A rant on an addiction called Steemit!
An overindulgence of anything, even as pure as water, can intoxicate!
I got introduced to the world of steemit through my cousin. He said it's mostly like Instagram but you get paid for good content through likes from multiple people. So I went ahead, applied and decided to join. I put up my very first post which was a game of thrones cake I made, the one that kick started my career as a baker. The throne took close to 72 hours to make, each sword hand cut and stuck. This I thought had to get some sort of appreciation right? Wrong! not one upvote.
Not a problem, I was new, I had no followers and may be I had not used the right hashtags.
I was told to comment, follow, connect and upvote posts of others so that I can build my followers pool. I did so and followed every rule that is. I also did a little research on what time to post, how much to post, what posts are trending etc etc. Check my blog if u want I have put up my cakes, shared recipe, written on travel, participated in colour challenges, shared my photography and also my art. But the max you would see is one upvote or two. u can see the number of posts I have submitted, all comments on images and stories I genuinely liked. I have built a good followers pool in a very short time and met some genuine people.
As a newbie, pulling out my phone every half hour (initially every five minutes) to check if I have got an upvote is extremely frustrating. When you work you think about it, when u eat you think about it, when you do absolutely anything you think about it. It is then that I went to the trending section and realized that some posts are absolute garbage and yet they earn hundreds of dollars, and other absolutely stunning pieces are ignored. I am not saying I am good, but you need motivation to survive. Steemit is sheer luck. You don't find many people who are here to support others in their art, everyone is here for the money and the dirty business of upvote.
For the last two days, each time I put up a post, I go to the hashtag, scroll down and browse through all the new posts. The ones that are genuinely good and have got less votes, I go and upvote it because I know what it feels like to put up your hard work and not get a single bit of appreciation for it or get appreciated but not upvoted.
I won't be dragged into this abyss of an addiction. I will post what I feel is the best I have done. If the world has to see it, it will.
Thank you for listening to my rant!!
Glad I'm not the only one 😅
I got started recently too and like most platforms like this there is that positive reinforcement/dopamine hit cycle that gets you hooked. And that's fair enough, at least we know how that works and can cope with that. But I too felt like something was inbalanced here. Posts that seem to be successful (measured by $ value) are disproportionately helped by a couple of likes from a few 'influencial' accounts. I've not said this out loud because I thought I don't understand the statement yet, but does that mean
If you take just those two ideas together, there's services like minnow-something that lets you feed the account some steem, mention a post and it'll upvote you until you make back at least how much you spent. It's a votebot! The system encourages you to buy Steem to make more Steem faster. There's a few people being very successful at it and I'm guessing most who aren't. And a network can't be built by people who are all creating content. Who's the consumer? I won't use the P word here yet, but I guess I needed a place to vent myself.
I've not given up on this yet, but I am a little less enthusiast overall.
Yeah i Am going to give it a try for a bit too. Let's see how it goes. You don't loose hope.the motivation factor indeed goes down but who knows it might just click. I made this post for people to vent. I am happy you started it. It's good to see some sort of response. Because after a while I felt even to make people listen to my rant I needed to be famous.
Have you watched this black mirror episode called Nosedive? I'd recommend it given the context.
No I haven't. I will for sure
I think one of the big problems are those upvote bots they really let these people get traction but i just see it as cheating and can't bring myself to do it. The sad thing is that the blockchain has an amazing potential to really change the world in all kinds of ways but like the internet it is being ruined by the greedy and trolls . I am giving myself a year if nothing changes by then I am moving on ... BTW. that is some cake ! :D
Its not even been a month since you joined.. dont you think is too early to rant.... LOL...
:P
Nope!! Anytime is good time to rant. Gets burden off your chest.
Suit yourself...
:)