RE: Steemit Strategy - Your "Quality" Content Isn't Valuable
Hahaha, some of your rant looked like my ranting. A few observations I have on the ideas you mention.
I would suggest anyone who has a skill that can be marketed elsewhere NOT give it away here. Because you will be giving it away. I came here due to videos the witness you mention at the top had made pretending making money here is easy. What he was not so clear about (nor many of the other people making videos on YouTube) was most of that money was their money to begin with. They handed it to a bot and got most of it back.
Based on my perception due to some very misleading videos, I figured if mediocre posts could make hundreds, so could I. I have self published for years, getting my start in how to books. I published some how to material that could have made me thousands on Kindle/Nook etc and it was met with crickets. I can not publish this material now as the online stores really frown on you charging their customers for what you are giving away for free elsewhere.
I will be honest, I was considering leaving. It seems like most of the money is just a circlefest handing it to whales, only to get some of it back for so called visibility. But unless you are spending hundreds per post, there will be little to no visibility.
I decided to stick it out though as I have found many authors (like yourself) who teach me things I do not know, and i am a sucker for learning. And while I doubt I will get rich here, I do make some money by interacting with interesting people like yourself, something I would do elsewhere for free.
I am still feeling my way here as to what I can post. I am not given to idle chat in real life, nor am I here. So my posting has went way down, and only through encouragement by you and a few others have I recently posted a couple times.
I wish more videos with this realistic view you give existed on YouTube. The lying ones I mentioned are probably the cause of the low retention rate as perceptions were built that were not realistic.
Yes, many people arrive at Steemit with serious misconceptions. This is the problem with the free money we call "upvotes". They have no respect for it, but they do have great ideas about how others should spend their "free money" much of which isn't actually free (many of us have invested in Steem and the Steemit platform).
You bring up a great point as to why you stay and I'm glad you do because your comments are some of the most thoughtful I read everyday. This part of the platform is good for me because the conversations are more engaging than other social media (and I make a little bit of money).
The promoters of Steemit often do a disservice to the community with bogus posts about rich rewards, but there is money to be made, or at least an increase in value since much of our rewards are tied to SP. However, none of us are going to become rich bloggers here or probably anywhere. The tough part is learning how to use the platform to enhance our lives here and offline. I'm struggling with this as well, btw and still feeling my way on many issues like vote bots, resteems, the whole trending page thing, etc. So, I try to learn and share.
I hope you continue to stick around and, of course, I truly appreciate your comments and support.