3 Major Changes In The Steemit Ecosystem During Last Year
It's very easy to miss the small changes when you're fully immersed in the process.
It's like when you're starting a journey in the fields and, as you walk, you start noticing some rocks and they become a bit larger and then even larger and then, suddenly, you find yourself trekking on a beautiful mountain trail. It wasn't like that in the beginning, when you started on flat land, but it didn't transform into a mountain all of a sudden: it was a gradual process.
We're experiencing the same pattern in Steemit: some small, gradual changes evolved during last year and became the norm that we're experiencing today.
I find 3 of these "invisible" changes worthy of attention.
1. Advertisers Bidding For Attention
It may not be the initial model the founders envisioned, but it's a model and it's working: bidding bots are a reality in Steemit and they are moving around money. And they are moving it in at least 2 ways:
- First, they are actively promoting content, which gets more upvotes, more visibility and, probably, more curation rewards if they are picked by "professional" curators or curators guilds.
- Second, they are actively promoting themselves, as services, by using the memo field of the transactions. Which leads me directly to the next change:
2. Paid Messaging
Sending very small amounts of STEEM to put some info into a memo (usually advertising something) looks trivial now in Steemit. But it wasn't like that in the beginning. I still remember when @charlieshrem posted for the first time a project to make a paid chat (probably abandoned now) using the custom_json field. So, for most of the Steemians, sending and receiving messages is a paid process now. It's a very important perception shift, and many of us are taking it for granted.
3. API Changes
And then, there's the API changes. Under the hood, Steem, as a blockchain, evolved massively, although end users may not notice that. We evolved from a curl / websocket world to a https / web land. I won't argue about the benefits of one over the other, I will just say the later makes development easier, by allowing an entire new category of developers to join in.
All these 3 changes were so slow, that we didn't even notice them. But all of them are extremely important from a business point of view.
First, they reflect an evolving, living organism. Look at the other crypto projects and in 95% of cases you'll see stalled, or "secret development" projects, where updates are scarce (if any) and the overopitmistic goals announced in the ICO are still in the fantasy land.
Second, a strong use case for the internal currency is created: money is moved around to bid for the user's attention. That was Steemit's goal from day one. It may NOT be in the form Steemit founders hoped it will be, but hey, users (like markets) are always right. If that's what they found worthy of promotion, then bidding bots are the thing.
And third, allowing more developers to come onboard, and write libraries, SDKs or entire projects on top of the blockchain, is an exceptional move. We live in a world where there are more tokens than apps, where end users are lazy and where real projects are scarcer than water on the surface of Moon.
Yes, we still have some problems floating around.
Among them, the "flag wars" and the scalability of the blockchain are the more concerning for me, but let's focus on the bright side for once, shall we?
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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This is exactly right. I agree that it’s probably not how people may have predicted it would happen, but it’s clearly adding value to the currency and very much in-line with the goals of the platform.
It bothers me to see so many people completely against the currency being used to gain attention / advertise since that’s really the only thing that makes it valuable.
There are definitely issues with how bots work and are being used right now, but I think we should focus on fixing those issues and not just get rid of them, which I believe is like “throwing the baby out with the bath water” as the saying goes.
You’ve been here quite a bit longer than I have, and than most people have, and the more I read your posts it’s clear you really “get it”. You deserve to be a much higher ranked witness in my opinion but unfortunately the witness rankings are more of a political and popularity contest than a contest to find those most suited to actually run and steer this platform.
Thanks for that, really appreciate the nice words.
You know, after talking with a few prominent witnesses, a couple of months ago, it was revealed to me that I'm a bit under the radar not because I won't be useful as witness, or worthy of a vote from a technical point of view, but apparently I'm still paying my dues because of my one and a half month hiatus - which happened exactly one year ago.
I was as high as 40th in the witnesses rank back then, and I had the support of some powerful people (including @ned) but then, in the middle of a flag war (much worse than the one still going on now) I decided to take a step back, and leave the platform. I gave my reasons and all that. One and a half month later I stepped back in, but it was a bit too late, from some people's point of view.
That position was interpreted as lack of loyalty.
I very much understand that, in the early days, every community values loyalty above any other values. As the community evolves, other things, like contribution and innovation may start to rank higher. There is a very interesting book, called "Reinventing Organizations", by Frederic Laloux, which describes organizations based on their "consciousness / awareness level" using colors. Every organization starts with a "red" level, in which loyalty is valued more than anything. Not surprisingly, one of the most common organizations "frozen" at this level is mafia :) One year ago - and even now, from a certain point of view - Steemit was like a closed mafia circle.
But it evolves, just like I tried to point out in the article. Slowly, but it does evolve.
So I'm not at all surprised, let alone frustrated about my witness position. It is what it is.
And I do what I can, with what I have. :)
Interesting post and comments. I hadn't realized that paid messaging was new, though now that you mention it, it has seemed like I get a lot more of those now than I did even just in early Feb. when I joined. I can't say I really like that feature given that it is mostly used by bot creators to try to get me to use their bot, but I can understand how it provides an important function within a platform with no messaging function. We wind up having to go to Discord to talk to each other one-on-one. (I don't even have the same discord username.) It would be better to keep folks on this platform for their conversations, so even if it winds up taking place in your wallet, where you aren't really hanging out looking for messages, and if everyone can see whatever message you send, it is a useful functionality people have figured out.
On another note, I always tell people that they should expect to invest at least $100 in this platform early on if they want to see quicker traction and less frustration. And as you say, where else can such a small investment yield such tremendous returns? I also am not experiencing losing money with the bid bots. I have figured out that I am generally up about 25% even after curation. I think you just have to learn to use the right ones and to use them the right way. I have not put in more than that initial investment of $200 ($100 in STEEM and $100 in SBD) and yet I am always making a bit more than I spend, while growing SP and followers.
This has been a great investment, and in a few weeks when I get the proceeds from selling my house and invest a percentage in crypto, STEEM will probably be the largest position I buy. I'm also about to start advising a socially conscious investment fund on their investments in crypto, and STEEM will be the first one I talk to them about as well. I think that despite its kinks still needing to be worked out, it really is the best coin out there, and getting better as we learn from our mistakes.
Basically small minnows who doesn't have high SBDs to invest on posts do not even stand a chance to get visibility. It next to impossible. The only way is probably by building loyal followers over time.
I've been saying this over and over and over. Just because you have access to money faster, it doesn't necessarily mean it's easier than a traditional blogging platform. You still have to put in the work.
It's just a bit more competitive I guess. Maybe that's what will bring a lots of quality material to this platform.
Great points made here.
It is easy to overlook the progress that is taking place.
Each day we see growth...people can debate the pace and the direction some things are going but there is growth. And if one is actively posting, that person's account will grow each day. I believe you posted that there is now more available in the rewards pool on a weekly basis than every before. This is something newer users should take advantage of.
The progression from extremely new startup to viable, thriving ecosystem is a long and windy one. It will take time to get there. It will also require the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people. We are still at the stage of identifying the first 100K who will help out.
I was really surprised to see you write, with relation to the bid bots:
The important question i feel is "working for whom"? It certainly doesn't seem to be working for the little people. Most of those using bots are losing money and they are not getting seen.
The people getting seen are those that can afford to pay $150 and up to get on trending. I've yet to read of a minnow who has got more visibility as a result of using bots.
It is a very contentious issue and there have been a number of posts lately by respected and experienced Steemians who feel that, if the current growth of bots continues, they could sound the death knoll for Steemit.
I'm really surprised that you are in favour of them @dragosroua. Perhaps I'm missing something here! 😕 😍
There are hundreds of thousands of minnows, so it’s not possible for them all to get seen. I think there’s an unfortunate misconception that it’s easy to just show up here and start making money but in reality, just like any other site, it takes a lot of time and hard work. Also a monetary investment helps a lot.
The cool thing is that unlike centralized platforms like Facebook, YouTube, or Reddit, those monetary investments help everyone on the platform by increasing the price of STEEM rather than a single company.
Also, though it does take time and hard work, it is MUCH easier to get seen, grow your brand, and make money here right now than on any other site I have ever seen.
If you spend $100 advertising on Facebook then you’re out that $100 and it’s hard to make that back from the impressions and clicks you get on your ads. If you advertise on Steem for $100 using the bid-bots, you will get probably 90% of that back right away just from the value of the bot’s votes PLUS you will get a huge amount of visibility and, assuming you’re promoting good content that people like, you’ll end up with way more than that initial $100 investment plus a ton of new followers who will read and upvote your posts from then on.
Yes, that means you need to get $100 worth of STEEM, which I know is not easy, but there’s literally no other platform in existence right now (that I know of) that comes anywhere close to that in terms of value per $.
I think that is the biggest misconception of people that if they use bidbots they would earn more than what they put in.
Just doesn't make sense why they would think of that because bid bots are tools for you to increase your visibility not just in the trending page but on certain tags as well. I rarely go to the main trending page but I do check the trending on certain tags I like for example philosophy and psychology to motivation tags. I look at both trending and new and this is how I find new people to follow and if they make consistent good content then I add them to my Ginabot notifications.
I use bots and I know fully well what I am getting myself into and know that I will be getting some of the SBD back but not profiting if I don't get additional high votes after, I'll get some SP and also some followers.
So far I have not lost any money yet and although my profit margins are not that high about 3-10% for me it is not a reason for me to advocate against it.
It provides movement of transactions and the more it is used the better it is for the coin.
I think one of the problems @yabapmatt is the bots often aren't talked about in the way you have. It's not clear to newbies that the best way to think about them is as advertising.
They are mostly sold as money earners and it's easy to think you are making money when, in fact, you are not because of the way the pay outs work.
$100 worth is a lot of Steem, as you say, for a lot of minnows but it's not just about the "money". It's also about confidence and understanding marketing (by the sound of it).
Even from the very launch of Steemit there was the possibility to pay for being exposed in the Promoted tab. It's an inbuilt feature of the platform. Some people are taking it and refactor it. It is the best possible model for everyone? Absolutely not. I didn't even say that. What I said is that they are moving money around for getting people attention. It's a start. It's part of the business model. And yes, it's perfectible.
I still remember the 1,000,000 pixels page back in the day of the web advertising birth. Boy, what a stupid and short lived thing :) And yet, it served as a lesson, the industry moved on and people found other ways.
It's about evolution.
Oh Yeah! I'd forgotten all bout the 1,000,000 pixels page @dragosroua. I think I might even have bought one. I can't remember. 😂
Evolution is good, but it can't happen if there is nothing left to evolve. Maybe I'm taking the idea that the bots might completely push out humans, too seriously. 😁
There does seem to be an increasingly big split growing between some witnesses and more powerful Steemians who don't use bots and those that own them though.
Maybe the next steem update, which schould introduce communities, will help minnows? Anyway tip! 1 sbd :)
Thank you @cardboard. That's very much appreciated! 😍
Hi @gillianpearce! You have received 1.0 SBD tip from @cardboard!
Protip: if you want to send tips and upvotes from @tipU you need to make a deposit first.
The ability to send messages via transfer memo has helped in a lot of ways. I hope to see Steemit implement the encrypted memo function that will allow users send private messages to others.
Subtle changes can be hard to see. Because my primary platform, sadly, is FB, those subtle changes had slipped past me.
I threw a few of my minnow earnings at bid bots for a little while, until joining PALnet and other discords where I learned that many frown on their use. I tend to agree that it's good for the platform when the tokens are being traded around, and creating more upvotes and views as a result. I do wish content value was a bigger indicator of what hits the trending page. Also as a person in poverty I don't have the option to do the profiteering off of bid bots, so I end up growing generically. White label growth.🤠
Paid messaging. Uhg!
I just can't. Who knows, maybe it could help me grow?
API? Under the hood? I am really glad that there are smart people out there doing work with those terms. I basically don't understand curl vs http. I do understand that it's what allows us to interact, and that's enough for now.
I want to thank you for steem.supply, maybe I am supposed to do that in a paid message... I do vote for you as witness.
Again I thank you.
Thanks for the nice words about steem.supply and for your witness vote, appreciated!
The fact is, Steem has a lot of opportunity to offer developers who can work on this platform. Bots are an obvious example, but projects like SteemPress show how we can integrate existing platforms into the Steem blockchain.
With all these incentives for 3rd party devs to create, I continue to be bullish on the future of this platform.
I've been on Steemit for three months and I've seen a lot of new features specially on the apps and tools. I am able to find something new and exciting almost everyday.
Maybe in the next year we will be witnesses of more changes and evolution and also of people, media and companies joining us here.
The "family" is growing quickly and expect the exponential aspect of it to grow like mushrooms soon too! The revolution has only started and is still in its infancy...
Thanks a lot for sharing this information, finding all of these products in one page is a huge plus for us, especially when we want to share the power that comes with being part of this virtual ecosystem!