A Humbling Click
Everyone wants their accounts to be worth a bunch. We all want big payouts and we get excited when whales upvote our posts. No matter how we talk about Steemit, a great deal of the excitement on the platform will be centered on how much STEEM is worth and how much we can feasibly “make.”
My very first post got squat nil. Not even my own upvote (plus 21 other gracious supporters) granted me a single STEEM penny. Compared to then, I'm in a position that is exponentially more impactful numerically. Now, after months of consistent posting and audience engagement, I'm proud of an account that is able to, without a drop of investment, grant someone a few dollars per upvote.
This might seem low compared to the absurd total payouts we see from top authors on the “Trending” page, but let's think about this for a minute. In any given day, if my conservative upvote can grant a post $2-3 on average and I engage with at least 10-12 new posts each morning, I'm cumulatively supporting content creators I enjoy and respect with a total of $20-36 a day.
That's absolutely positively absurd.
I currently live in Brooklyn NYC, a part of the city heavily populated by aspiring creatives. Virtually every bartender, hostess, or barista is an aspiring painter, sculptor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, videographer, youtube/instagram personality, and so on. Each one fights tooth and nail for their voice to be heard in the maelstrom of creative energy worldwide.
If I could give a dollar of support to them every day, I most definitely would. But I can't, at least not with my real bank account that is constantly bombarded with utility bills, rent, groceries, and so on. It pains me, not able to support the efforts that I go through myself as a small cultural start-up.
Once I started to think of it this way, I began to consider the real meaning of what an upvote can and should be on this website.
Value Your Upvote
It seems petty to really consider thinking about your upvote very much when it might not grant even a few cents worth. I catch myself treating it almost akin to a Facebook “Like.” But by attaching a social and financial weight to the upvote, Steemit has created a situation where you should really respect your personal use of the value-making tool.
If my hesitation to give $1 for a creative cause in real life turned into my ability online to give $20-32 a day, it would change my entire relationship with my environment and field.
I try more and more to think of my upvote as an investment in someone. It's tempting early on to just upvote proven authors at a chance at higher curation rewards. But piling too much onto established personalities with a proven commitment to the website might be dangerous in the long-term. The little bit of effort to find new users with great ambitions will go a long way in regards to the community's heartiness.
Be Strategic With Your Upvote
To upvote something is not just some arbitrary financial infusion or social-media-esque buzz. It's your vote on how the reward pool of Steemit is divvied amongst the community. It's your vote on what content you support and want to see thrive. It's your vote on who you want to push as a serious content creator in the Steemit ecosystem.
Your upvote is also a “vote” to determine what kinds of posts the author may find successful in the Steemit world. Especially for new users, a gradual time of experimentation is needed to help them establish a strong voice and buckle down on a handful of specific topics. Your upvote helps him/her find their direction in a place where multiple currents seem to go in all directions.
It's always easy for me to underestimate the actual monetary and social value of what the STEEM blockchain has set up for us, especially after being so blandly conditioned by other social-media “Like” systems. We all know that Steemit is not like Facebook or Twitter. The weight of one's voice and one's vote is much more consequential.
Let me know what you think below! What does your upvote mean to you?
design collective @hitheryon
I don't upvote random people, i make sure that they have added value to the conversaion in the blog and not just "great post" and my favorite "upvoted and followed"
Voting on a random trending post without conversation is kind of like buying a drink for someone at the bar even though she/he won't reply to a cheesy pick-up line...
I agree with you wholeheartedly on the replies and again, I think it's a symptom of the insta-social-media culture. We're so used to replying with the shortest comment possible...
thats very true, I'm hoping Steemit could do something to filter out people who leave comments saying "upvoted and followed". Like they could make it to where there are a mininum amount of letters you can type before you are able to post the comment?
At a critical mass, I'm sure someone will come up with a flagging bot for that ;)
Minimal letters is interesting too!
Extremely well written and logical. The Steemit upvote should respresent appreciation of the effort placed forth by the poster. It should serve as a motivator to continue the behavior and content that they have displayed and created.
Very much agreed.
I like to give them to good people
어렵군요 ㅠ 저는 낮다보니 마음대로 빵빵 날려도 아무상관이 없습니다 ㅠㅠ ㅋㅋㅋ
보팅이 100불이여도 1센트여도 업보트라는 행위 자체가 중요하다고 생각합니다. 이것이 새로운 관계를 키우고, 독자/관중을 얻는 것이라고 생각합니다. 읽어주셔서 고맙습니다 ㅎㅎ
Hello ! Good blog!
안녕하세요 페이스북 연락이 닿지 않아서 이쪽으로 댓글 남기고 갑니다
그는 너무 부족하지 않습니다
톤스퀘어님 메세지 확인해주세요! 고맙습니다.
잘
Such a well written article about upvotes. I agree, I love supporting artist, I am one myself. When I see other thoughtful intellengent bloggers and artists, I to would love to throw them a dollar or two for their hard work. I've been on Steemit for over a month now, and even though I don't have a lot of power yet, I still find value in getting the opportunity to offer my opinion and upvote to people who deserve it.
That's definitely the way to go in my opinion. Emotional and social support is much more valuable in the long haul, which are both engrained in our Steemit upvotes. Eventually, if we all stick to it, we'll all be in a position to support whatever great initiative we choose!
I agree. I value the connections I've made on Steemit more than the money! :)
So true. Fully agree that content and value should be the sole reason for upvoting. This will help the Steemit community grow in substance and value.
Thanks for the support and comment!
Enjoyed your post. Follow me for content. Thnx
Giving people votes should reflect the effort they put in to get that content online, in that sense I think in the long run people with low quality content will give up seeing as they wont be rewarded as much as they hoped to be. Only to be followed by new groups of low quality spammers unfortunately...this seems to be the same as the whole cryptomarket where people who come in for a quick buck get nervous and leave after a small dump, and new people come in with the next pump
Unfortunately that cycle will be a (hopefully marginalized) constant minority in the steemit ecosystem. Part of the learning curve and filtering process I guess...
The positive thing though is that after each low the next high will most likely be even higher
Absolutely. These are the innumerable little mistakes that help us gain experience and wisdom for those huge leaps of success!
This is a really good point! It can be difficult to decipher which direction one should go in with their blogging in the bland conditioning of the Facebook "Like" system. On steemit where our vote has more weight and more impact, we need to focus on letting others know when they've put out quality content so that they can learn which direction to move in with their blogging. Very relevant points to bring to mind, thank you :)
Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment!
Thank you for sharing your thought. It's really insightful post. After reading your post, I also thought about why I voted certain posts. It's not always investment for me. My upvotes have several meanings. "great post", "keep up the good work", "thanks for the info", "cheer up", "good point", and sometimes just "hello, nice to see you on steemit".
I totally agree with you about we should use our upvote wisely. I'll consider that when I'm upvoting posts in steemit. Thanks!
Thanks for the read and great comment!
Hi, that was a very insightful read, thank you! Looking forward to more posts from you. Check out my blog and follow if you're interested.
Will do, and thanks!
I'm still wondering if just upvotes is enough. I think the platform is still way too subject to meme and bot voting -- everyone votes for posts because they are popular rather than voting for things that they actually truly approve of. Just look on the trending page for examples. Tons of fluff comments done for no other reason than the impression that they will get some money. Drowns out the real communications.
I've wondered if not rewarding upvotes or comments with money would change this? Only give money to authors?
This does seem to be a bigger problem regarding user education. IMO curation rewards from guaranteed high-payout authors should be less incentivized (maybe make curation rewards a lower percentage for really high payouts?) as it harms the long-term health of new usership.
I'm not sure the solution to this, but thanks for bringing it up! Very critical topic.
Great post. I dont just upvote anyone it has to have caught my atention and be of value.
People who really makes time and effort in their posts. Thx
That's a healthy approach =)
Thank u so much. Means a lot.
awesome post keep up the good work :)
Thanks!
Perfect guidelines to live by in the Steem community!
Thanks for reading!
Whatever equation you introduce money into, you need to expect a large percent of the people to behave in a way, which they perceive is going to result in them getting some of it.
New users see their votes practically don't amount to anything, both in monetary value as well as in the power to push content to more visible and permanent positions in "Hot" and "Trending" channels, which is one and the same thing.
What users with substantial power need to understand as well is that there are people on Steemit that live on unimaginable incomes for a Westerner.
So your 2$-3$ per like might not just be an investment into the future of Steemit as a platform which hosts good content or a compliment to a good author. No, someone like you has the potential to fundamentally improve an individual's life, without having to spend a dime.
It might be a challenge to identify a user like that of course. Would be nice to see a reputable NGO enter Steemit and set up a program for some properly disadvantaged people around the world to become content creators.