The Freelancer’s Conundrum (And Why Steemit Fails to Solve It)

             

Last year, I quit my job to focus on freelancing. Somehow, having an article go viral, becoming an unpaid contributor for an online publication, and getting a small handful of paying clients as a result convinced me it would be a good idea. The notion of becoming a digital nomad enticed me. Being able to work at my own pace while having the time to travel the world was certainly an attractive prospect. Yet, after a few months I ran back to a full-time desk job. The gigs were few and far between, and the pay per piece wasn’t great. Soon, I was back to looking for a conventional job, so when I got an interesting offer in a field I’m passionate about, I jumped on the opportunity, no questions asked. However, saving for graduate school means it does not hurt to have some extra income on the side.It is tough finding good freelance writing gigs. 

Originally, I was finding clients through LinkedIn and charging through PayPal. Usually, they would find me first. The work involved copywritng for a couple companies and NGOs, and I enjoyed it. The pay per article was decent, but the rate of work was slow. Then, the clients started drying out. One of my clients even phoned me to tell me he would be cutting my pay because they could get the copy done for less in “the platforms”. Then, after I expressed skepticism, the client simply vanished.So, if clients were flocking to these new freelancing platforms, I figured I could try it even if the pay per gig was less than what I used to charge. 

The problem is,these platforms , that like most places in the gig economy, are designed to pay you as little as possible while the owner of the service makes large profit margins. Competition is fierce and it is not uncommon for jobs to be given to the lowest bidder. This often means that for the kind of work one would typically charge 50–100 dollars for ends up going for fifteen. And then, a very large service fee or commission is typically taken from the user. Add to that the taxes that you have to pay, and the user is left with very little. Not to mention, there is a limit to how many jobs you can apply to, since applying requires connects, a limited virtual asset which easily runs out. These systems tend to be unnecessarily convoluted. They involve constant timesheets, milestones and tedious verification mechanisms instead of direct engagement with the client, and payments get held up constantly because of these systems’ algorithms and policies. 

Thus, the freelancer is left with two choices if they want to publish content they are passionate about or be paid in fairer terms. The first involves sending articles to large, traditional media outlets. This option often has very high barriers to entry. Only a handful of outlets allow you to pitch for them without knowing someone on the inside, and even the ones that do receive pitches get such a high volume that it makes it near impossible for you to get noticed. Then once you do get noticed, an endless back-and-forth ensues before your piece even reaches the publishing stage, and only then can you earn money for it. Repeat the process ad nauseum and you get a situation where it becomes hard to live off this.

The second is through the use of self-publication platforms. The most popular of these is Medium, which offers a Partners Program where creators can earn from their work, much like Youtubers, for instance. However, it must be noted that Medium’s program is restrictive. As it stands, it is invitation only, for a select cadre of writers whose work has been deemed of sufficient quality and has reached a certain threshold of claps, shares, views, and comments. And this is somewhat understandable, since Medium seeks a high standard of curated writing. But it also favors big names or established publications and organizations, as well as the lucky few who have had pieces go viral. However, there is a second issue with the program. It de facto discriminates by nationality. Instead of using a widely accepted payment system such as PayPal, Medium uses a system called Stripe. This system is only currently available for people in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. This means that creators in the Global South are automatically barred from joining the Partners Program, even if they qualify.

Thus, there would be a need in the market for a platform that allows creators to earn for their work without too many barriers to entry, and where any writer can earn based on the quality of their work. Enter Steemit. While not wildly known, Steemit is a written content generation platform powered by Blockchain technology and run on Cryptocurrency. The Cryptocurrency in question, the Steem, is essentially generated through upvotes on articles and comments, meaning that the user can earn from how much interest their texts and comments get, as well as through “curation rewards”, or upvoting interesting posts.Now, in theory, the idea is brilliant. In practice, not so much. Instead of being a platform for quality user-generated writing and journalism that lets freelancers shine and live off their work, Steemit has become just another place where the algorithms are stacked against the user. 

Firstly, joining Steemit is difficult. Unless you are willing to pay, you have to join a waiting list, which takes at least two weeks to join. This means that if your work has a built in following through social media, you will not be able to have that following, or even family and friends join, and Steemit is so niche at the moment that there is barely any incentive for one’s readers to even join the site. Thus, you will not be getting as many upvotes as you would in a place like Medium.

The second issue is something called Steem Power. This is one of the tokens their blockchain contains. Everything is based on how much Steem power the user owns, including the visibility of your texts, and the value of your upvotes. This means that the amount you will earn per upvote depends on the “rank” of the user. So instead of earning one Steem per upvote as would make sense, you end up earning very little. So, articles with over 30 upvotes sometimes do not have 30 steem, but around .5 steem instead, because they were upvoted by the “wrong” people. Now, Steem Power can be obtained, precariously, through posting and upvoting, or it can be purchased, so the people who earn more are the people who put as much money as possible into the platform. Not to mention, a piece can only earn currency for upvotes within seven days of its publication.

Given the little incentive there is, it is not uncommon for users to “cheat”. They start to favor quantity over quality, posting as much as they can even if the content is usually poor. They create bots and duplicate accounts just so they can upvote their own posts. There are entire Facebook groups devoted to reciprocal “upvote trading” where one can trade upvotes with other users to earn a tiny bit of money. Scams and contests promising extra currency are rampant in the platform. This has all led to a situation where Steem’s promise is unfulfilled. Just one look at the front page tells you all you need to know about the kind of things that get upvoted: pieces written by bots, conspiracy theories, pictures of cats, and unfunny memes.

Steemit could easily be a hub for quality writing and a space that could essentially save and democratise quality journalism. Instead it is a cesspool that fails to live up to its enormous potential. Therefore, at the moment, the freelancer’s conundrum remains unsolved, and creators remain in a state of precariousness. This needs to change through the creation of platforms that put the creator front and center while prizing quality writing.