👍 Ask not what STEEM can do for you! 👍 Ask what YOU can do for STEEM!

There's always one question that stands out if you've ever tried talking to anyone about Steemit in your daily life. A most annoying question for anyone who believes in the value of cryptocurrency.

"So how do you get your money out?"

It's a logical question and I certainly don't judge anyone for asking it because we all grew up with the unshakable belief that dollars have value. What takes a long time to realise is that Steem also has value. It's taken the world almost 10 years to realise the value of Bitcoin and it's a slow process to change a life-long perception.

However, it is often the initial thought process of a newcomer to cryptocurrency is that they will invest some "real" money, make a profit and then end up with a whole lot more "real" money.

Bitcoin has earned a well deserved accolade of now being considered a viable investment and it's on the verge of mass adoption. It's becoming easier and easier to spend Bitcoin and soon it will be as common as paying with a credit card. If Bitcoin has pioneered the way to spend crypto then Steem has done the same for earning crypto.

Steem is an incredible gift to humanity, a way to earn crypto without investing any money. Yet without the investors that we call whales the whole system would fall apart. Which brings me to the second question you're likely to be asked:

"Where does the money come from?"

The fact is that the value of Steem comes from the faith that investors have that Steem is real money. If they stop believing, the value goes away, often without warning.

Instead of trying to explain the intricate details of mining, rather tell people that venture capitalists have invested in the project. This is actually not far from the truth.

steemwhales.com

I was fortunate to be able to learn this early on in my Steemit experience because the two friends that introduced me, @starkerz and @patrickm have both invested in Steem. They and all the other whales have far more to lose if the Steem price goes south.

On the other hand, if all the minnows decided to power down all at once, it would have almost no impact at all on the price of Steem. Actually the price would probably go up because the reward pools would then be shared amongst the investors.

Your payouts always stay the same

Stop complaining that the payouts are low. They haven't changed at all. You still earn the same amount of Steem Power and SBD for every post. If you are only concerned with the amount you are earning in USD then the problem does not lie with Steem, the problem is that you don't have faith in the value of Steem.

Imagine someone is working for an American company but living in England and they earn 5000 dollars a month. If the pound goes up in value then their salary is worth less. Does this mean that their employer has reduced their salary? No, it doesn't, only the exchange rate has changed.

The US dollar counter on every post is there to give newcomers a rough idea of the value of their posts because in the beginning people don't understand how much one Steem is worth. You are not earning US dollars though, you are earning Steem.

Veterans of Steem are very patient with newcomers, but after spending some time on Steemit, it's vital that you change your perspective and start believing in the Steem that you are earning on each post and stop worrying about how many dollars you're earning.

Steem and the investors that make the currency possible do not owe you anything. However if you post content that improves the quality of Steemit, you be rewarded, although it won't happen straight away. You'll need to prove the quality of your content over time.

How can I help to make Steem better?

This is the question you should be asking if you want Steem to survive in the future. All you need to do is start being more responsible with your behaviour on Steemit.

To see an excellent example of how to use Steemit correctly, let's have a look at the profile of @jrej.

Then if you look at his blog you will see that he posts his own comic, entitled "Shades of Men" and when he resteems it is almost always other comics and posts from the art community.

This is someone that adds a lot of value to my feed and everything he posts is worth reading, whether it's his own content or a resteem.

Now compare this to your own profile. Do the posts that you make and resteem reflect your interests and hobbies? Do you reward your followers with high quality content that they definitely want to see?

Or do you waste your voting power and your resteems by randomly selecting trending posts. This will make your profile a random mess and it makes it very obvious that you are only thinking about the money rewards. Your posts will not add any value to anyone and all the valuable followers you have will eventually unfollow you.

All the shortcuts to making money on Steemit are also very short-sighted. The follow for follow strategy means that you will end up with hundreds of unwanted posts on your feed. You are basically spamming yourself by following people that don't share the same interests.

Browsing the introduceyourself forum is also a great way to help, but again be selective. If you are interested in art and comics, look out for newcomers that post art and comics and connect with them. If you like SCUBA diving or travelling or photography, do the same.

Is it too late to change my profile?

As with every website on the internet, most visitors only browse the first page. This means you have a chance to make things right. Of course you can't undo a bad resteem or remove a useless post, but all it takes is for the last 10 posts to be high quality and relevant and your profile will immediately start to look better.

Thank you for reading and I wish you all the best for your future on Steemit

@deimus