Currencies - as means of exchange - have been invented since the dawn of civilizations. Shortly after, some people discovered ways to have more of them and climb a certain ladder in society associated with wealth and influence.

This way of thinking hasn't changed much to this day, so it's well embedded into our philosophies of life.

Therefore, when we see someone thriving for more rewards on Steemit for themselves, or even wanting to "game" the system, we shouldn't be surprised. That's what the majority of the "successful" examples we see in the real life teach us to do.

On the other hand, we have always had examples of empathy, of desire to help those in need, of willingness to support worthy causes, communities, both in the real life and, by consequence, here on Steemit.

There have always been always guardians of the rules or balance as well. As there have always been rule breakers and balance shifters.

One way or another, given enough time and a wide enough adoption among general population, any social media environment will reflect the general composition of the society and their life philosophies, their behaviors.

If one wants to be around a certain type of people or read only content curated for a particular niche, they should do exactly as in real life: join communities of similar interests. And they (the communities) will be a big step forward, once rolled out for Steemit.

There is also a shift going on at the society level, in general, which will no doubt show its influence on Steemit, maybe even sooner, since its users are open-minded to new things.

• from scarcity to abundance: in rapid steps, much of our basic necessities are being met at practically no cost (or very low)
• from ladder-based decisions to consensual agreements
• from fighting to survive to a basic universal income

^Source

Steem came with the monetary rewards on a quasi-empty ground, and also benefiting of the growing discontent about the way profits are kept on all the top social media sites for the shareholders, not distributed fairly to the members who create content on those platforms.

The rewards may provide basic income for some, or represent the sheer incentive of being paid to use your brain for creating something worth upvoting by others.

The model itself of distributing rewards to the community instead of keeping them centralized won't be so new for long. It is already copied by others and will undoubtedly create a paradigm shift in the entire social media / blogging world.

Steemit has the advantage of being the first to implement it, with a certain advance, but not the first in the niches it targeted so far. SMTs will probably broaden the palette of niches interested in the Steem blockchain, but at the same time the competition will increase on various segments.

That in my opinion can only be good, so I am confident that the type of ecosystem and reward system Steemit introduced will have a bright future on the long term.

Where Do I Stand On Various Issues Regarding Curation and Rewards in Steemit?

Before you form an opinion about my positions below, please read until the end. Some may appear contradictory, but they are not in my "book".

Self-voting

If it's done only for self-service, I disagree with it. If the person who does it is involved in supporting communities, worthy projects and quality content, I think it can serve a purpose on the long term.

Personally, I upvote at 100% all my posts, but rarely if ever any of my comments. My vote usually goes out the next day, to allow anyone who wants to upvote my post a window to do it before I do, and to collect curation rewards from my vote.

It's also a way to say: If I don't support my own content (even if it's not always so great), why should anyone else? I don't know, maybe this looks kind of egocentric, but that's how I see it.

Bid Bots

I have a neutral position about them. The issue is with the intent of the bidders, not with the bot itself.

If someone promotes poor quality content to 'rape the reward pool', the bot offered the opportunity for promotion, but the bidder abused it.

I think if no bots would be involved, the abuser would find alternative means to carry out his goal.

The bot can be beneficial for those who want to promote quality content, which would otherwise remain undiscovered.

Building and sharing blacklists, building whitelists may be ways to improve how these bots operate.

Vote-Selling

This can be a good temporary solution until you find something worthier to spend your voting power on. Profit-wise, is less than delegating to a bot.

I still have vote selling active at SmartSteem, but it has been triggered maybe once in the past few weeks. It is a fail-safe to make sure you don't waste your voting power (if you set it at 99%).

Manual or Automatic Curation?

Both!

I think it's important to curate the quality articles you read (without thinking at the curation reward you will receive). Plus the comments on your posts, at least that's what I think is the sensitive thing to do, to upvote comments on your posts which are not spam. This assures them better visibility, plus the reward is always nice.

It's equally important to automatically support the content of people you appreciate to whom your upvote makes a difference, as well as that of the communities you are part of, or projects you think are worthy. If your vote value is low, consider manually voting some of them instead.

That's the way I curate, at least.

Rewards or Community?

Both!

It is hilarious to think any of us who have joined Steemit will disregard the monetary rewards!

At the same time, to focus on yourself and your gains, make yourself the center of the universe on a community-based platform, may work on the short term (usually doesn't!), but not on the long run.

If you want to build your presence on Steemit with a long term perspective, you need to give something of value to the community (without expecting something in return!), and the community will respond and help you grow too. That's like a symbiosis!

You can, however, make your account growth a main priority sometimes and this is perfectly ok, in my opinion. What follows after or even during this stage is important. What do you choose to do with the influence you've built? Will you give back to the community and help it grow? Will you cash out? As you might expect, I vote for the first option.

Delegation

Delegation is one of the most important tools of the Steem blockchain.

There are accounts which keep all their voting power to themselves. Depending on the role they play, it might be a good solution, but generally, I disagree with such an approach, especially when we talk about personal accounts.

Now, where do I intend to delegate my Steem Power?

That really depends on the amount of SP available and of context, but there are a few directions I would follow, which are not necessarily disjunctive:

• projects or accounts of people I believe in
• communities I'm part of and want to support
• projects focusing on curating quality undiscovered content
• profit
• something else I haven't thought of yet

When delegating, there's always the question I ask myself: how much should I delegate and how much voting power should I keep for my account? The answer is not that simple. But so far I've delegated up to 50% of my Steem Power.

Communities

They can be based on many criteria. Usually it means community members have the same interests, which already makes the community less "general". If it also implies restrictions to be part of the community, it makes it even more targeted, because people inside meet certain minimal requirements.

Of the type of communities that can be formed, one with a special role is based on nationality or location or common language.

Such communities can help immensely to integrate new members who don't speak an international language (mostly English on Steemit, so far).

It is one successful model that can be followed. To build Steemit starting from strong local communities and going global, optionally.

Worthy Projects and Causes

By a worthy project I understand a project that gives to the community much more than it takes from it.

There are many type of worthy projects and causes. It's impossible to support all of them, so you have to choose, and give more as you grow. Here are a few I can think of:

• exceptional tools (giving to this project can be as little as voting to the witness, if the developer is also one and you agree with his witness policy)
• projects which curate quality content (in general or in different niches)
• projects which focus on helping promising minnows
• certain applications which you use and want to see grow (supporting them can include posting via their interface, if they keep a certain amount of beneficiary rewards)

Quality Content

I am not the best qualified to judge artistic content, I am not an exquisite writer either, I haven't created any share-worthy video in my life, but here's my opinion on the matter of quality content. Everyone is entitled to one, right? :)

If the content is meant for a certain niche, those who have knowledge of that niche can appreciate the true value of it. On the other hand, when it is shared to the entire ecosystem, don't expect everyone to have the same type of appreciation you get from your peers, if it isn't "explained" in simple, non-professional terms.

The best quality article, in my opinion, is a mix of text and images or video.

For photo-only posts, the text should explain the context in which the photo was taken. Photo should be focused, unshaken, great lighting and contrast.

For video-only posts, the text should make an abstract of the video or have a bullet-point enumeration of the topics being discussed. Video should not be dark, there shouldn't be any light (including sun) in the background, sound should be clear.

Posts that are mostly text, should be well formatted, proofread, include one or more images, at least 500 characters long, should have a beginning, content and ending.

There should be no plagiarism, no copyright infringements.

Of course, all I said above means nothing if the article has no insight or valuable information and it's pure bla bla.

Conclusion

I may have forgotten or left out some topics from the section above. Feel free to ask me, if you think something is relevant. I also didn't want this blog post to become too lengthy.

Individual approach to earn rewards on Steemit, is usually generated by an immediate goal and short-term focus. It is fortunate that most of the times it doesn't work, but unfortunate that in the process hurts the platform and the entire community.

The alternative is to be community-oriented, think long-term and see how rewards come even without chasing them, in time. But this approach takes patience and confidence. What do you choose: maybe 1 US dollar worth of Steem now or potentially 100000 US dollars worth of Steem in 10 years?

If you've managed to read all the way through, thank you and congratulations! That's quite an accomplishment, especially since my usually posts are much shorter to prevent boredom.

You might want to check out my small content contest!