To be a happier Steemian, stop focusing on "earnings"
For those of us who haven't invested our own money into Steem and then chosen to lock it up in Steem Power, upvotes are a gift. None of us are entitled to "earn" money, much less make a living, blogging here. That doesn't mean we can't be successful on Steemit while accruing crypto assets, just that we aren't owed financial compensation as content creators here any more than we are on other social media platforms.
There's a lot of complaining about how whales have an unfair advantage here, and I think that stems from a lack of understanding that they have a vested financial interest in Steemit. That's money they could have invested elsewhere, and they expect to maximize returns on it. If you were in their position, you would too. Every upvote they give someone else is money they could be putting into their own pocket, but they often choose to contribute to the Steemit community instead. When we belittle them for upvoting themselves and each other, it's a bit like looking a gift horse in the mouth.
At the end of the day, if you're only here to make money, you could probably spend your time doing something more lucrative. But if you focus on being an engaging member of the community that contributes quality content, you'll find that Steemit has a lot more to offer than financial incentive.
Make it a great day!
(Random picture of me fishing in Baghdad, Iraq circa 2004)
I'm here mostly for the community, though the money did serve as a "lure" to get me to post.
My "blogging" attempts in the past tended to end after 1 or 2 posts, with several months/years between...
Mainly from lack of interaction (which is most probably the reason most bloggers fail at first).
But steemit's community welcomed me.
Even though I got distracted and disappeared for 3 months XS
When I returned in May, I decided to give it another go, and I now have a few friends here that I enjoy interacting with.
Though I'm not exactly clockwork... I tend to post, then just lurk in the comments section for a while, then suddenly post again... gotta work on the "regularity" part of building a following XS
But it does serve as a gateway into Crypto. I just used my account to get some bitshares, some more bitcoins, all from SBD I've earned by presenting things I'm interested in to others !
I'd probably never have invested in bitcoin with "real" money, if not for this platform, or even have any Crypto's at all (Especially the 20$ worth of BTC that that I got from @sponge-bob by reading one of his articles and noticing the paper wallet he presented in a photo in one of his posts had a "note" more or less saying "there's money here... just saying ;)" just underneath it XD)
steemit for the win !
Oh, and nice post XP
You are so right about the gateway into Crypto. I always heard of Bitcoin, and all the smartest people I knew were in it, but I have just never thought about investing because I never had excess funds lying around. This way, I write, and the investment can come from the power of the words. Lately, I have gotten some decent writing and editing gigs that have led me out of the brink of relying on my parents or homelessness, but even now, I'm just trying to pay off debt from my dog's surgery. I am really happy about the way Steemit works, forced investment if you will.
Maybe you are a "comment lurker" as you say, but sometimes the comments can be just as meaningful as the original post <3
Hehe. Comment lurking is an awesome hobby XD
Thanks for the upvote, friend :)
By Gandalf's beard, if a 5% upvote does THAT, I can't imagine what 100% does... does it make steemit explode, perchance ?
Woah! It was a good comment, and I'm glad you were recognized for it! Guess that kinda makes up for us dying in the steempocalypse challenge. Amazing how meeting people and building genuine discourse with them can pan out, eh?
Yeah, it's great how genuine it feels to interact with most people here on Steemit !
First online community I've ever really interacted with at this level :)
How are you doing, by the way ?
I had an idea before we died, but forgot to mention it. I think there exists tools to play MtG online, would you be interested in a match one day ?
No idea if the tools are good or not. I remember testing one a few years back... it required upload of graphics for every card (since the graphics were copyrighted, so understandable).
You ready for the next season ? Let's see if we can team up again !
feels horrible for praying everyone go ahead and die in the apocalypse already
You're the second person on Steemit to ask me about Magic online in the past 24 hours. I've never used it, but I guess it's time for me to open up an account. The client is notoriously shit, but thousands of players use it every day. We might as well join them.
The universe is sending you a message:
" miss, you're not playing enough MtG ! We risk an implosion of the universe by way of boredom ! Play More MtG, ENTERTAIN YOUR CREATOR !"
Well said. Yes, whales have vested financial interest in Steemit so they should be well rewarded for taking the risks. If you do not provide good incentive to invest in steemit they will take their money else where.
I have noticed a Whale or three that simply comment and upvote their own comment in high-value posts (while completely ignoring the post itself as well as other more contribution comments within the post) - basically padding their own value while doing nothing for the Red Fish/Minnow community as a whole. Yet I've also seen plenty of Whales who seem to genuinely upvote and promote us little fish through active upvoting, participation (commenting), and resteems.
I get your point, and yet still think our (Red Fish/Minnows) community would stand to thrive and prosper more if we, as a community, pay more attention to each other and less attention chasing Whales (and even kissing Whale ass).
You're absolutely right! They could only be upvoting their own stuff, instead, they chose to share the wealth. Good point!
I didn't know you are a veteran! I'm a veteran's spouse! Thanks for your service! <3
As a veteran, I think living with one of us might be the hardest job there is. Thanks for YOUR service. Y'all don't hear how important you are to us once we come home nearly enough.
With my veteran, that might be true! Haha :) Lemme know if I can ever help you with anything! <3
You are so right... we are so like minded! :)
Upvoted, Resteemed and very carefully been reading it. Something strange is happening. It's a choice between "The one who are sleeping" & "The one who are waking up". Glad to see you fully awake :)
im here only for the fish lol
nice one!
I should write the story behind this fishing trip some time. It's a happy memory from a less than awesome period in my life.
I like this post. I'm not here for the "money". It may be a bonus for doing this, but since I don't have the money to 'invest' then it's no big deal for me.
I've never been involved in an 'online community' before. I am a face-face man in real life. My job, building manager, has me dealing with people all the time and I have my friends and gaming groups that I hang out with all the time.
Most of my communications are face-face. I use Facebook and email merely to gather attendance information for game days.
I hope many people see this post, it is some good words.
Thanks! I' mean not a big Facebook or email user, either. I like steemit because there's a lot of unique, specialized content that you don't find on mainstream social media. I think a lot of people want this to be "Facebook that pays", but it's designed to be something different. And until the"Facebook that pays" crowd invests in lots of SP, it will continue to be curated the way the whales want it to be. That's just how it works.
Nice to meet you, and followed.
I keep hearing this term "whale". Other than an ocean animal, I have no idea what people are referring to, nor have I had the inclination to find out, lol.
They're the people with the most steem power. Their upvotes can be worth many dollars, so people can be a bit passionate in their opinions of them.
Wouldn't you "want" their upvotes then? Or do they stick to themselves?
I mean, wouldn't they be helpful to have as a follower?
It's like anything...some of them are heavily involved, other are taking a hiatus and have delegated their voting power to other users, and some are basically ghosts. Their downvotes are perhaps more influential than their upvotes, so they can be really useful in keeping the platform free of spam and plagiarism. I'm sure that plenty of people have invested in steem power for that reason alone. It's kind of nice having a social media platform where people care that much about maintaining some modicum of quality in the feed.
THIS right here is the correct attitude.
I'm using Steemit to basically earn money off of things I would have done anyway. If others go in with the same idea, then whether you make seventy cents or seventy dollars on your content is irrelevant: you would have written it for nothing somewhere else, so what have you lost sharing it here instead, and what do you have to gain? :)
Meanwhile, we gain your unique perspective while you garner the upvotes. It's a win/win situation. :)
I agree, can't stand people who bash people on here for doing things like self voting. If it wasn't allowed, it wouldn't be possible to do. People like to soap box and ride high horses.
Thanks for posting!