there is money/rewards on the table.
(8.) For all those who whine about rewards and get into rhetorical battles over the issue that they are "depending" on Steemit for money... a REMINDER that you are not an employee of Steemit, Steemit never hired you to do anything with any promise of payment whatsoever, and the rewards you do (or do not) earn here represent nothing more than a potential opportunity to be rewarded. If you even make 50 cents here, you're better off than you would be, posting on Facebook.
"But what about investors?"
"Investing" typically means you buy and hold an asset on the assumption it will increase in value. That means, you buy Steem at $0.92 with the hope that it will become worth $10.00. Getting "paid to post" is not investing, it is a possible fringe benefit.
Which brings us full circle back to your post. To increase the value of your INVESTMENT-- whether you hold 1000SP or 1,000,000SP you're counting on the infrastructure that holds your investment to be attractive to other investors... which will drive the price up.
Now, for reality and economics 101: A thriving social community people love to interact on, and want to be part of, is probably going to look more attractive to the next 7th, 118th or Nth next investor than a cesspool of automation, bots, spam and system abuse. Which do YOU want to be part of, if you weren't already a member.
What's the challenge here? Ultimately (just my opinion) this boils down to short term thinking vs. long term thinking. If your entire focus boils down to being worried about making money for tomorrow's pizza... then you're not going to act from a perspective of securing the site's long term stability. And that's what all those purchased votes are about... wanting a shortcut to "make money now" rather than putting in the work and slowly building a social following.
Most will not BE successful. Period. Please go back and read (8.), above. This is a social site, not your freakin' job!
Anyway, great post-- couldn't have said it much better!
@denmarkguy you are right.....but...
A small fact is that Steem Inc and two of the biggest Steemit YouTube videos Do Promote the platform as a cash cow.
Are the First introductions into Steemit. It is no wonder people comes with $$$ in their eyes. That's what sold most of them.
We werent told how much we can expect to make....but I was looking at a couple of $150 posts and thinking..."I can do that or better" when I first got started after seeing the YouTube hype videos.
So...it is just an adjustment for people that it isnt a cash cow and don't expect much in terms of financial payout.
So I try not to be too hard on newbies who come here with the wrong info/marketing.
making money is literally the only thing that distinguishes steemit.com from any other social media site
Absolutely valid points.
I somewhat "reluctantly" signed up here in January because I was looking for a new place to park my web content and wanted to get back to social blogging... and the rewards idea sounded appealing.
If you analyze that sentence carefully... my motivation was "content creation," and rewards were merely a potential consequence.
The reason I said "reluctantly" was that I started looking around to see what others were saying about Steemit... and came across various versions of Jeff Berwick's "$40,000 post" promotions... which immediately made me think... "This place is SO doomed!"
It's simple marketing 101: If you pitch a place like this on the "free money" you attract a swarm of people looking for free money, if you pitch it as a "content platform" you get content creators.
They basically "blew it" because they were afraid people wouldn't show up unless they were promised "free money." It's a basic beginner's mistake: Thinking you have to give away the store for free. It "works" (in terms of drawing people) but it's the wrong crowd.
What can we do now? Reward those who authentically try-- ignore/flag those who game the system.
You may be right; however making money on posts and for voting is a unique selling point, so why would you try and hide that fact?
If you marketed Steemit as just another content creation platform, first of all you'd be doing it a huge disservice by not mentioning what makes it different from the plethora of content creation platforms out there.
Secondly I feel the response would have been'meh'.
I do get what you're saying though, expectations should perhaps be balanced, but at the same time nobody ever got excited over $0.10 :-)
Cg
I wouldn't advocate hiding the rewards... it's more of a case of "what's your lead argument" when you market?
If your argument is "Make money on Steemit!" and you publicize Jeff Berwick's famous $40,000 you'll get a whole different set of people than if you say "Steemit is a censorship resistant social content platform, and we reward quality content!"
When I joined I was excited about the idea of a social content site with rewards... but to be honest, when I started reading external content about Steemit, it sounded a bit scammy. And I experienced the same feedback when I aired the idea to fellow bloggers and content creators. BUT... I am a "content creator" (who happens to like being rewarded for content) not an "investor" or "income opportunity seeker."
Agreed. And I would really expect no more. The challenge of the moment seems to be a lack of balance as the "clicking buttons for pennies" brigade is starting to drown out real human interaction and engagement... which is a concern (in the longer term), because communities are built by PEOPLE, not by code, bots and automation.
One of the factors @penguinpablo tracks in his daily stats is "comments per post" and that number has been declining for months. And if we keep in mind that upvote services auto-post thousands of time, that means the "human interaction" aspect is really tanking... and I see that as problematic, maybe not "now," but definitely in the longer term.
You are spot on!
"What can we do now? Reward those who authentically try-- ignore/flag those who game the system."
And at the moment we arent doing a great job at either. In part because so much SP is tied up in 'votes for hire' systems.
I do hope the big players will reassess their positions with a better strategy in mind.
Plz upvote me
Wow that is great. Superb work. I read some jerrybanfield post. His work ia also good. I think ypu joined steemit from 2-3 years ago. Well done
Plz upvote me
Wow. Nice comment. You have great knoledge which is seen from your comment.
Plz upvote me