Hey Artists! I'm up-voting for good answers. This is a discussion about steem as an artist platform
"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."
While our boy Jean was discussing movie making, what he says here is about art itself. Money has a stifling power on creativity, it is a restriction on the efficiency of truth.
I'm laying the groundwork for an organization which exists to strengthen the chances for artists to live and create independently, under their own power. I'm looking to raise awarness of existing tools and incubate new tools that will help strengthen a diversity of cultural voices through art. Steem is a growing into a great tool for artists to make some extra income on their work, and build ownership in the platform they use. However I think it could be an even better tool, most of you probably do as well.
In general I am wondering, how can we improve steem to better fit the needs of artists? What is it missing? What would be a cool feature? Let's share the tools we all use that already exist, and dream about what else could be here to make this a viable platform.
Feel free to address any of the following prompts:
Posting:
Do you post your own Art on steem? Would you use it as a portfolio and send a link to folks interested in your work? What would steem need to become a primary social media platform for your art? Could it ever replace your personal website, what would that take?
Viewing:
What's your experience viewing art on steem? How is the content? Do you use any of the alternative steem browsers (like busy.org, dtube, etc) What are your favorite? Would you use steem if it didn't make you money, and why? What are your favorite art #tags?
Curating:
How does steem compare to tumblr, instagram, reddit or any of your favorite social media when it comes to curating (resteem)? What works well, what is difficult? Do you use any tools like steem-plus?
I'll start it off here, and add more questions if they come up.
This is an upvote funded discussion. Make a comment that builds on an idea, and i'll give you 80 cents. It's the best I can do right now, but I encourage everyone to upvote interesting comments. This is posted in #artnode a new tag to create a space for discussions like this one. I'll upvote good comments even if it's an old topic!
I've mentioned this in comments but not in a post(maybe I should) but I think we'd need a new frontend just for art. Posting art on Steemit is not very good in it's current state and I think the reasons that artists are posting here is 1. Obviously, because of the money, but 2. since the community is still small it's a lot easier to get to know people and make real connections.
So at a technical level, we'd need to be able to show our work at a very high resolution without having to ask the user to do something like, "right click this and open in a new tab to see high res", or "go to x platform to see full res" You want people to see your work in full detail here without having to think about it or go somewhere else.
Typically this is done by having the default on-click functionality be that the artwork opens in a hover state filling the screen.
The other aspect that makes Steemit itself unfit for a portfolio replacement is we'd need to see multiple images from multiple posts all at once. You'd also need to control which images show up where. On Steemit everything is in chronological order, but I think an artist frontend would need to make it to where you could put posts out of order, as well as show them in interesting layouts.
Those are the big ideas, but each one could be broken down much further.
Are you working on developing an art frontend? I'd be open to working with you on that if you are. I can work on UI/UX as I have experience in these areas.
Regarding the image resolution, are you suggesting something like what the blog application WordPress does to images? One uploads an image and WordPress automatically creates different sizes. The different sizes are displayed based on the site visitor's browser settings. That way, mobile users aren't waiting for an enormous image to download over their slow connection.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/12/responsive-images-in-wordpress-core/
I'm actually not sure what's going on behind the scenes in the examples I'm referring to. I'm going to post them below as a response to @solar so you'll be able to see.
Glad you joined in again @midlet. Do you have examples of sites that function in some of these ways you describe? I am thinking about building a steem browser that is focused on art. As you say, a portfolio site with the steem blockchain integrated would be a dream, but obviously would be more complicated. UI features are essential, but I also think that some more advanced moderating is needed in order to make a site that viewers and consumers want to visit as well. While I'm all for the democratization of curating, I think a platform like this needs curators with a shared set of values in order to create a cohesive experience.
I'd love to build it with a kind of co-op model, and open source, but of course funding is an issue to figure out. I've started these discussions to see what the priorities are and to get people interested. I'd love to talk to you more about this.
I'd love to keep talking about this on steem as well, but If you or anyone else would like to talk more in a chat situation you can find me on discord here: https://discord.gg/MTu9Fe (this link will expire after a day).
Yes, here are a few examples @solar
http://characterdesignreferences.tumblr.com/
Then there's https://www.artstation.com/ which as of now is probably the largest site where artists are creating portfolios. It's a bit more complex, but you can see some of the ideas in action.
I joined the discord also, I'll look for you there!
Yo, check this tool out
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@sambillingham/steemconnect-node-js-boilerplate-for-rapid-development-v-0-3-0
Oh wow! Looks really cool. Gonna dive into this a bit deeper when I get some time. Thanks for the heads up @solar!
As it is now, I probably wont link people to my page here due to the fact that there is no customizable way to present your page. I use Artstation as a portfolio site at the moment, and while it isn't perfect, it allows me to present my work in an aesthetically pleasing way. Here on steemit, that just isn't the case.
This falls into viewing as well, I wish there was a way to make a thumbnail for posts that wasn't also the first image you upload in the post. Being able to customize even this would free up some formatting of our work on here. The other thing would to hopefully allow for a mix of curating and creating original content. There could be three tabs on your steemit blog, one for resteems, another for original articles and another for both. Being able to choose which is on display when people visit your blog would be awesome.
As for curating, I would say reteeming here works most like tumblr and twitter. Although tumblr allows for people to attach a comment/contribution to the post when reblogged. This isn't always good or warranted, but it does result in some crazy collaborative posts.
How do you feel about Instagram? I don'be believe that there is a way to customize your home page, but I think many people use it as a main way to get their art out there.
I agree that being able to set a separate thumbnail would be good. Part of the issue here is about creating compatibility in formatting across different steem browsers, there will only be more in the future and formatting has to stay relatively simple so it can be integrated into different viewing modes. I bet it's solvable though.
Yeah, adding content to a resteem would be interesting, I feel like most platforms have an option for this.
Tell me more about collaborative posts on tumblr. Is that something that you miss on steem? Can you explain how these work and what you like about them, do you have examples?
Hi @solar! ⚡️I'll share some of my experience here, even though I started posting not so long ago. Since the ages of myspace I've been using social media platforms mostly to share my work, since it has allways been visual stuff I'm not used to write very much about it. Of course each platform requires different ways of posting, some are mainly visual (like instagram or behance) and others are more the blogging type, like Steemit.
To be honest, I've left behind pretty much all the mainstream social media (haven't posted in a while) because I came to the realization that they might be taking away some energy and time from me, instead of providing me with a more uplifting feeling, among other reasons.
Money is always a very good motivation, but that's not entirely why I'm enjoying the Steemit experience. Contrary to other mainstream social media where content tends to be empty sometimes, here it is required to share valuable content, and I find this very interesting in terms of the effect it has on people. People need to think twice before posting, and make sure that what is being shared or said has some kind of transcendance.
As a visual artist/communicator I consider Steemit a very good creative catalyst, in my personal experience, it has allowed me to share ideas beyond the artworks, reflect on the images I create, and develop new visual stuff inspired on written ideas that wouldn't be explored otherwise.
So for me is like a visual journal, where my thoughts on different topics are no longer separated from my visual Art, and for the first time I can put together all that's in my head, observe it, share it, and not getting empty feedback (people really take their time to read and comment).
So, from my perspective, Steemit is an amazing place to share Art and everything behind it (inspiration, process...etc) I wouldn't use it as a portfolio, but as a personal blog inside my website that tells the story and details behind my work and myself.
Have a beautiful weekend! ✨
Wow, thanks for the awesome comment. I'm glad steem has been working so well for you.
How do you build your website currently? Maybe steem needs customizable feed widgets
I think Steemit is a better place for talking about art than any platform I've found since Livejournal, and it might be better than LJ. Whether that's talking about making art, collecting art, critical discourse, curation in the real-world sense, all of that has an incredible potential the way the platform is now.
On the flipside, for displaying and selling art it's not that great. And I guess my deep question for this topic is how do we improve that aspect of things without crippling the part that's working, which is considerably rarer.
Livejournal was not good at that at all. Usenet was not good at that at all for the text-focused art it was really good for discussion of. (Fiction, poetry, creative nonfic, etc.) Patreon really isn't good at either of them. I don't think this is a problem we can usefully look at others' solutions for because I don't know of any.
Somebody's going to have to come up with something groundbreaking to make it work.
First, thank you very much you upvote my posts often. I appreciate it.
I joined steemit on Aug2017 but really started to use it on Dec2017.
It is the best social network for my art now. I am thinking about quickly growing group of my followers and quick discussions - word support and connectivity to od
ther artists. Because I became fultime artist with 3 children and wife at home, any cent is good:) As an artist I can not go to work and do a slave. I tried it for a too long time and I really suffer.
I have to sell my art under real value now so some earning by posting could help me to gain time for my better and more free artworks.
I oten ask myself about steemit:
I use bots, because I want to boost my SP and be able support new members. Yes, it could be fine to earn some money every month in future also.
The problem is I mean:
many tags - many closed and invisible groups
(art is full of waste)
I use slothicorn, fineartnow, ocd-resteem, artzone, paintings, steemartists... (I don´t know what I should think about it, for me it is maybe early to valuate it and maybe I don´t know enough about it, thanks for recommendations)
It could be good I mean if there will be possibility of some "channel" or "room" for joining artists and artlovers. Something where artists could present their works for big artloving curators and art collectors. Now it is about fortune that someone suitable will see me here....
Great post, thank for this discussion!
What Im realizing is steem should really be described as a content market economy. It also has a sort of anarchist investor co-op thing going on.
Steem is growing by investors shaping the cost and reward of "rent" on the system. This takes place through inflation brought on by the reward pool and witness rewards. Organizations like @utopian-io shape delegations towards interesting open source projects. This is a really healthy exciting platform because it shows how automated economies can be self healing, self evolving, and all around self-perpetuated.
There aren't many repercussions for people acting extremely selfishly however. @velimir is an interesting one. I think his self upvotes through adsactly are bad for the platform, but @adsactly seems to fund some good stuff for the platform, like @steem-plus (which is a fantastic tool that everyone should check out, for anyone who uses reddit, it's like RES). Although adsactly seems like his operation, it brands itself as being a group of people, haven't quite figured them out yet. Right now as long as big whales are using their power to build good tools for steem, there arent many on the platform that can or will do anything about it. Especially if their posting and voting behavior if is otherwise following the rules. I think this is of the belief that because of bots and anonymous secondary accounts, it becomes impossible to enforce any rules about self voting, so it has becomes a tolerated practice for all, instead of slapping on the wrist only those who make it obvious. I've come to see this as a good thing, but it is a flawed system. I believe SMTs will address much of this issue, but I dont follow development on that as much as I should.
Id love it if @velimir chimed in on this but he and I might have started off on the wrong foot.
That's funny because for everyone you find who says self upvoting is bad someone else will say it's fine. There's really no actual rule on it, and why wouldn't you?
Also I think it's velimir not velmir.
Ah thanks for catching that typo.
Also thanks for your super response below, ill respond in a little bit.
The problem with what velimir is doing in my opinion is against his own longterm self interest. He has a huge stake in steem with adsactly, but he proves how the system is broken to every new visitor to steem. I've had several friends express extreme confusion seeing the 'trending' page His work is the highest paid work on steem multiple posts a day while other artists are getting pennies. If he took half of those upvotes and gave them to other artists steem would be a more valuable platform.
So to answer your question, wouldn't I? No, Id focus on helping steem make the world a better place, which is what Im trying to do even with a minnow stake.
Fair enough, good point! I guess balance is good here as with most things haha.
Thank you for answer. I installed steem-plus and I should login via steemconnect with my steemit key? Is it safe?
That's a good question. I researched steemconnect and it is an official steem application: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemconnect-2-0-easy-fast-efficient-access-to-the-steem-blockchain that being said, make sure the URL of steemconnect is correct before you use it.
Thank you, I will study that. What does mean accounts as freedom? many followers, no follovings and a lot of SP. Why do people follow this? And what is it for in general. Thank you for your time. Many things I don´t understand. Could steem-plus help me for growing?
the link was to the official stem-it blog.
I'm not sure about the freedom thing, i don't understand.
Steem plus gives more options for using steem such as filters, and universal login to all steem sites that use steemconnect.
Is Czech your main language? Maybe there is some documentation in Czech about it? I can help more if you don't understand.
It´s OK I understand english. My problem is, that I don´t understand how steemit works and how steem is made in general - how post gets a wave and became trending.... my problem, thank you for your support and help.
Yeah there is so much to unravel for sure. There are many blogposts, but finding posts with the right amount of technical understanding for yourself is tough as there are lots of bad articles too. If I get a chance ill try to find a good set and share it.
Posting
Yes, I post my webcomics on Steemit. To make it my primary platform, it would need to be my most active audience. To replace my personal website, I would need to be able to remove or overwrite posts.
Viewing
I only use Steemit to view Steemit posts. I would still use Steemit if it didn't directly earn me money as long as the audience is present and active. However, you'll notice views and up-votes wane when the Steem price goes down. If Steem became worthless, I think this place would become a ghost town.
Curating
The search functionality isn't powerful enough. I want to see webcomics, not memes or random pictures of someone's lunch. Outside of the #steem-cartoon and #steemit-webcomics tags, you have to look through a lot of mud to find the gold nuggets.
We have specialty Steem sites like Dmania for memes and Dtube for videos. I'd like to see a specialty Steemit site for webcomics. I imagine a site like Tapas.io where webcomics creators get paid in Steem. The proposed site's interface would support adding navigation, like chapters and previous/next buttons, that are impossible to do on Steemit after the 7-day payout. I think building a site like that will be easier with the Communities feature in Steem's next hard-fork.
Hopefully much of this is addressed with SMTs. But if it's not, we can put something together as a really solid open source project and fund it through utopian.io possibly.
Great questions and topic - probably the first of its kind I've seen since joining steemit in June 2017!
After 10 months on this platform, I mostly use steemit to showcase my art, but almost always with a twist.
The nature of steemit makes for alot of different dynamics (inherent in steemit's nature: posts have an actual pay-out, post have a week in which their value is determined (older posts become more or less 'worthless', unless for reference, or archival-value), actally 24 hours is almost the lifespan of any post I've made (but that may be similar to Twitter etc..)
So steemit is different than a portfolio-website, different that reddit, instagram, facebook, what have ye. And allows me to experiment more with bringing my art online - I can tell stories, I'm seeking and getting interaction, I can try fun and chaotic experiments, all based on my paintings and art.
If I used steemit as a portfolio, or regular place to just showcase my work, I would've left long ago (proabably because it takes a lot of time to build up your audience here - but maybe steemit is just still young, and not so many artists/art lovers have found their way here).
The same if we wouldn't be rewarded in steem, I would've left a while ago (the possibility that the crypto will be worth more some day makes the time and effort mostly worth their while).
Could steemit improve for artists? You bet, as it isn't designed with artists in mind. But I like to work my way around that, by showcasing more than just my art, and by trying to interact with my audience, something other sites cannot do.
Thanks for this, hope this helps a bit, and I'm willing to expand of course!
Yeah, steem has only just started to bud with interested artists. I don't think the viewership is hardly there at all for artists on steem based on the 'view' count (of course im unsure of the fine metric here).
Its growing though for sure, its way more active with artists than a year ago.
I like what you've been working on, everyone should check out @marty-art he's got a unique approach
Thanks, that is good to hear, and gives me hope to keep going at it on steemit! :)
I've seen many artists join and fade over the year though - not only artists come to think of it...
Thanks for the heads up, cheers!
Very interesting its proposal, made me think that Steemit is ideal to share and publish art, as many other tools, however it could be interesting the possibility of a tool that takes advantage of cryptocurrencies to somehow contact between the designer and the client or who wants to use the work, so that he can thank through up-votes or with direct payments for the files in high resolution or vectorized formats.
Yeah, check out @utopian-io they are doing this already for open source funding. Id like to focus on non commercial art, but im interested in building an array of tools for artists.
YES YES and YES... steem could be such a great place for artitsts!
On steem it is possible to create value by appreciating original creative ideas and the ensuing social engagement... In a way, it is making it possible to "reward" the human ingenuity... it's called "proof-of-brain" for a reason... and ART is certainly the most human act of creation possible only by our cognitive virtues.
That said, I believe steem is missing a good app to showcase media arts well. While steemit and other major apps like busy etc work well for generic content, audio/visual art often falls short. I'd love to see a "lightbox" feature for images on steemit (click to enlarge in layer without leaving the page) and better video/audio-embedding options.
I am convinced there will be huge potential with dedicated communities, SMTs and new frontend-services built around that.... but most of all, I believe the blockchain fundamentals hold tremendous potential for an art-driven-community... not even neccessarily ON steem itself.
I think for the viewing one quick and easy change would be making the personal blog in a grid, much like when you see someone's profile on Instagram. But it could be little cards, like picture plus the title text underneath, and fit like 3 across running down the page. Or make them even bigger, I really don't understand why websites these days insist on this design where there is a narrow stream of content in the middle with big fat white blank areas on the sides. That's fair enough if it's text so you don't get buried under it from a whole page hitting you in the face, but the desired experience for looking at pictures is always as big as possible right? Busy is a bit nicer for viewing now but it's also hindered by the narrow middle column design thinking (as is BTW the new Reddit redesign).
Something that's needed is also a nicely made post scheduling feature. Right now SteemAuto does that, and in Busy you can save drafts, but neither is as clear and intuitive as say doing it on a Facebook page. Where you can go back anytime and edit it or reschedule and do what you want with it. Steemit flat out doesn't do it. I mean you can always do the thing of writing out your article and then copy pasting it into a text file and then copying back when you need it but there should really be a neat tool that does this natively.
Absolutely I want to use Dtube and Dlive and I like the fact that with Steemconnect and the Steem blockchain you can build new tools that sit on there and users can automatically add themselves to. It's kind of like the Google ecosystem where when you make a user you get gmail and google+ and youtube and drive and so forth with it, isn't it? Except here it's you got yourself a Steemit user, now you can also use whatever other program comes along through SteemConnect if you like (sometimes they take a portion of your earnings so watch out). Actually one of the big draws to the platform for me was that you can upload your pictures in big fat nice resolution and it won't start messing it up with horrible compression. Facebook I think is the worst when it comes to that, and it outright mangles videos. The FB video player is seriously in the running for worst video player on the internet, it is so shockingly bad. That said, I do hope DTube ups their game when it comes to the buffering and the resolution itself, because I can upload things as high res as I like but I can see it only in 480p. I tried "original", assuming that's the original res but it never actually worked. So hell yeah I want to see proper 4K in the future, and maybe even a neat downloading function. I've used various youtube video downloading tools in the past year or so more than I could count, because I just dislike doubling up on slow downloads of the same hour long Blender tutorial but just download the same thing.
When it comes to the money aspect, I haven't made an official statement on it yet but you bet I am working the platform in every way to try and make some kind of living for myself. I don't have a job right now, I'm not even professionally an artist, I actually studied Nanotechnology but there are seriously fuck all jobs here where I am (Melbourne), or in general. When you look at the amount of jobs that are actually advertised vs the number of people graduating every year, it's fuck all, seriously. So I make stuff for my TESSEL project because honestly I like doing it and I want to get good at it, expand into proper animation, VFX for movies, my own little series and movies. To date I love it because it's the opposite of my experience in academia. Instead of sitting through YEARS of classes on things being told lies about how in the future someone's gonna value that and give you a job, and basically hanging on trying to pass exams rather than actually learning something, in 3D CGI art your education and "qualifications" mean exactly jack shit. No one cares that you attended this fancy art school or that seminar or so forth. Show me what you've made. Oh you haven't made anything, because "you didn't get hired"? Well perhaps you should make something then? You know, show people the goods of what you can make. And hey look at that, build an actual audience while you're doing that! Then you can go to some cool artist you want to collaborate to, or apply to some studio or something and show them hey look I'm freelancing and do things for fun but look what I made and what I've learned etc.
Long-ass argument lol but basically I enjoy it because it feels like it's one of the last things that at least on the user experience is somewhat meritocratic. You look at thing or you listen to thing, and your brain tells you whether it's good or not. It may look for bullshit arguments that rationalise it towards either good or bad based on completely external factors, but basically what you see is what you get. So I like that. I can't say that I'm any big shot in actual artistry but hey I'm genuinely trying and even in trying it makes me appreciate the stuff others do so much more.
And well, if I could squeeze a very basic livelihood out of Steem that'd be grand, because if I don't get that there is no more TESSEL, friend. And I would very much like to spend my time thinking up cool new things to make than being stressed out trying to work every angle to somehow make a living. People can then harp on up and down over people being greedy or abusing the platform or selling out or not, but the fact is we don't live in a dreamworld and if you don't even deign me something so basic as money to pay the rent and bills then frankly I'm not gonna spend time here. The number one selling point of Steemit is the fact that monetisation is built into the platform and decentralised. For better or for worse that is, it's far from perfect. It's very much a reflection on ourselves the same way the whole cryptocurrency phenomenon is. The big piece of kind of like conceptual art that Satoshi pulled on people so far to me has served to hold up a big mirror on how ugly we as a species really are. People get all butthurt, oh if it wasn't for LIBOR fucking with the international moneylending market, if it wasn't for the Federal Reserve printing money whenever they want and just hush hush the quantitative easing along, if only it wasn't for the US government doing all the fucked things and passing one corporate serving law after another, oh then everything would be great. Well here's your completely unsanctioned, raw as fuck free cryptocurrency with no LIBOR or CIA or Federal Reserve or WTO shitting up your economy. And yet we see the same shit, exchanges fleecing people, people bending over backwards to try and scam every little bit of money from regular people while talking big game like investing in this week's shitcoin is somehow sound financial advice. I was actually majorly burned out from Bitcoin and altcoins after about 2015 and left that smouldering pile of shit behind me because frankly fuck it all. However, Steemit is the first I have directly experienced to actually do something. Like seriously, 9 out of 10 altcoins do the same thing bitcoin does. Who the fuck cares. But this shit actually does something, people run a big forum on this thing, it's great. It could be the future of media.
But anyway coming back to the original question lol I think the big problem of Steemit right now is definitely the lack of users. A lot of the bad things around the culture of Steemit would be solved easily by there just being a lot of genuine users exercising critical appreciation of things that would drown out the bad stuff. That and the tags suck lol. I just don't like tag based platform management, it always ends up a tangled mess where everything has 10 tags in the post and you have the same shit everywhere because of the tag spamming. I REALLY hope the Hivemind / Communities stuff ends up helping us out of that, it would be cool to set up little collectives where you can focus your efforts on making that nice rather than always feeling like you're up against the whole platform.
So right now for me at least, Reddit and Facebook are the home of information. Steemit is useful for its own purposes but those two is where I go to actually see good stuff. Like I said this can be helped by having more actual users here. Likewise I don't know what can be done to curb the relentless shit posting, all of actual enforcement on this platform is entirely down to cashed up vigilante people going around whacking people with flags whenever they feel someone overstepped some rule of theirs. This sort of thing never, ever actually works lol. There are not clear rules here and it doesn't even matter because you're not gonna be able to do shit about the fact that someone just slammed you with a -10 dollar flag. Or even harasses you constantly flagging everything you make because frankly they're not right in the head. Worse yet, make a bot that harasses people with flags automatically (yes those exist, abusereports is one of them). To me personally that is infinitely more hurtful than any shitposter on the platform. I can choose to not look at shit posts, I can't choose not being flagged by some abusive asshole. And indeed that too can be overcome by having enough users but you still need literally thousands of new user upvotes to make up for that 10 dollar flag, which is in itself super lopsided tbh. The business case for buying Steem as a regular person has yet to be made properly, because right now you wouldn't pay money to use Facebook or Reddit so why the hell would you pay to use Steemit?
Please forgive that this is so long winded and rambling haha.
I was just watching a recent interview of with one of the developers of digibyte, and one of their biggest features is multi algo mining. Maybe filtering needs to be multi algo, a mix between upvotes, dollar value, and moderator votes ( as a second layer on a #tag for example )
Although a bit chicken and the egg, i believe users will follow good content. I agree that community moderated communities are essential. I believe SMTs are a crude version of this, but token systems do leave quite a lot of room for creativity in how they are used and built on.
Ah now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yeah I can't say I know anything about these smart media tokens tbh. Should read up about it.
There is a smt whitepaper. I think it is rather laymans, and really just outlines the skeleton of it. Its worth reading though, and I believe the official steemit blog has some more recent updates on it.
Ah yeah cool beans, thanks you!
Hey sorry for never replying. I started a reply and then never finished it! All of this is even more relevant now in a this bear market than before. So many issues on the platform. Here is what I started to write:
Thanks for your response. It's a hard problem, but I do think steem can fix itself. Like I said above, i've started to see steem as an art market, and the only way to operate with the current leeches who own half the platform is to use the steem power in any account to it's absolute fullest. Up until now it's all be very technical focus, and people experimenting, and the way the platform is used has continued to evolve.. I think steem has a had a very haphazard distribution plan, this is it's biggest weakness. Delegation on the platform has not been organized well, we need better curators, and more artists on the platform as you say. This is something I hope to address.