A Churn and Burn Rant
Maybe this is a rant. Maybe. Ready?
Lots of people talk about how many accounts wind up dead, that Steem isn't doing enough to engage them, that they are leaving because they weren't able to become part of the community. Perhaps it is all true but, why?
I don't have the numbers but if you trawl (not troll) @paulag's blog for the last couple of weeks you will find numbers for churn rates and various engagement activities. Have a read.
Today I posted about Steem complexity, which creates various barriers to entry as the place is goddam difficult to get the head around... alone. And this is the real issue with the churn rate isn't it? People have come here expecting to earn yet without the willingness to actually learn the system which generally requires engaging, making friends, joining groups and you know, being social.
Many seem to have come in under the influence of Jerry and friends bullshit from Youtube thinking they are going to have an easy time of it and when they don't, they cry, complain that it is because the system is unfair and leave. Bye!
Others come in on the words of friends yet, how many people are really capable of onboarding and being able to support people to not only learn what is required but also add value to their early days to help them find their feet?
Remember these numbers I posted a few days ago about powering up and building a middle class?
< 100 - = 980776
100-500 = 13026
500-1k = 3442
1-5 = 4275
5-10 = 776
10-20 = 511
20-30 = 191
30-40 = 88
40-50 = 57
50-60 = 58
60-70 = 35
70-80 = 20
80-90 = 19
90-100 = 18
100k+ = 147
So, how many people on the list can offer the informational support a new account needs to work out the complexity? How many can offer some voting value to get them off and running? I know that I have trouble with keeping people engaged and I am offering them the support of my own somewhat knowledgeable experience and my voting value. What about the people onboarded by those accounts < 100 SP?
Is it any wonder that the churn rates are so high when people are pulled in from all over the place with promise of easy riches only to meet perhaps the most complex economic system they have ever had to directly deal with?
A little advice: If you are struggling here, if you don't understand the technology, don't have a significant vote to support and can't help people become part of the community yet you are onboarding, you are probably adding to the churn rates. So many people I have talked to over the months have said they have brought people in only to have them leave again and think it is the other persons fault, not their own. Is it a problem?
Not really I think. At this stage of the ecosystem lifecycle I don't think we are anywhere near ready for mainstreaming and definitely not ready to become a charity organization that hands out value to the needy. It will kill the system.
What is needed isn't just people working to engage new users, we need new users who are proactive enough to engage. There are people who have been here for many months yet are still not on any of the chat platforms, still do not know the basics of the economy and are still spending their time chasing dollars without networking. Churn them, burn them. As it is obvious that the system isn't ready for them and they aren't ready for where the system is now. In time, they might regret it but that is their loss to live with.
I find it incredible that we have created a world where people expect to earn without actually doing anything. Just post what they want and magic money will rain down that they can extract and by their food or a new phone with. This shit is hard work and if you are here for only the money, you better bloody well know what it takes to get it. Especially if you are coming in with nothing but the shirt on your back.
I don't really care what people say, everyone is influenced by the prospect of earning here and even though there are many ways to do so, all of them take some level of work. Even the people who rub the "egos" of whales for votes have to sacrifice something, generally their dignity.
There are something like 60,000 active users out of the million odd accounts on Steem but as the numbers show, 98% of them have less than 100 SP. For the most part, those accounts are not helping much with user retention as they are often the extractors, the ones who never power up and the ones who are unable to add any value to the new users coming in.
It is not that they couldn't help of course but, they generally don't and most of them don't spend time engaging with the new users as the new users can't offer them a vote.
Here is a post from @paulag on human engagement. Give it a good read. take out the bots and the average comments per post could be less than 1. Less than one. 1!
If you are a small user worried about the future of this platform, bloody well start engaging with new users too. As said, look at the small number of larger accounts and tell me how they are not only expected to find all the users and upvote them but comment also? Or is it their duty to work 24/7 to engage users who for the most part don't care enough to know what the acronym SMT even stands for, let alone power up so they can have a bit of a vote to encourage others. They damn well know how to cashout though.
People can't seriously expect everyone else to do all the work, build the communities and power up to support the rest who just want to sit back and do nothing. Yeah, I am more than aware that people have different life positions but if this was my only way to put food on the table, I would be here learning every fucking thing I could about this system and finding every bloody way to make this work. If this is my chance at a ladder out of hell, I would throw everything I have into ensuring I am not just going to get a meal tomorrow, but one next week, next year and in ten years from now.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible because of unverified signups but, I would be very interested to see what the churn rates are based on region and a few other demographics. I think it would tell a lot about what is happening on the platform and show where distribution is going and why.
If you aren't willing to do what is necessary to help another, why would anyone help you? A community is built on reciprocity, give and take. Pats of encouragement on the back only go so far and they can't be eaten or used to pay bills or buy medication. What are you giving to this community and what are you looking to take?
Sunday rant over.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I love these rants . There a self check :)
Its easy to earn money here on steemit all you have to do is post and people will throw money /upvotes to you . Do an intro post like this and earn a quick $100 , easy . just look at the trending page and you can do it to . A whale looks for new people so he can give you millions .
That's the crap that has to be overcome by new people . Its there expectation that has been sold to them .
I was up until 4 am (I am dragging ass) this morning going over that crap with someone who just joined . most of the time was deflating the guarantees they were promised . We will see if any seeds were taken and understood . To tell people that they do not have to invest anything is an out and out LIE
I don't know where this entitlement comes from but I will hurt your feelings and state the truth .
This is the thing isn't it? Most people feel that they are owed a debt without ever paying in.
People are leaving this platform because they don't find success in their 1000-word essays that can't be seen by the curating communities. But they have missed one important detail that every low-value account must know - engagement. Sure, you're a good author but if no one knows about you it's pointless. Since most that reach the hot are those who can bleed out to boost their posts, or those whales who can self-vote their memes.
But with engagement, people will check your content out. And probably most minnows would earn more on commenting than on their own content. Based on my own experience, except 1 post that got curated, I haven't had one past the $1 value without boosting it. But I randomly get $0.1-$5 on my comments for free. And of course, the discord community-engagement also increases your popularity and follow count. This is why it's called proof-of-brain algorithm. We gotta use our brains on how to find success; either bleed out cash or become popular.
Anyway, I haven't seen these numbers until now, and I've checked out your last post. I was surprised that the ones who got a $0.10 vote are part of the 1 percenters already. I intend to lease more SP to make some newcomers happy and stay. Some think it's unprofitable; it is, if you're thinking short term.
Yes, I'm one of the guys who came from Jerry and friends' band, but I never expected that I'd earn a ton here, atleast for now. I haven't engaged to new users, thanks for the eyeopener, I'll check #introduceyourself posts from now on.
Love your rants. Gets me thinking.
On a tangent, love the photo. What is the alien looking tower?
It is called Haulitorni (Shot tower) and it was used to make shot pellets for bullets. It has stood in different forms for a long time now but it has a little events hall underneath these days. I shot a wedding there last autumn :)
This is a shot of the bride doing the set up inside before the ceremony :)
What a lovely capture! I'd upvote it except you've declined payout. I'll just have to add to a post I've missed.
Like I said before, people are generally llazy in my opinion. The unwillingness to engage, hurry to cash out and lack of belief in the system is why we are stuck with 98% of us (myself included) with less than 100SP
To me I don't care how much SP you have or your Rep . Thats takes time to grow. what I care about is who and what you are
I do not follow you but I do watch . you resteem to much for me but I do like your last resteem :) I do like your comments and enjoy reading them . Now I have to go read that post you just did .
I don't know how Tarazkp is so productive but I'm working on it LOL
if a few more of those 98% had been powering up, they could support other too, but they have been here months and haven't.
lol I had a rant yesterday about people not powering up and blaming the whales on not voting for them lol. Thank you for the shout out and links to my posts....
many people many not know this but steemit links are high quality back-links and help a lot with SEO but that's just another side of steemit people don't get to know and deserves its own rant lol
What am I giving to this community you ask. Steemit is so different to anything I have ever worked on before, and I have this mentality that because its not money in my bank account who cares who else uses it, and because its not in my bank, its easier to share. I can do that on steemit, lol not in real life with real money. In the business world I worked in, to get to the top you gotta be tough, hold no prisoners. I think I can get to the top of steemit without being that person, but being the compete opposite. How awesome is that.
By choosing not to support those that don't want to support them selves is not being tough, its being real.
@fknmayhem was telling me about this a few months ago. Good to learn these things.
I would say that Pareto would be pretty correct here, Too much has been 'wasted' trying to engage 80% who don't care when it was the other 20 that are looking long.
The first time I joined Steemit was in July 2017 and I thought it was fun because thanks to my neighbor who put me on this platform, he told me that he had won $ 89 and that moved me and I went to this platform to see if I won dollars and my first publication did not earn more than $ 0.35, it was depressing and sad, I left it, but I returned in December, the currency went up and it was at that moment that I understood how to make a deposit thanks to stemmit and it is with effort and dedication, as well as when you want to achieve a dream and you need to put the action. regards
Hello friend, @tarazkp, you have reasons to say that people want the magic money of life, this platform is quite extensive and has many ways to progress, new users like me, we have to spend a lot of time to understand it, people! Like you make things easier for us! Thank you very much for that, here what matters is the work, that way we will be well rewarded ...
Thanks for this. I reengaged a few personal contacts who have started an account but lost interest.
You are right,
many of the people who leave the Steemit community
had completely unrealistic expectations coming into it.
The fact that they were disappointed has nothing to do with Steemit,
it has everything to do with them.
If it were not for Jerry and friend giving people an unrealistic representation of what Steemit is, their expectations would likely be more realistic. If they leave, let them, perhaps they will find what they are looking for elsewhere, let them leave Steemit to those who love it, flaws and all.
I totally agree with you, everybody needs to engage the newer users, even those of us with little SP. More engagement cannot hurt.
Most won't because there is nothing immediate in it for them.
I started doing my own part a few days ago and I really hope more people get on board with something like this.
Biggest issue I have is people just don’t want put any effort into anything and expect to make a truck load of money. Other day I told someone who was just posting YouTube trailers of gaming that they needed to include a lot more in a post than just that. I even gave examples of different things to talk about and what people tend to look for. Yet, still posting a single link to a game trailer with nothing else. I just don’t know what some of these people expect.
Somewhat tempted to show them my own work as an example. Granted I don’t want someone to become overly defensive either or anything else like that. Still at end of the day community and just put some effort into things is what people need to do. There are so many people daily looking for good written blogs that are original and created by the person posting. Yet it seems so far and in-between.
I just think back when I came here and while I more than centrally had some shit posts (I still do!) I still had a few I poured my heart and soul into while I was learning the ropes and asking questions. I wish there was a more thought out boarding process to get people started here. I just don’t have a clue what that would look like.
To get paid for other people's work.
Decentralised system so it is up to the community somewhat, especially those who onboard them.Most people don't know or have enough to onboard but they expect others to do the work to engage them.