Steem just gave fledgling creatives a ticket to "F*** You"

The opportunities coming out of the crypto-space are insane. But don't quit your day job just yet.

What would you do if you could work on your own terms?

A position of "F*** You" is a financial position of strength where one can use the term "F*** You" to reject unfavourable terms without affecting the current standard of living. Take a look at this expletive laden explanation from the movie 'The Gambler'.

"A wise man's life is based around F*** You"
John Goodman - The Gambler

It's not often in life that you get that shot at living life the way you want to. But it seems that if you're open minded, patient (and careful), Steem, and the crypto-space in general could be the way to get there.

Never has it been so easy to directly monetise creative work or a good eye for value

Almost overnight, we have an opportunity to showcase our work, or voting prowess and get paid for it, without a central decision maker in sight. The barriers to entry have all but been eliminated and suddenly we're not limited to being paid based on the opinion of a single curator, or worse yet, not being paid by the curator at all (aka Facebook).

Of course I'm not trying to say that Steem is the saviour of all creatives without a publishing deal (or a job scouting the next big thing). We're talking about a fledgling social media platform with some of the world's biggest and most influential companies as competition. We have a wee way to go.

But this gives substantial footing to the little guy, who might otherwise struggle because the 'right' person didn't like their work. The days of recognition based on the opinion of the few are limited. I'd love to see what this can do for the music industry.

Now back to the position of "F*** You":

Before Steemit, if you wanted to sell a creative work, like a photo or an article, you would have to go cap in hand and beg a café owner to put it on the wall (and agree to the 30% commission), or ask a magazine editor to please consider your article ("for free this time because I'm just starting out" ). Now you don't. Catch my drift?

I'm not saying that these traditional curators are like this by choice, because for the most part the ruthless nature of the creative industries has been a function of the tools available. Picking great content is a lot more difficult if you have to guess (and invest in) what consumers are willing to pay for before they see it. The new way of doing business offers a great opportunity to the already initiated, there is significant value in clever voting.

Because of volatile nature of the current crypto-space, and startups in general, this isn't quite the time to tell your boss where to go. Most things coming out of this space are not time tested, and many will fail. Unfortunately that monthly pay check is still in the necessary evil basket, for now. But if you want to start something on the side (or go for the jugular like @cryptogee, @steemship, @donkeypong and a few others noted in This article), show the world what you've got, and maybe get paid for it; you might just be looking at a ticket to "F*** You".

DISCLAIMER: This is an opinion and is not meant to constitute any form of career advice. Please don't go around telling people to 'go f*** themselves'. It's not nice.

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Originally posted to the 'Steam' thread. Watch out for autocorrect kids