Absolutely valid points.
I somewhat "reluctantly" signed up here in January because I was looking for a new place to park my web content and wanted to get back to social blogging... and the rewards idea sounded appealing.
If you analyze that sentence carefully... my motivation was "content creation," and rewards were merely a potential consequence.
The reason I said "reluctantly" was that I started looking around to see what others were saying about Steemit... and came across various versions of Jeff Berwick's "$40,000 post" promotions... which immediately made me think... "This place is SO doomed!"
It's simple marketing 101: If you pitch a place like this on the "free money" you attract a swarm of people looking for free money, if you pitch it as a "content platform" you get content creators.
They basically "blew it" because they were afraid people wouldn't show up unless they were promised "free money." It's a basic beginner's mistake: Thinking you have to give away the store for free. It "works" (in terms of drawing people) but it's the wrong crowd.
What can we do now? Reward those who authentically try-- ignore/flag those who game the system.
You may be right; however making money on posts and for voting is a unique selling point, so why would you try and hide that fact?
If you marketed Steemit as just another content creation platform, first of all you'd be doing it a huge disservice by not mentioning what makes it different from the plethora of content creation platforms out there.
Secondly I feel the response would have been'meh'.
I do get what you're saying though, expectations should perhaps be balanced, but at the same time nobody ever got excited over $0.10 :-)
Cg
I wouldn't advocate hiding the rewards... it's more of a case of "what's your lead argument" when you market?
If your argument is "Make money on Steemit!" and you publicize Jeff Berwick's famous $40,000 you'll get a whole different set of people than if you say "Steemit is a censorship resistant social content platform, and we reward quality content!"
When I joined I was excited about the idea of a social content site with rewards... but to be honest, when I started reading external content about Steemit, it sounded a bit scammy. And I experienced the same feedback when I aired the idea to fellow bloggers and content creators. BUT... I am a "content creator" (who happens to like being rewarded for content) not an "investor" or "income opportunity seeker."
Agreed. And I would really expect no more. The challenge of the moment seems to be a lack of balance as the "clicking buttons for pennies" brigade is starting to drown out real human interaction and engagement... which is a concern (in the longer term), because communities are built by PEOPLE, not by code, bots and automation.
One of the factors @penguinpablo tracks in his daily stats is "comments per post" and that number has been declining for months. And if we keep in mind that upvote services auto-post thousands of time, that means the "human interaction" aspect is really tanking... and I see that as problematic, maybe not "now," but definitely in the longer term.
You are spot on!
"What can we do now? Reward those who authentically try-- ignore/flag those who game the system."
And at the moment we arent doing a great job at either. In part because so much SP is tied up in 'votes for hire' systems.
I do hope the big players will reassess their positions with a better strategy in mind.
Plz upvote me