I've been thinking alot about the whales, dolphins and minnows problem.
One of the reasons I left Reddit, is because I felt like the community was dismissive of alternative opinions, and the community quickly developed into a group of individuals who fit the "redditor meme". All the content was similar, and the front page rarely saw alternative content.
That is my fear with Steemit. A small minority of individuals hold most of the power, and people who recently joined like me feel relatively powerless. On top of that, I am afraid that those individuals who hold most of the power hold a distinct set of tastes that will turn Steemit into a platform that creates "typical Steemitors" and only content that is popular with the whales will see the light of day.
DONT GET ME WRONG
The whales deserve the extra voting power. As early adopters and believers in Steemit, they should weild a mighty force. I guess I am just wondering how the Steemit community plans to address this, and how we can ensure we don't turn into a stale community like reddit. One of the things I love about 4chan is that no one gets more power and you can post anything you want. The things you see first are the things that were most recently active. (Obviously 4chan is not a community that Steemit wants to emulate, but you get the point)
Any plans for steemit to address this? How can we ensure topics or ideas we don't agree with are not excluded? I would love to discuss this!!!
I upvoted You
Never thought of the site going stale due to whales aspect. I think my worries are more related to the whales turning Steemit into a "How to Steemit" site.
I can completely relate to that feeling. I never felt at home on Reddit. It always felt like an all-or-nothing kinda place, and I was never prepared to invest a lot of time getting my head around it all.
While Steemit is similar in many ways, I think the community here is very welcoming. I felt very new when I started 2 weeks ago and I've already made some real friends.
Give it a whirl. I think you'll do OK once you're being sincere and engaging.
I think you have a huge point. How about this one... What if Hillary Clinton and her entire crew were to join Steemit? They would own FAR MORE Steem Power than you could ever hope for. Now they control social media... Right?
Whales are losing their influence, you know how we create an amazing atmosphere, participate. That's it that's all, we just need people to upvote content they actually enjoy and steemit will thrive. Does this mean that we cant upvote shit that we think will become valuable? No it does not, what it does mean is when someone sees content they actually enjoy they should upvote regardless of the financial incentive. If people skip past shit they actually enjoy just because they're looking for financial gain then steemit will die. Other then that and code/hacking problems I don't see too much that's going to hinder the growth of this platform.
Like I said the SP is becoming much more distributed, the middle class will do nothing but grow and grow but only if people actually upvote decently naturally, greed doesnt even have to go anywhere as long as were still upvoting the content we actually enjoy.
For myself I upvote alot of fitness/health shit, computer shit, video game shit, nature, and what ever else catches my eye regardless of the monentary amount. I also go looking for potential hot articles as well but I don't ignore the content that I specifically enjoy. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only dolphin voting that way but in reality i'm sure most people are voting like this seeing as the distributions are mathematically evening out.
Whales are a quick way to rise. Yet we rise despite them. It just takes some work on our part. Make good posts, post about the things you like, even without the whales you do rise. It simply may not be as quick, yet you'll still be getting paid to do what you already do for free on reddit.
I expect Steemit will develop a certain flavor. I've certainly been enjoying a break from the facebook style of posts. What's exciting to me is that I feel challenged as a writer and designer to be as creative a participant as possible and to tap into the deep potential so many feel here. There is joy in participation, here. I think many experience waves of excitement and bummedness and yet there is such potential to be changed by the experience, to develop a new portfolio of works, to be inspired. I believe Steemit will continue to be playful and optimistic and enterprising, especially as it gains in reputation. I'm kindof banking on the power players continuing to be awesome. The way we ensure that topics or ideas we don't agree with aren't excluded is to write balanced works, to upvote writing that is relevant without being flash news, poignant without merely musing, respectable without being perfunctory and passionate without being full of it. I'm hoping Steemit posts become known for their ethos, clarity and balls.
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