[FOR NEW USERS] 4 Things I've learnt about Steemit

I came onto the site with an interest in Cryptocurrencies and a healthy disillusionment of facepalmbook. My first thought as was "How on earth would the price of this go up when people can use it for free and make money from it? Why would anyone invest in it?" What I didn't understand was the quite brilliant ecosystem that they've set up. At first, I used Steemit to get info, basically asking questions and testing it out. Then I forgot about it. Until it was listed on Poloniex and I saw the price of Steem skyrocket.

So I went back and explored more, tried reading the white paper a couple of times, asked more questions and read more articles.

This is what I've learnt:

1. It's a brilliant ecosystem

They are giving away Steem Power, thus making each new user a long term investor. It takes 2 years to turn your Steem Power into actual money that you can spend on things. And not only that, Steem Power is a compelling long term investment. As each new Steem comes into existence 90% of those go to people hodling Steem Power in the form of interest. 10% goes to Steem Dollars. So in order to keep up with the inflation of Steem most users will (should?) turn their Steem Dollars into Steem and then Steem Power (assuming rationality - I know big assumption). It's fertile ground and will grow in stability as it grows.

2. Vote for what you like rather than what you think will be popular

You really can't make much money trying to curate or find good content. Firstly, you either wait 30 mins or get in early and give up a % of what you could make. But even if you get in at the perfect time and the post goes on to make big $$ you're still not going to make much. This is especially so when you don't have much Steem Power. Yes, they've put in an incentive to upvote posts and look for good content but there is not much monetary incentive to upvote. What is far bigger is the psychological incentive. Just like upvoting something on reddit or liking on facebook, showing your approval or wanting to draw attention to something is a good feeling. So vote for what you like rather than as an investment tool.

3. Timin....g

When you post matters a lot. I don't know what tactic to use here but I think it's important. I wrote an intro piece and submitted it at midnight (Germany time) and it barely got any interest. I thought it was a good piece so I thought I'd experiment and basically reposted it with some very minor edits 3 days later. It got way more interest and made me $119.08. I tried another post about my favourite podcasts which I thought was informative, helpful and interesting and it got me a few interested people and no money. I posted that at what I thought was a heavy traffic time. So I'm guessing that good posts can get buried quickly during heavy traffic or not noticed when most people are asleep. Trying to find the balance is hard.

4. Anything that blows Steemit's trumpet is popular.

There are 2 things happening here. Firstly the whales are the devs so of course they're going to vote for content that they think will spread their userbase. Then, people who vote know this, and so they try to get in on these types of posts because they think they can make some money. Or perhaps they agree and want the userbase to grow as well. I, personally, would LOVE to see Steemit grow. But it is a bit boring to see the same types of articles trending. Hopefully, there'll be an evolution of what people are interested in. And with further development of the platform we'll be able to craft better what gets shown to us and what we show. Friends/Followers networks will also enhance this.

If any of the info I've presented is incorrect please correct me. I'm not an expert, just a new user trying to grapple with a new game.