Steem reflections | I'm an author, a curator, an investor and value bringer. Or am I not?

in #steem6 years ago (edited)

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmQkwxunrth99k4d7HJSvXUcVyUpX2mRwCXfjfoq7XwNea

I just started to write half an hour ago so I don't have a real introduction. This is me reflecting on some of the roles I have or theoretically could have on Steem. Big upcoming changes but also some past changes and some great posts I read last week got me to this point. I didn't plan the post and didn't try to keep it short. Sorry.

soyrosa The Author


I'm one of those lucky bastards that does pretty well as an author on Steem. When I started on Steem I got one of those rare whale votes on automatic within a month, which enabled me to build up my account pretty quickly to 3000SP. Then I 'lost' that vote which made it feel like a couple of really slow months, but I kept on creating and engaging. When I went to SteemFest with all the Steemians and felt my investment in STEEM wasn't reflected enough in my Steem Power holdings I bought myself some STEEM to get myself that Dolphin badge.

Currently my posts do pretty well thanks to another few whale and orca votes and a lot of friendly dolphin votes and let's not forget all the Minnow and Plankton votes add up as well. All of these I 'gained' for both unknown reasons and more or less 'known' ones. Traveling from the Netherlands to a Steem meet-up in London gained me one of those autovotes from an Orca for example - proving to me that people like supporting people they know or people they feel make that extra effort.

I could've bought a lot of STEEM with the money I spend on that short but expensive trip - it's London guys! One night at a hotel could've bought me 350 STEEM. And that was just the stay at a hotel, I was invited to stay the other two nights at a Steemian's house. But that's money talk. They people I was able to meet there or connect with on a more personal level after only having had some short talks at SteemFest was way more valuable than any vote/support I got after that.

Yes, the author gained some support from going to these meet-ups - and this support doesn't mean my content is better than of those with less support. It just means people appreciate the author as a human. At least, that's how I interpret it.

soyrosa The Curator


I suck at curating. I vote what I read. I mean WHO DOES THAT - right? [/cynical]

Sometimes I do a pretty much random upvote round at 2AM at night when I'm doing a last round of scrolling and know I have some VP left. I hand out a couple of 100% upvotes because it feels good. My curation rarely falls in the 'optimal' curation window - which means after 1,5 year of voting daily I curated a total worth of 250 STEEM.

So, that's that. Curating isn't my game and I feel like I only could get more gains from curating if I were to autovote all my VP. Nothing wrong with autovotes, but I like to leave a comment with my votes so people know I read. Yes, I read. And comment. And curate. It doesn't earn me much but it is the thing that ads a lot of value to the platform.

Or not?

If I say I suck at curating I'm forgetting that I'm actually trying my damn best to spread the rewards. I'll probably favor some Steemians I've met in the past or like a lot personally, but I also know from @abh12345's famous pie charts in the past that I tend to favour Plankton and Minnows before the 'upper class' Steemians. So maybe I don't really suck at curating. It just doesn't make me a lot of money :D

soyrosa The Investor


I delegate some of my SP, currently it's more than 1/3rd but I always try to stay around that 1/3rd so I leave most of my SP free to distribute to others. I delegate to projects that make me other tokens, like @splinterlands, it's one of those projects that will stay around for the foreseeable future and is therefore a 'safe bet'. I invested in SteemHUNT, earning me a nice chunk of HUNT tokens which can be used on the 2 other platforms they will launch in the future. I support @wherein since the idea that Steem could have a break-through in China makes me bullish.

I've not invested a lot with liquid tokens, but I'm currently powering down for 1 or max 2 weeks so I have some liquid STEEM to invest in... PAL? DEC? ENG? Some of these tokens might be really good investments and diversifying is a good thing. I'm grateful for steem-engine.com - I can't even imagine how Steem would look like without it. Way less lively than it is today, that's for sure.

I delegated some of my SP through @minnowbooster to @nathanmars who is doing amazing stuff for Steem's visibility and because it was him I felt my SP would be in good hands. This is earning me some daily passive return for a full 8 weeks.

I'm a pretty careful investor and it's one of those activities I would have never done with Fiat money - so I see it as a privilege to be able to do it on Steem as for now it's money I don't use in daily life so it's money that can make more money if I use it wisely. It's a whole new opportunity handed to me thanks to Steem. Being able to become an investor with STEEM (Power) taught me a lot.

I hope many more amazing opportunities will come for investors on Steem - both for STEEM holders as well as for Fiat.

soyrosa The Value bringer


There's this vague 'rewards are for those that bring value' idea on Steem which is never clearly defined but is interesting to think about. Who brings value? In my off-Steem life I'm that person that doesn't make functioning products but is really good at brainstorming and enhancing ideas and 'translating' technical stuff to 'normies' that aren't too technical. I'm that person you need so the team feels good, the individual feels heard, understood and coached into being a better version of themselves. I've always been that supportive person that people mostly miss when they're not there but don't always notice when they are.

In real life this made me quit my job as I liked/needed my income but hated that feeling which commercial companies can give you: make us money TODAY or I won't need you tomorrow. I'm not a money maker, I'm the one making sure everyone feels sane so they can keep doing their job.



@midlet made an image to help us reflect on our different roles on Steem. How would you define yours?


If I look at what I add to Steem it's similar to that: I'll patiently answer any n00b questions on technical stuff, pointing people the right way, not treating anyone like they're stupid.

There's enough of people around on Steem that are arrogant while thinking they're adding value. They probably are adding value even - at least in ways most people define value. But am I not?

There's other stuff I did in the past that earned me some community support bigger than my 'normal' circle of supporters, the most known probably being me approaching stateofthedapps.com after which they added Steem on their website - other things might involve simply working behind the scenes with people that are doing bigger things.

My content and community activities - do they add value though? I'm not sure. I write personal stuff, photo stuff, sometimes some Meta Steem stuff. I don't believe 'the big guys' who want to attract more 'value to Steem' see me as one of those value bringers. So I'll have to convince myself I am bringing value to this ecosystem or just believe that this value is reflected with the votes I'm getting.

If I look at those votes some people seem to think I'm pretty valuable. But am I more valuable than someone making 10 times less? I don't think so. Follow-up question: am I earning 10 times too much or are they earning 10 times too little? Should people who are like me earn 1 STEEM a day or 10 STEEM a day?

I don't have an answer, just thinking out loud here.


soyrosa The Rambler


Some thoughts that are currently going through my mind about my position in this ecosystem. This all came from a few very worthy posts from @midlet (read it here), @greencross (over here), @aggroed (over here) and a conversation with @phortun about curation rewards. Many other Steem voices are going through my head as well - from chat rooms on Telegram and Discord to individual posts or sometimes even single sentences... Many people are reflecting on their Steem journey and looking at their past and future involvement.

I might do follow-up posts and come to some real conclusions about one thing or the other - currently I'm just reflecting and pondering while still unsure where I stand on the current state of Steem and how HF21 will worsen or improve that. There's a huge interesting complex game going on between human and financial aspects in a way I've never been part of before. So yeah. It's all new, literally all of it. That makes me tend to enjoy the ride more than having some definitive/harsh/bullish opinions on it.

I tend to observe.

How about you? Any reflections going on in your head? Care to share? Or shared it already? Or know of someone who wrote a good post about it? I'd love to hear all your thoughts.

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I really like your post, especially laying out how important it is to provide value in order to get recognized by whales. Probably will do a similar post soon.

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Nice! Please plug the post here if you will so I can read it :-)

Sure! :-)

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Curating at the right time is good but upvoting to show you care about someones work is amazing. Keep up the good work and keep on steeming.

Thanks - I've done so for 1,5 years and probably will do so the next 1,5 too :D

Keep up the good work and keep on steeming.

You do the same! :D

Blimey, what hotel did you stay at? Some in Zone 4 are pretty cheap!

Ha! It was my favourite hotel (Citizen-M) and it was on top of the subway stop bringing me back to the train station next day. If I stay somewhere for 1 night I tend to go for the most convenient place so it saves me a lot of time for research - also having mobility problems I can't 'afford' cheaper hotels if they require more walking or extra taxi trips :-)

also having mobility problems

Ah OK, I didn't figure that into the equation.

It was worth every STEEM cent though! :D I had some great views from my hotel window plus their beds are amazing so I slept like a baby ;-)

great! aaaaand do you think one should be rewarded for a high score?
Right now self-voting, high frequent pseudo-posts and no communication is the most economical.

It truly is the most economical! And for now we don't know if that will ever change or if we will always see that behaviour make the most rewards. The HF21 might change that, a bit, a lot, or not at all - we'll have to wait and see.

You all are selfvoting?

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no but most people do. You can check on https://steemworld.org/@wakeupkitty if an author is self-voting. I mean its not illegal, but many people abuse the self-vote. Its a way to make money. When you have 10 or 20 votes per day, you can make some money. In your case its 20cent per day/1,4 Dollar per Week and 73$ in one year. When the Steem price is high its maybe 730$/per year. For bigger accounts its 7000$ per year.

Nicht der Sinn der Sache

I did see @midlet's post. And did think about it, I think that for right now to many things to think about, so i'm in a sort of holding pattern and no drastic change pattern waiting to see what HF21 brings. I am one of those people that like and don't like change. Change for the sake of change sucks, change because of stagnation can be good, but if the reason for the stagnation is mis-construed then the change can lead to disaster. But out of disasters often times comes great change, it is the waiting that is so hard to do. To know change is coming, is fine, but to know change might be coming kind of sucks, that 'might be' part, after all HF21 may or may not happen. The did reject one HF before after all.

All that you say is true :-) Change can bring other change as well - that's the interesting part. Even a 'bad outcome' might lead to 'something better' - so that's why I tend to wait and see. Doesn't mean it sometimes gets me emotional/enthusiastic/involved/curious haha - it's a rollercoaster on here sometimes. I'm curious to see if most are going to accept HF21 - for now some are 'testing' and I know of at least one top20 witness that is in doubt about HF21. I'm going to wait it out and am sure I can adapt - and hope most others will/can too. As always I'm mostly scared for the little ones and how we can keep them motivated.

I really like this post. I have to circle back around and figure out the same thing. You ask a lot of good questions here! When I have time I shall :)

Yes! Or take one or two of the questions and write about that. I just started writing and some of these popped in my head immediately, so just freewrite and see what happens :-)

Thanks a lot @soyrosa for the mention. I have read the post in its entirety and, once again, in my opinion, you are a valuable steemian. For all the reasons you give.

I like how you put it that some users like to support more the people and not the content. The same happened to me after spending that wonderful week in Krakow last November. Bigger than that was the feeling of being amongst people that were so aligned with my way of thinking, it didn't matter I was just a minnow and most of them were orcas or whales.

Which takes me to the painful question of are you receiving too much or are they receiving too little?, and to me, the answer to the question relies on all you have done in the past that has taken yiu to this point.

In other words, you have invested in the platform and on yourself, therefore you are reaping what you deserve for the value you bring.

But then again that's just my point of view.

Wish you all the best, and please continue with the great work

@greencross

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Thanks @greencross - loved your post and as you can see it was still on my mind today ;-) So there's a bit of proof you're adding value to this place as well ;-) In the end we're all engaging here and talking to each other all the time so if one adds value then surely it makes someone else adds value after which someone else might perceive to receive value and so on and so on...

I'm sorry we didn't get to talk at SteemFest but maybe we have a chance this year? I was still a Minnow at SteemFest myself and never felt excluded either. That's an amazing thing, once you get offline and not perceive the Steemians just as a range of numbers (SP, REP, VP) it's just that... a bunch of people loving and engaging with the same thing.

Cheers and thanks for your post and for all the nice words above!

I love this post - Will do a similar one for my two year anniversary in a few days. :)

Thanks! Please do! Would love to read how you define/reflect on yourself :-)
(Good on you for being here for 2 years already!)

Thank you so much for participating in the Partiko Delegation Plan Round 1! We really appreciate your support! As part of the delegation benefits, we just gave you a 3.00% upvote! Together, let’s change the world!

Glad you enjoyed the post. Some thoughts on value.

Not all value is quantifiable. As you mentioned, explaining things to noobs on a platform like this is extremely valuable, since everything is so hard to understand, but this sort of thing won't have a dollar sign associated with it. My love for my family can't be expressed in dollar figures, but it's the most valuable thing to me.

It gets confusing if you try to think about it in a black and white, quantifiable way, but it's quite easy when you think in the abstract macro picture. Are the things you're doing making Steem and it's experience better or worse?

I think it's pretty clear where you land on that scale :)

Not all value is quantifiable.

Absolutely. Which is why our 'content' is often only a 'carrier' for upvotes which reflect how people view us. Some content is of average quality but people upvote it because the person might have done something for the that day - or some content is really good but it's an exception in a series of shitty content/behaviour :')

I think it's pretty clear where you land on that scale :)

<3

Know that you're adding value to my Steem journey, I only recently 'discovered' your content but I appreciate both your art as well as your Steem reflections. Let's keep adding value to this messy place :D

My answer to your question is.......

You are not.

I don't understand the need for roles. Its just a platform where people engage on multiple levels. To be fair, I am someone who finds it unnecessary to have a reason for being in the outside world so perhaps this skews my thoughts somewhat.
So, as my answer was 'you are not' I can only tell you what you are to me.
Simply a nice person. I know that because of the very few engagements I've had with you here, and that's all I need from people so sorry, but nothing else matters to me.
If you enjoy being here, stay. If you don't leave. Life is too short to waste time if you don't feel valued. I'm not one for thinking too much!
You are @soyrosa and you are nice. So thank you for that :-)

:D

Oh, I so agree, we don't need the roles, but sometimes I feel defined by them or get confused by them, or see others struggle with them. All in all this is such a 'number based society' that I think we all have these moments when we're like 'why does my post earn...' or 'why does my REP stay...' or 'when will I be a Dolphin/Orca...' or - and so on and so on.

You are @soyrosa and you are nice. So thank you for that :-)

Thank you (!) and likewise - I value all my interactions with you and on most days I ignore all the roles and simply talk with people I like :D I hope this place will somehow find a way (on an UX/UI level we can make this happen!) that we all feel human first, instead of experiencing it numbers first :-)

content quality is really subjective thing, and it depends on what are you comparing it. i think i am below average blogger (comparing to bloggers), maybe a decent photographer (compared to photographers) and an average videomaker (compared to videographers). If you ask a lot of big boys/girls on steem i am #BELOWAVERAGECREATOR.

by checking my comments it looks like i am an average in engagement. around 50% of my recent comments have no answers. i am thinking i should engage more with new people (i just need to find easy way to find new people).

Distribution, in this one, even i find myself a "bad" curator (in terms of how should you curate to make profit), i am surprised every time @boddhisattva mentions me in his stats. few weeks ago i was at 170 place in distributing to accounts that have less than 55 rep (you can clearly see that something is wrong if i am at that place)

value to the community? well i am here every day, that is about it.

I noticed you were engaging a lot lately, saw your comments often on many posts I was reading too :D So it definitely was noticeable but I don't know how 'they' responded to you engaging more. Remember I ignored you too in the beginning (LOL I still feel ashamed about that :D) and now you're one of my favourite Steemians :D

But yeah, we keep on comparing ourselves to others - I guess that's human. You can 'define' yourself as below or above average and it still doesn't matter - sometimes it's pretty random if your content gets picked up. I told people in my last post (before this one) to follow you I hope some do :P

i am in just that mood lately so i am kinda sarcastically (there i great word for negative and it sounds nicer but I can't remember it 😀 )
i do look a lot of videos and photography and i am most of the time critical of my work so i try to be real 😀 belowaveragecreator is my new tag, as i heard some "big people" say that content on steem is shit and it just here to take their steem...
seen it, thanks for the shoutout 😀

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Most people are too lazy to comment I do not think it has to do with commitment at all.
They post, probably automatically upvote, read a bit and vote or just vote?

You can start freewriting. It takes 5 minutes of your time. Just writing without thinking. Grammar, style is not important. A promot is given.
Freewriters will comment see @mariannewest.

I assume you use Appics?

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most of my blogs are some kind of freewrite 😀 at least they feel like that to me 😀
i do use appics from time to time, i was in the "wrong" group of people in my beginning, so it feels weird to just post a photo 😁

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I would like to be an author, but have trouble writing.
I try hard to be a curator, but need more work at writing comments.
I power up almost all my earnings, but occasionally by SBI.
I do my best to engage with others, is that adding value?

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As far as I can see it you're working hard - and as mentioned in some other comments - everyone who is here is adding value in some way or another! I see you even joined #seven77 and doing your part in that - I love how Nathan made it so that people can work on Steem without the need to make a lot of content - I actually wish less people thought they needed to be content makers to add value here ;-) Keep on being you @mytechtrail!

Thanks for noticing. I guess I am bothered by all the posts that claim only quality posts should be here.

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I believe we need quality people more than quality posts - I'm hoping that Steem can become a blockchain for people who in a wide variety of ways can add 'value' by following their interests and engaging within their niche interests/communities.

Thank you, happy to hear that and I agree. @pixiepost turned a thought I have about STEEM communities into the following image:

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💗💗💗💗

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One of the great dreams of Steem, as I see it, is that it's a way to connect socially in a way that's actually productive. I'm not really involved with PALnet or other initiatives, but I do enjoy the notion of curation.

Maybe this is just me, but I find that my creative endeavors are motivated not by money (though money would help me focus on them more) but rather on whether or not they contribute. One of the things that I love about Steem is that every once in a while you'll hear from someone who really engaged with your content, and you have the opportunity to provide the same boost to other people.

With that said, I've never viewed curation as being what I get back, but always what I create with it. I'll sometimes buy SBI shares for people as a form of curation (this has a decent ROI, which is good if you're finding that you primarily vote minnows who don't wind up getting many votes, and also gives them a consistent stream of future upvotes).

that it's a way to connect socially in a way that's actually productive

It's definitely way more productive than any other social medium I've been part of - every :-) Although I even got some jobs by networking on twitter, so it's not that I never got value from other social media as well.

One of the things that I love about Steem is that every once in a while you'll hear from someone who really engaged with your content, and you have the opportunity to provide the same boost to other people.

Yes, this is my favourite part of Steem as well - I always have created content in one way or another but almost never did I get in real conversations - on other platforms a 'great shot!' or 'wow that's so pretty!' is all you get and on here there's often more thought put in the comments - which for artists or any other content creator is a great valuable thing to have :-)

SBI is awesome in that you both help yourself and someone else by buying them :-)

The thing I love about Steem is that I find it to be a consistently positive experience. I've had maybe two or three negative experiences during my whole time here, and a couple times when I went on and it was just a slow day (cough or a hardfork went wrong cough) but I have had hundreds or thousands of positive experiences for each bad one.

It's just a great platform for communication because people have stake in actually contributing to the point that it's worth something.

I like to think of it as the difference between my college required discussion boards back in the day, where everyone just wrote what they had to to get by, and the sort of conversations you'd have with friends. It's wonderful how much you can connect to people.

Steem is so cool, you can have so many different roles, great write-up 👍 how did you make this cool cover image?

Thanks :D I made the cover image in Photoshop! A cool background, a nice font or two and some tiny design elements - simple but effective! :-)

You are all the above and more ❤

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Awwwwwww <3 Thanks Sergio!

@soyrosa I appreciate the deep reflection that you are doing! Here's the thing that we all must understand not only in the Steem verse but in life. It's not about the job title, the label, or even what I think about you. It's about at the end of the day laying down and knowing I did the best I could and the right thing. A person can have more power, a better title, and even be a Whale, however they can still be an arrogant jerknthats not worth anything. Bringing real value means being true to yourself and others. Doing what ypu like well inspires others whom in turn sparks more interest and inspiration. This all begins because you are happy and dping what you want to do.

I try to being value and honestly I think on a scale of 1 to 10 I bring about 4 to 5. I support the community I am active in mainly SSG. I try to explore others post and up vote when I can and what I think is good. I like to comment and interact more than just a vote. This being said I don't have the time to invest everything I want into Steem or YouTube for that matter. Recently having a child had taken the time that I could invest and dropped it to 1/8th of what it was. I still try to keep up and invest in others because that's what I love about these communities. Like I said though I am happy with what I do even though I want to do more. Thanks so much for sharing!!

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Wow, that must have been one of the most honest and open self-reflection post I have ever read here, Rosa.

Well, I think it can be hard to find the balance between being the good Steemian who cares about the welfare of the community and the egoistic Steemian who cares just about his or her own profit. Moreover, this thing is highly individual as we are all different.

In my particular case, it is even a bit more complicated since I have been a full-time Steemian for almost all of my time here (just a few weeks after I registered on Steem - during those crazy times when Steem was close to its all-time high and a lot of people were making ridiculous money here - I was offered an interesting cooperation by one of the big accounts here and that was when I decided to abandon all of the other jobs and project I was working on back then and fully embark on the Steem career). I don´t want to sound pathetic but when your life kind of depends on Steem, the balance between the good and the egoistic Steemian gets affected by that, even if you don´t want to.

So yeah, this is probably why I upvote my own posts (sometimes even comments! talk about a real villain), use bid bots (sometimes), use autovoting (with some people), shitpost (occasionally), still participate in contests (even though it sometimes feels a bit weird and inappropriate with the 72 rep). The good Steemian in me tries to balance that out with manual curation, support of smaller accounts, newbies and my native Czech community, occasional high quality posts that require long hours of work and, most notably, a lot of contest and giveaways where I have already given away hundreds of Steems (in Steem, SBD and SBI).

Am I a value bringer? That´s a question others have to answer... I have just been doing my best to keep the full-time Steemian position (I love the idea of people being able to make their living by doing what they really like) while striving for a reasonably set balance between the two things I mentioned.

As for you, I think there is almost no balance. You are just the good Steemian all over ;) Btw, I have never asked, is Steem your only (or main) source of income too?

Wow, this is probably one of my longest comments on Steem ever. Thanks for inspiring me to put it together :)

Hey @phortun, glad you liked reading it - and even so much so that you made this long and interesting reply! :D

Yes - you touch on an important point here, where is the line between being a good and 'less good' Steemian? I think it's a huge grey scale and I also think we know of a few really bad Steemians, which makes a lot of other behaviour look pretty much GOOD.

I don't think we need to be 100% altruistic to be a good Steemian. If you invest time and even money or in your case your other jobs/carreer to be here and to 'make it here' - then we need some form of 'egoistic' behaviour - or we wouldn't be able to be here at all since we wouldn't make any income/ROI. Your behaviour makes sense to me seeing your story and you try to balance it - in the end it's all up to YOU what you do with your stake.

Every action has a consequence though, so those few Steemians that upvote their own posts 10x a days shouldn't expect a lot of extra community support... Doesn't make their actions 'not okay' - it's just a simple action-reaction thing in my opinion.

Btw, I have never asked, is Steem your only (or main) source of income too?

Well, I spend the most time here for sure :D As for income, is it income if you don't cash out? Because I don't. So far. I have some targets in my head that if STEEM makes it to those targets I will cash out some :-) I even keep some STEEM liquid for that case. I have som income in Fiat but it's irregular and I can't rely on it, so I'm pretty much in the same boat as you :D

Wow, this is probably one of my longest comments on Steem ever. Thanks for inspiring me to put it together :)

I feel honoured @phortun - you have a lot to say about your story, hope you feel motivated to keep on sharing <3 Cheers!

Thanks for your feedback Rosa, I really appreciate how you always reply to everyone, even though your comment sections are usually very busy (maybe that´s the reason actually :) Yeah, I sometimes feel the urge to say my whole story because people often see only what they want to see or what they can see "on the surface". I used to be accused of having inappropriately big rewards on my posts but what the people didn´t know was that it was actually also my "salary" for working for some other accounts. Moreover, few people know what it really feels like to take that risk and jump in something as risky and unpredictable as fulltime steeming, head first... But I still believe in this thing because I can see its enormous potential. And I am glad to find out that Rosa is in that boat with me haha :)) Thanks again for this inspiring post, it was also interesting to read the comments.

Steem is your only income? That will for sure give a lot of pressure.

If I had to live from my Steem earnings I died 1 year ago. But it explains a lot. It is no longer about just writing good content but a way to survive.

☘💕

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Well, it gives some pressure indeed. Especially when your fiat savings are diminishing alarmingly :D :/

I think you have earned your place and upvotes. In regards to those who do 10x worse than you, they have now PAL and SCT and soon tons of other communities to earn new tokens and get great upvotes there. People earn now more with PAL than with Steem, same is true for SPT and it hasn'T even a usecase yet. People just know that @splinterlands will come up with something cool, that everyone will want to spent SPT on.

Thanks @flauwy - appreciate the comment! And you are right - there are so many opportunities right now! Some community coins are becoming really valuable - it's interesting how that works, maybe because STEEM can be earned it's easier to trade it against other coins? Making the more valuable than if we had to trade them for BTC of buy them with FIAT? It doesn't matter, as long as everyone feels they can find some place on this blockchain that makes it worthwhile to stay active here :-)

I feel that I have several roles here as well. I came here as a content creator. Eventually, I became an investor as well. Investing gave me more of a say as a curator. When I bought my first chunk of Steem I used a lot of SP to reward people entering my contests. At that point I was getting 100 to 200 entries. So I consumed a lot of my SP. With the bear market my contests became considerably less popular. So I packed them in. These days I curate what I can but I also sell votes through smartmarket. I have my own blacklist to try and keep votes from bot abusers.

After HF21, I will put a lot more effort into curating content. I quite enjoy it. In the current environment, it feels frustrating putting a lot of effort into curating when I could earn 3 times more by doing nothing. So I am happy that is about to change.

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I gave up on Steem before. Reason: I found it boring, hardly any comment/respond, a waste of time.

Later (months later) I came back. Why? To leave some history behind for my kids. Stories I was not allowed to tell elsewhere (they been deleted and I was banned for telling about my childhood).

It was after HF20 so no way I could post, connect with others. This time some people gave me a hand.

Am I valuable to the community?
I would not know why not. I am still here, write way more as most, all on my cellphone. I try to join and promote what I consider as good content (which is not the boring content written for academics and insiders only).

I still do not understand even 50% of what is going on here and how it all works. Might be I am too stupid and could be rich by now, but (yes there is a but) I do not like to kiss butts, I do not want to be played as a puppet.
I am here to write, to read and leave over 50 comments daily (Twitter not counted). All with a smartphone and very slow connection.

Might be people like to see the author and reward that, but if so this means only the rich are able too and rich only helps out rich?

I wonder how many became big without buying steem, getting delegations or an automatic upvote, just by writing good content, commenting, connecting, reaching out to others.
How many do stay in touch with all their followers?

I wish you.a great day, liked reading your post ☘💕

Posted using Partiko Android

I have to separate this a little. In all honesty I think HF 21 is a Steemit Inc demand and the consensus witnesses look to be jumping right in to take care of the stake. I don't often say stuff like that in public because I really like this place and want it to succeed.

Which, I guess, if I have to think about it makes me an apologist/cheerleader :)

To the other, more significant part: If you don't bring value to this place EVERY DAY then the rest of us may as well go home. Seriously. If you don't, who does?

It's weird around here right now. For the most part, only the dedicated 'value adders' or the 'value detractors' (shitpost, plagiarism, multi account etc) are here. Those that care deeply or those that are willing to 'make money' on 5 cent posts repeated 1000 times. There is no middle right now.

Agggghhhh. I didn't mean for this to become a rant. I did mean to chew your ass a little for devaluating the truly wonderful work you do around here.

You may have to work a little harder than normal to find that here...

I am so curious on your thoughts... the ones you didn't share .. hahaha

There's been so much said about HF21... my heads spinning
So, now I am just doing a wait and see

It seems though for someone with a high rep it's almost not worth anymore to be an author since many curation projects exclude high rep authors.

I dig the Rambler in you and you've always been a great writer, hands down. Much love hun🤗🤗

Posted using Partiko Android

You got a 30.66% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @soyrosa! :)

@ocdb is a non-profit bidbot for whitelisted Steemians, current max bid is 25 SBD and the equivalent amount in STEEM.
Check our website https://thegoodwhales.io/ for the whitelist, queue and delegation info. Join our Discord channel for more information.

If you like what @ocd does, consider voting for ocd-witness through SteemConnect or on the Steemit Witnesses page. :)