Lifesavers needed

Lately, I have been buying a little Steem with some of my holds and bringing it back on to the platform to get a little more future stake. It isn't much but I am hoping that it will one day provide support for myself and others here at a much higher value than it is currently worth.

Today I increased the delegation I was giving to one person who is working to engage more so that she has a slider. It is quite a valuable tool in regards to being able to reward comments and spread votes a little wider with 50% instead of 100.

Recently, I have been thinking to organise a Steemit onboarding party for some of my friends and have them over and get a few signed up but, I have postponed the planning as it is too risky in many respects. At the moment, there are too many public arguments and too many scammers going unchecked. How can I expect them to come into a platform such as this and perhaps (like some of the other people I have onboarded) buy Steem to get themselves off to a decent start, when this is what they are greeted with?

It is a very risky investment for people who would already be skeptical considering the new technologies, the new currencies and the new ways of operating, the limitations, the risks, the scammers and all of the work required to be able to make some inroads here. And for most, it is a lot of work if one wants to build some decent stake without having a huge amount of capital to invest.

I am from a poor background and I am used to having very little to get by on. What I have earned in the last year here is an amount that I have never seen before. It is enough to pay off my mortgage and have a little left over to spare but, I have not and will not use a cent of it yet as it is not only my future stake here, it is how I plan on supporting many others also.

Unfortunately for me, I am about as close to all in as someone can get when it comes to my view of future possibility and this means I am heavily invested in having this place become successful. We live in a world where technologies come and go and platforms can die very quickly as no matter how much time they may have invested into it, they can pack up and move to the next one easily. It is much like how people treat relationships these days, there is always another.

It is easy to do though because there is very little baggage to carry away for most people. The only ones to really suffer are those why rely on it for income and have invested themselves in heavily. This is of course the problem with centralised systems as they encourage people to build their position and invest, and then they can wipe out people's livelihoods with the sweep of an algorithm because they want to increase ad revenue 3 percent per annum.

We have a chance to do much better than that though if we are willing to forego short term profits for a few in favor of long-term profits for the many. If we can build a platform that is able to encourage people's personal growth and provide an additional revenue stream, people will willingly invest their time, money and effort to be a part of it.

But, if all they see is a few people lining their pockets while the many suffer, they will turn away asking, I see enough of that in the real world, why would I want it online too?

This is a challenge for my thinking currently as I question whether enough of the community is able to get their ethical shit together to create better results across the board. This isn't aimed at the whales either as the amount of crap I see coming from all levels of the blockchain is astounding.

For example: https://steemit.com/alltag/@emmaventure/forgive-and-forget

You might recognise the article but not the account. I recognise it as it is mine. As is the photo. Yes, someone took the entire article and reposted it as their own (thank you to @fingolfin from bring it to my attention). Of course, I am not the only one they and many others have done this to. Can you imagine if some whale was plagiarising content from other Steemit authors and getting hundreds in upvotes? They would be crucified. The problem is, this most likely happens hundreds of times daily.

People like to blame the whales and appeal to them to 'do something' but, what can they really do about that kind of behaviour? Someone asked me what I was going to do about it and I said Nothing as @steemcleaners was already on it. Punishing it is not going to help as there is an endless stream. Small punishments can redirect but are limited in action until the cost incurred is significant enough and for many of these people, have nothing to lose.

The only way to really change bad behaviour in the long-term is to demonstrate the good by rewarding the good. Lead by example. I try to do this by rewarding comments, I try to do this by producing content I think worthy of reward and I try to do this by encouraging as many as I can to explore their talents and offer the best of themselves to the community.

What keeps coming up again and again here is that no one is going to save the platform as it is the responsibility of all of us as a community to make sure it is the kind of place that people do not want to abandon at the first signs of trouble but rather, invest themselves in and fight for it of the need arises.

No one is going to save us and why should they if we are unable to build something worth saving? There is so much opportunity here that I will keep risking it all by building my hand. Strong hands can hold tight, fight, protect and build. Who knows, perhaps one day I will have a chance to save you and I would like to think that I will be strong enough to give you my hand.

Writing these kinds of articles makes me think about my place and although they often bring up negatives, they actually help me become more positive through investigating what challenges we face and, what role I can play to help improve the situation.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]