RE: Is blogging on Steemit profitable? How much should you earn to be "better" than average?
I feel like an intruder between you guys, but I can't help to express my empathy and agreement with @steemmatt .. from my 6 month experience, steemit is a lobbistic and merciless sort of ponzi scheme. Once your account grows till a certain extent you get "pot committed" due to your invested money and time capital plus the potential future gains. Steemit presents the same neural hooks and brain triggers than the FB's like mechanism but it's worse due to the chimera/siren call of immediate and future money gain. In short time, you stop reading books or living real life and, instead, type till late night like a frantic hamster on a wheel without even realiseing it. I started to question whether this platform is worth my time and how alternatively I could better invest it. If I want to find financial speculation and subjection of the weak toward the powerful, I can look around in the real world, as surely there's abundance of that. In other words, life is too short to have it sucked like this. Forgive my being blunt but my sole red fish luxury is my sincerity.
Thanks @f3nix for sharing your sentiments. No intrusion! It's a public blockchain and you spoke very well on the topic from your view. It definitely gave me another perspective or two I hadn't considered yet, but could be just as valid. Keep your chin up because you're the type of intelligent and thought-provoking person Steemit needs to have for quality content.
Great comment @steemmatt. We are all here for our individual reasons. The best people are those like you who encourage and support others where support is due.
@f3nix steemit can be addictive. It’s not the only addictive platform. Loads of people live inside their social networks, and whether it is a thumbs up, a vote, a reply, a view, a follower, or some kind on monetary recognition, the more the better. To get more, people find their time is consumed by the network of their choice.
I am not sure about why you called steemit a ponzi scheme? I don’t see anyone being defrauded here. Of course when newcomers buy steem, the founders sell. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Virtually every company ever quoted on the stock exchanges was like that, and still is.
Over time steem will become more widely held. We will have fewer whales.
Thank you for your detailed reply @swissclive. I took some time before answering, apologies for that. About the seductiveness of the platform: we know that if someone wants to be addicted to something nowadays we all are spoiled for choice. It's intrinsic to the society we live in, based on consumerism underlying the concept of continuous profit/growth, no matter if sustainable or not. But I don't want to look like a Luddite here. What I wanted to mention is that the gratification mechanism of the steemit platform is peculiar as it associates to the social gratification an instant economical one. I believe that people more clever than me could study this from a neurological perspective or else according to the principles of CBT, cognitive behavioural theory.
I mentioned a Ponzi scheme as an analogy from a social point of view more that the economical fraud per se. In a Ponzi, the pyramid consisting of few healthy people is sustained by the enlargement and exploitation of the base and so on, till the pyramid crashes but the big fish (blink) are already happy and escaped elsewhere..does it recall something? As of now in my opinion there are great people here but there are also some whales taking advantage of their being on the top of the pyramid and looting the pool unashamedly. Since you mentioned the traditional markets, in every regulated stock exchange there are authorities that intervene, let's say, in case of insider trading. Why not here? Is this - together with the highly pyramidal structure and the competitive moat - supposed to create trust and attract newcomers to this platform?
Yes the gratification is peculiar because it drives some bloggers insane that they can’t get rich quickly despite their “wonderful” blogs. “Tough” is what I say. There’s more chance of getting rich in a casino (i.e. rather unlikely)
@swissclive - if you're active on discord and don't mind, I wanted to ask a little advice on something re: blogging. My discord # is 9927 if that's possible. Thanks.
See you in discord 9927...
I'm usually for an existentialist and critic approach. My point of view was very subjective but I'm glad it made some strings resonate (notwithstanding I believe there could be room for studying the long term effects of such upvote stimuli/gratification system on the brain). Thanks for your encouraging words. I'm also happy for this exchange and will follow you closer. At this point I will join @swissclive's appeal to you of keeping steeming (rebalance is fair).
I am glad you will not leave our community @f3nix. After steem’s massive price collapse of the last few days, it is almost worthless now. Those who continue blogging are the genuine folks. Those who stop were just here for the money.
Thank you @swissclive. These collapses are good as they clean the air and this is valid for the entire crypto market, in my opinion. I'm here mostly to express myself and create value, my main drive rather than money. As you mentioned, this is the secret to not get burnt of frustrated, just doing what you like with passion :-)