Can Communities Bring the Much Needed Addiction to Steemit?
Like the alcohol industry, the social media industry is driven by addictions. From Facebook to Twitter, from Instagram to WhatsApp, we have continued to see, and with less doubts, that the success of social media sites are mostly fuelled by the addiction of users.
According to a report released by Zephora.com, about 1.62 billion people visit Facebook daily. Similarly, another report affirms that over 500 million people visit Instagram per day.
The big question then becomes why the masses keep trooping to the website of Facebook and Instagram to post and read contents without getting paid. Psychology perhaps provides a simple answer to this important question - addiction.
A recent statistics claims that over 200 million people are suffering from social media addiction across the globe. These addicts spend over 2 hours daily using the social media. This amounts to more than fours years in a lifetime.
While addictions are generally bad, successful social media companies cannot ignore the power of addictions in the propagation of their gospel. In fact, like the Tobacco company builds its business around addicts, so do modern day social media sites build their businesses around addictions.
This is why I strongly believe that for Steemit to thrive as a truly decentralized social media, there is a need for developers to build codes that will make Steemit more addictive. Although Steemit was very addictive during the last bull market, thousands have since lost interest in the site following the dawn of the bear market.
Ironically, the same set of people who are leaving Steemit because the rewards are 'low' would not mind posting free contents to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. This goes to show that the bear market may not even be the real reason why many have gone underground. The real reason could be because there is hardly any part of the Steemit website that is addictive. Many of us have been consistent here not because we are addicted to Steem but because we know the opportunities embedded in Steem.
Consequently, I believe that the official launch of Communities, which is now in the beta phase, will help to introduce a viable addiction to Steemit. I hold this view because communities will help to integrate the hitherto isolated people on the Steem blockchain, aggregate captivating contents, attract popular content creators outside of Steemit, and help solve the bear market renunciation.
In conclusion, I see Communities helping a lot to make Steemit more interesting (addictive) for both the authors and the curators. Only then can Steemit kick start its battle to disrupt the traditional social media industry.
I feel like treating social media "addiction" as the problem instead of as the symptom is a backwards attitude. As a recovering opiate addict I can tell you that detoxing from opiates doesn't "cure" your addiction. Addiction is tightly woven in between many other coexisting problems including mental health, physical health, abuse, neglect etc. etc. I think one of the main problems with Dapps is that they're centered around cryptocurrency and blockchain rather than the main purpose of the application. This attracts bad actors and incentivizes people to gamify the system for profit rather than generate content for the site. Social currency is far more attractive and is endlessly abundant which is why sites like 4chan and Reddit have been so successful. If the community doesn't start focusing on creating applications that utilize blockchain instead of creating blockchains that happen to be associated with apps we'll never see wide adoption from the public.
Decentralized social networks like the steem blockchain are driven by the payout people make.
Dear @gandhibaba
Another great read buddy. I myself wonder from time to time, if HIVES on steemit will indeed help much with content discovery.
In current beta stage I don't see it happening - however I'm still hoping that Stinc will come with something more useful.
Perhaps steemit proved, that people cannot be paid simply for posting or reading content. Especially if there is no ads, which would fuel entire machine.
I also agree with you that "there is a need for developers to build codes that will make Steemit more addictive".
At the moment Steem need to deliver smts and hives - otherwise without having anything new to offer - we would never go back "times of glory".
Upvote on the way :)
Yours, Piotr