Steem as a blockchain is new and experimental. I have been a part of this community for 8 months now and have experienced some turbulent *(but exiting)* times.
The platform continues to grow bit by bit and keeps onboarding a couple of thousand new users per week constantly. I never experienced the STEEM price at 0,25 cents *(I would be at least dolphin if I had)* but the price has hovered around 1 dollar for most of the time till november.
I joined in august and was able to start blogging and make some money and power that up.
In the beginning I was very happy to get a couple of cents on my posts and I faithfully powered those up. Then I got a couple of whale votes and also powered those up.
This gave me a small voice here and I have from the beginning spent a whole lot of time reading blogs and commenting on them *(most of the time even in a meaningful way)*. Those comments earned me more then my posts back then. And I was grateful for that in a sense I did not even feel the need to go around and beg for them on whales.
I can understand that not everyone has the opportunity to invest money to buy Steem tokens (like I did, for in total 200 steem)
I also lived through the rise of the bots and I was using minnowbooster to get a little edge on my posts. In the beginning there was no real issue with them and even the bidbots were profitable and I did not really see massive (ab)use. Now its almost impossible to use them without taking a loss. So I use Smartsteem that lets me break even on my investment which is enough.
Lately I do see a lot of newcomers on steem that are attracted by the concept (just like me) but I guess the difference with a lot of them is that they do not take the trouble to try and understand how the whole thing works. There are huge dynamics here and they are constantly changing and evolving.
Being new does not make it OK to go around and:
- spam people
- beg for votes/resteems
Instead of chasing small upvotes by grinding out 500 comments per day (I think on an hourly rate you make less) just read a post and make a few thoughtful comments.
But what kind of annoys me is that some people feel entitled to receive my vote just because I happen to have gathered a bit of SP
I think this doesn't take into account individual users' ability to communicate in a given language. Yes there are many spammers, but it's an equilibrium we've reached when it's become evident that no matter how hard many of the ESL users try, their best-effort comments are typically not rewarded as often or as much as comments from native speakers. Steemit whales are predominantly English-speaking. I think this is just evidence of users pursuing different strategies to generate income, and sometimes people vote for copy-pasted or spammy comments so until people stop voting on them completely the incentive will always be there to do so.
I have also thought about this but what about if these people that do not really write english all that well (but can read it a bit) would use the platform to learn and just write in their own language
They could be founders of their local community in their own language and become whales in their own right (just loosly tranlating beginner posts in your own local language might establish someone as a leader and earn him loads of minnow votes
Translation requires a degree of fluency in both languages...
And there are non-english communities here, but it's evident that most of the biggest comment rewarders are english-speaking. There are some curators who make an effort to help those you're talking about. There are things like OCD international that rewards international posts.
We're kind of talking about comment-farmers here though right, in some cases they're basically bot-net comment farming, in other cases they're individuals with few other options economically-speaking and limited understandings of english or even the ability to write or read in their own language.
in my opinion if they are smart enough to find out how to do the whole crypto thing and set up the accounts and exchanges and so forth then they have to be able to produce better content then spamming a comment over and over. Even taking pictures to share does not need a lot of writing skills, uploading a video etc...
I get what you are saying but they think they are making a living by doing this but its my opinion that they have more chance of earning by doing it differently and probably with less effort
I personally think that individuals who beg for upvotes or resort to spam is in a desperate mindset of survival. I think most of them come from overcrowded places where daily existence is a battle for just a crumb of the pie - let alone a slice. There is a tendency to push, shove and grab for things because they don't know when the opportunity will come by again. I think that they need to be shown a different perspective - show them that there's more than enough to go around for everyone. Get them out of that "survivalist" mentality.
I like the way you think. This is a major dynamic among humans you're pointing at here. I'd love you to write an entire post on it and if you do please flag me so that I definitely see it.
Phew, I've got my work cut out for me then. I'll definitely will do ;)
very well put, this is kind of the thing I was trying to convey in my answer. but yours makes it clearer.
thanks @felander
Well, people can sign up for steemit with just a phone number or even just a temporary internet number, and they don't need to have signed up for any other crypto exchanges to use steemit. I don't disagree with what you're saying either.
As far as I understand it some of the most prolific spamming is made by a bunch of dummy accounts that are just attached to a handful of people who control all of them, the rest can probably be coached/learn over time after dealing with the learning curve.
The moment I learned about steemit, I was so skeptical to even spend a dollar on this experimental social platform but everything changed. what I have now is kinda regret because I did not started earlier. I could be one of those whales right now.
ah well, this is a regret we all have... with BTC,ETH and STEEM but the steem we get now might be 50 next year and then we will be happy for powering up all we get here
Exactly. Crypto is the land of regrets until you realize that no matter what could have been had you X when you first heard about it, you are still in the <1% leading edge!
Well, I'm very thankful to you boss for this post. I joined this 3-4 months before but didn't understand how this whole system works so I stopped coming here but I again want to be active and still didn't had enough idea so I had started doing what you just have mentioned above but now it's quite clear to me. And I want to be in touch with you so that I can get the right guidance and really grow.
Thank you so much boss!!
well you are welcome to take my advice but I am no ones boss, especially yours...
just go for steem one day at a time
I believe I will get to learn something for sure from each individual I do meet. So from that prospective, I call them boss. Please take it positively buddy.
Begging for votes is something i don't feel good about and hate doing as per now. I have been mostly posting and making a few comments on people's posts.
I have revised my strategy here whereby i have resorted to comment more and post less on my blog. As a newbie i just go around commenting on people's posts and also promote steemit in my country Uganda which is still at its infancy and this has atleast atttracted some few whales which have visited my blog and given me some few upvotes.
I think succeeding here on this platform is all about playing your cards well through using different possible strategies to see that you get yourself noticed suchas commenting on other people's blog posts and also promoting steemit wherever you are in your country.
Thanks so much @felander for sharing.
you are then really using steem through real world and the virtual one... smart move
are you also forming a community in swahili or just supporting english posting? getting known as a leader of future communities can be really important... keep it up
Yes I am entitled to your vote !!!! I have paid my dues and do not intend to create a intro until. I figure how to get all these people who say they are here to help me to actually help me!
good thing I never promised to help you...
and indeed making an original content deserves a vote in my opinion so here you go...
But you might think about making your own way and not really trying to get everyone to do stuff for you
Never give your power away like that my friend, the only person you can rely on for success is yourself. So that, unfortunately means, rolling those sleeves up and getting to work.
I have spent hours upon hours trying to figure out how to I only got 2 cents after curating dozens of post over past month . Got nothing for curating . Only 2 cents on 2 comments out of well over 50 I made at that time. Thanks to those who did give few cents on this comment above. I am finally seeing a few more cents every day. I am a baby boomer soon to be grandma ready to share my knowledge on topic of interest to me. Including Ketogenic lifestyle, Facebook ads marketing, van dwelling full time and much more. I am eager to write my intro post and invest in more steem power but not until I can see it is worthwhile . Thanks for your help.
My Grand baby keeping warm in Mommy’s tummy.
I totally agree with you @felander when we work in publications of quality, our work gets value immediately especially when you are intelligent developing the topic that you choose, for that reason they get value vows not the we win when people realize that it's in front of a quality publication. It is a reality that there are many people begging in Steemit and that's strange pity. I really feel very comfortable in Steemit for me it is a dream come true, and as we explore the platform our growth becomes more exponential.
very good point, the growth will indeed become exponential, thanks for pointing this out again...
@felander as said last time , my story too is not far different. In starting i was prayi g to get some whale votes but utopian happened and i started to contribute and getting reward...whatever i earned i power up to put value to my upvote...i am still waiting to get noticed..😉
I would say you are being noticed, reputation of 60, sp of roughly 1000, 800 followers...
thats not to shabby in my opinion. Pretty soon you will hit 1000 followers and we just keep growing organically. thanks for stopping by
Ameen! Looking forward .. Growth and reward and be a part of this beautiful place called Steemit!
Totally agree on this. Applying the 80/20 rule means channeling the time and effort into what really works, not spray and pray. :)
exactly but the hard part is convincing the people and once you did there are 5000 more that are spraying
I think that's where our own values, our truth Norths, are being tested, eh? People like to go for the easy way out, but sometimes, the extra mile don't necessarily cost that much, and yet yield more results. As the saying goes, there's lesser traffic jams on that extra mile. :)
Definitely no one is entitled to votes. Even if a comment is great, maybe your VP is too low to vote right then and then you don't have time to even think to come back to it the next day. It is good to be appreciative and easily delighted, rather than demanding and easily disappointed.
Thanks for spelling out your journey on here. It is both insightful and encouraging. Even though I couldn't come in at $1 STEEM, we are still pretty lucky right now at $3.30 STEEM. Wasn't it more like $8 just a couple months ago?
On a completely unrelated subject, did you once give me a link for a calculator that could tell you based on the SP you put in how much your upvote was worth? Not the ones where you put in your handle and it tells you what it is worth, but in a way that you could calculate how much STEEM you would have to buy to get an upvote worth a certain amount.
Hey @flender , this is great post that will surely be helpful to this community , especially minnows. Thanks.
I would like to add a quote here , that may be helpful to bloggers on this platform;
Why You Should Upvote Comments!!!!
I've noticed alot of people doesnt reward their followers, and their commenters on here.
It's a shame.
When someone takes the time to not only read your post but to leave a comment. Even throwing your small vote their way does a lot of great things...
They are More Likely To Follow You;
I'm not saying you should upvote every single comment you get. I try and look for those that I feel provide value to the post. When they see that you upvoted their comment and they will be rewarded as a result. This encourages them to follow you; Then you'll have a regular on your post!
You can grow your followers so that they can grow you;
If they choose to keep their Steem in their account, They may power it up. If you continuously are upvoting their great comments, then they will steadily grow overtime. Their vote will be worth even more, and they'll be able to upvote you, The upvotes you gave them helps them grow, so they have more power on the platform.
You have been identified as a Steem network abuser and have been flagged accordingly. Please behave.
Why?
check here, this is either a bot posting on lots of posts to get upvotes or someone spamming posts
so this is exactly what I was writing about
I do not need this on my posts, please refrain from this
thanks