What's a Valuable Steem User ? And how to retain a valuable user base on Steem ?
Today, I read a post of @arcange who is turning SteemSQL from 'free' to 'with fee', well no-free anymore.
The post is talking about his project called SteemSQL. Few weeks ago, he was asking support for it to the community. And today, because of the lack of support he received he decided to create a monthly subscription of 10$ / month …
By reading his post I got sad (and a bit angry too). Not only because one of the best tool of the Steem eco-system is no longer free… and not only because the community didn't supported him. But because I don't understand Why aren't you, Steemian with a lot of power, not supporting the valuable steem user?
I joined Steem because of the possibility of this blockchain to change the world.
The world is not going to change if not everybody is "equal". Everybody cannot pay 10SBD to access the database. At least not at the beginning of their Steem Journey…
I am not an Utopist (I try not to be). I know that on Steem everybody is not equal but everybody can make it by working hard and getting great connexions… It will take time and efforts and a bit of luck. Like in the real world.
People like @arcange can decide to shut down SteemSQL and leave the platforme for a lack of recognition, for a lack of support.
I felt sad, because I feel like him and I understand this situation so much... I built the french community feeling lonely, asking all the community builders even a french whale who write in english only to help me… And not only with upvote… Also with motivation, directions, advices (as I got at Steemfest : to start to write in english to tell the others community about the french one…) … And what did I got from them? Nothing.
Seeing this and feeling that, I decided to write a book and a training in real life and online for the Steem bloggers (as I have teached Steem for 7 months as you can see here http://www.comprendre-steem.fr) … Where they will have to pay to get access to it. Same story as @arcange. It would be se easier to be supported by the community.
What if everybody starts to monetizing their work ? It will just be like the real world... And not everyone will have access to all the ressources.
I have many mixed feelings about this post.
I think I understand where you're coming from and how you want those who create great things to be well supported by the community here, but I also hear a bit of the "Utopist" thinking you, said you're not doing. It's possibly I'm misunderstanding you (and also possible the language differences play a part in that), but it kind of seems like you have an entitlement mentality where everyone should have access to value regardless of what they contribute. To me, that simply does not work.
I have some more thoughts on that here and here. Expectations are powerful, and if we don't control them properly they can make us angry, sad, frustrated, etc.
I think @arcange is a fantastic person who can charge whatever he needs to in order to be motivated to provide the service he provides. Others may disagree and do something similar for cheaper. Or maybe it will just go away and people will use other options such as MongoDB. The point is, the markets will determine how to price things because no other system out there can without threats of force (i.e. government). I'm okay with that. I also think those who provide value should be rewarded. Those who just want to take value without providing anything, well, they are what I consider a moocher. They aren't helpful.
I think you're asking a lot of good questions and they seem to come down to a core question:
How do you define value itself?
Many people get confused by this. To me, financial value is determined in the moment of transaction. It's subjective. Just because SteemSQL was previously "free" doesn't mean it wasn't valued. People don't often pay for free things. I think SteemSQL is valuable and I, personally, will pay something to use it. I only run a half dozen queries a month currently, so I'd personally prefer to see a pay-per-use model. Or, at the very least, cut off the people who are over using it. Give everyone a unique login and those who are using it too much have to pay. The rest, well, they aren't the ones driving up the costs of the infrastructure.
Agreed!
The community should come together for things of value to the community. We don't even have to send money! Our voting power can help, same for the comment or the resteem.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Those people that put in their time here, regardless of payment, deserve the hats off for what they do. It's really the necessary mind set to be a long standing member in the steemit society.
The flip of this is that it's then up to this creator how much time and effort (and sometimes cost) on whether to continue. Like you said, the market/community decides the value. Sometimes even superior products can fall by the wayside for those that were simply first, adopted by larger users/businesses, or just a better UI. (I've not used the SQL products much myself, so I'm by no means stating a judgement between steemSQL or mango db here.)
Sorry for the babble. Lol
Tl;Dr
Yes, market sets the price... And the creator can choose to stop their service or product to focus on other things. Regardless of any luck or timing, we've still always got our choices to make. :-)
You'd be amazed how difficult getting long term, dependable funding for projects, programs, initiatives, jobs, etc can be on here.
To some degree, it's the 'nature of the beast' in that Steemit's setup for things to be seen for a short period of time (i.e. one week.) Once that first announcement post goes away, it becomes 'old news'...even if followup posts are made.
I honestly don't blame @arcange at all for making the move to the paid subscription model. I've had to start telling people that I'd respond to their questions (in private messages) when I get to them...they'd have to pay if they wanted my time outside of that.
Whether it's creating/maintaining an app or website, mentoring new people, answering questions in chats...anyone giving something away for free is quickly overloaded with little to no compensation.
Personally, Steemit Inc has not seemed concerned with funding many projects (they have done some) and if you're not on that list, then you have to either drop it or find a better model (i.e. requiring payment).
This seems even more the case with people actually doing 'jobs' or services like manning the #help room or moderating the #general room in Steemit.chat. If nothing else...I'd LOVE to see funding go towards things that large populations of Steemit are using (i don't know how many users SteemSql had, but I def can see the value here) as well as anything towards those on the front lines of customer support.
I'd love for a steemit inc member to sit in one of those steemit chat channels while everyone's bandwidth has been restricted...see how much value those people bring.
Sorry, end rant. Lol
{Upped for visibility}
I think we have more chance if we focus on the community than steemit, inc. We can do much more for each other. I strongly believe that the sense of community, the interactions are what can make this platform awesome.
@roxane thank you for talking about this because this is the same issue I have talked about as well and built a system to help with. Anyone can submit a project for funding now on the tag #budgets to get funding from @budgets which currently has about 4,000 Steem to fund projects, apps, ads, and anything else to grow Steem!
WOW! Sounds great.
This is a very sad topic, but at the same time it is an important issue. We live in the wild west... everything is new, no rules but those implied by the system. That's why people will always try to find ways to "game the system", while others like arcange or you do it by working hard everyday, trying to bring value to the community. This honours you both. And I strongly believe this will pay out "in the long run". Unfortunately it isn't possible to live from that in the short run, neither to pay for bills or food. Seeing some earn a fortune for mediocre contributions or just for making announcements with nothing following up makes me mad from time to time, too.
You are right pointing out that @arcange in no way has to proove anything more here. He always is an extremely professional, nice and helpful person. His move to monetize his great work is fully understandable and possibly the only way to grow awareness that even in a community of "freedom" valuable services are not to be seen as "free" or can be taken for granted.
To your questions:
For me a valuable steemian is one who does not try to game the system. This includes no vote buying, this includes not to copy-paste, this includes not to take out every dime earned, this includes investing (time and/or money) and involving (not in everything, but in certain areas, where there is a chance to excel). This includes actually reading stuff, or at least following someone with a vote who does it. This includes not to take from the reward pool for curation work and finally this includes voting for others instead of 10 selfvotes a day.
You know what I am doing to retain people...
What STINC could do... well... a first step could be to communicate. (And I mean more than the divorced-couple-talk between dan and ned, and more than rebuilding a great opportunity into a pyramid scheme where only the strong survive. In short: I don't expect anything and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best...
For the last question... that's a tough one. Value is quite a subjective thing. When I see months of work going into my @steembay providing a free service for all while earning around 50$ / day for 2 people compared to some obscure guy taking out 10 000$ a day I sometimes doubt that this anytime will get more fair... on the other hand: What is the use of being bitter about it, this only eats away my good mood, my creativity and my power to keep on getting better with what I am doing. There have been times when it was a good idea to invest in a business and not earning a dime for the first several years.
Keep up the good work and don't let your head down.
Bises
Dominique
The valuable steemian bring something of value to the platform, the community should be better at rewarding that.
A very big possibility exists to positively change the world via steem.
It's pretty saddening the fact that he got insignificant level of support. That shouldn't be a deterring factor.
The zeal to accomplish the SteemSQL should be much more activated provided the aim is set right.
@arcange do not be discourage keep pushing further...
I seriously wonder why some good content aimed at boosting steem or growing the platform go unnoticed and often times ignored.
I would give you 1,000 upvotes for this post @roxane.
I am new to Steemit and I see the value of it. Personally I think it can become the new Facebook or Reddit, but it will take a lot of time and it all depends on us as a community.
It saddens me to see people posting about everything from personal development, to blockchain, to celebrity gossip to sports, and so on just for the sake of money.
In my newbie opinion, a valuable Steem user, is the kind of user that writes only about the things he has a real knowledge about, supports the projects that help the community (e.g. @curie @sndbox), and helps the platform gain exposure through their personal network in other distribution channels.
I hope to see more posts like this from you! Even if it might feel that your efforts doesn't matter, they do! Thank you!
I can feel your passion in your writing this well written article.
Steem is just as you said, there are a lot of people out there doing great work and putting a lot of time and effort into steem, there’s some that just don’t have the time and then those who want to just get paid for nothing.
I try to make more comments than post as I just have limited time, thanks for your input and thoughts.
I understand what you feel - i had my ups and downs and endless discussion with honks too - I personally stepped back a bit and focus on things I like. The advice you mention at the end is what I heard often from big guns as well - lol, what shall they say to excuse for ignoring you.
But honestly - do not give up. Hope the same for @arcange which i do not know personally - also never use SteemSQL too.
Hi @roxane, I agree with you.
When I made steem activity for the first time I only get 9 USD. After that many people write me telling that it was helpful for them. I realized that if I wanted to be rewarded for this tool then I would need to make updates and next make new posts telling about that. This is what I done, and I get more reception, but this time thanks to the @utopian-io project and you.
The problem with the actual scenario is that the funding of the projects are dependent to updates, and other things like infrastructure and maintenance can not be taken into account (a post is not interesting if you say you did maintenance).
Your post has made me think that maybe there is a solution to this.
Solution 1: like @jerrybanfield
Jerry as witness has important steem incomes. He has a project called @budget. You have to make a post telling about the project that you want to deploy and the amount of money that you need including maintenance costs. And if it is approved then you will receive funding from him.
Advantages: It is funded from a witness. It is working now! (there are very good projects right now).
Disadvantages: If the development is liked by many people but not Jerry, then there will be no financing. That is, everything is reduced to the liking of 1 person.
Solution 2: Payments after a week
I think we can propose a new way to compute the reward system: Imagine the possibility to be rewarded for a post indifenitely. That is, eliminating the 7 days limit.
This will not be for all post but for a special type of post (an additional checkbox for the author to claim rewards forever). After the first week the payment is like now. After that, every week the blockchain pays only to the author based on the new votes received. From the side of curators we need an option to automatic vote this type of posts (if we want to support them).
In this situation the author can fund his project for maintenance and infrastructure. And he need to do the right things in order to be rewarded continuously.
Advantages: It is funded by the community.
Disadvantages: The philosophy of steemit is proof-of-brain. People could use it badly, asking for funding where it should not. For this reason I mention that it is not for all posts but special posts (and the curators have to select well).
I absolutely support the second solution : "I think we can propose a new way to compute the reward system: Imagine the possibility to be rewarded for a post indifenitely. That is, eliminating the 7 days limit.".
I don't think it's easy to implement, it will certainly require a profound rethink of the whole system but the truth is, Steemit functions as a blog, which "depreciates content" as if was news. A lot of people post fitting content such as technical analysis on crypto. But many other people prefer to post content that does not lose value after 7 days (if ever). It is quite frustrating even for the reader (let alone for the author) to stumble upon a beautiful gem such as this post of @zipporah and not be able to reward the author for the pure joy of reading because ... the post is 24 days old !
All the while a lot of energy is being spent left and right by @berniesanders and grumpy cat fighting the likes of haejin and sweetsssj and random beginners unaware of some arbitrary rules ...
You are touching a most sensitive point. The Steem blockchain is powerful, transactions are fast and zero-fee and the model with which content is rewarded works quite well.
But ultimately, it's the community, the collective Steemians, that is at the core of the Steem value. How we reward each other is key. And when a project like @arcange does not get the support it deserves that says more about the quality of the community than about the quality and the value of @arcange's services. I hope I'm wrong.
From my viewpoint, and I don't want to sound communist or socialist by any standard, the problem is wealth distribution. A few whales simply don't have enough hours in a day to see everything happening on the platform and to support all the valuable things that are happening here, instead we sometimes see them investing time in other activities like flag wars and such..
But in the end, I think this is only a temporary snapshot of the state of Steem right now. There are just too many awesome things happening here to stop the trend that is already showing: Steem is growing, getting bigger and more valuable as time passes.