hello and thanks for posting up the post by @bearone - it points me into some information that has had me wondering a bit over the past couple days since joining Steemit. It seems that there are a couple deeply held competing visions of how "value" might be created and sustained on the platform. I'm finding myself leaning towards it being a function of the strength of the community (new users, sustaining existing user base, helping people know their contribution matters to the long term health of the project), where it seems others as best I can figure it out are concerned with the strength of Steem as a currency. I suspect it's kind of a "both / and" to some measure but feel like I needed to get more deeply exposed to what the reasoning is for each. You've allowed me to stumble upon where to begin.

As for the communities you describe, this seems to be one of the most important things I can imagine. As someone just starting out, it is REALLY hard to get your post to pop up out of the clutter for someone to even notice it, let alone decide it may be worth the recognition of an upvote. I've begun taking notice of these kinds of communities and feel like this is the next step in my "homework list" to begin learning from their wisdom and improving how better to contribute to everyone's benefit to the degree I can.

I for one appreciate the pointer for where next to look. Thanks!