It is important to have multiple income streams, living off Steemit is not enough
Diversify your seeds to reap wide benefits from your crops
We learn in finance that diversification is a means of spreading risk. We learn in business that compliance is a method of reducing regulatory and legal risks. We learn in development and engineering to follow best practices for quality control.
While it feels good to be your own boss and be self employed, to not have to worry about being hired or fired, there are still risks involved. One of the ways to reduce the risks involved with being self employed is by having diverse income streams.
Don't let all your income arrive from Steemit
Steemit i looking good right now for many people. People on Steemit are earning $40, $50, $100 a post. This is encouraging people to begin asking questions like whether or not they can live off Steemit and be a career blogger. A specific blogger asked that question in their post: "(VLOG) What Will You Do When You Can Live Off Just Steem!?":
The short answer to this question is people already are living off Steemit. The long answer to this question is more involved and whether or not someone should seek to exclusively live off Steemit. I don't think it's wise to put all your eggs into one basket even if Steem is the basket. There are other blockchains which pay participants and which you can generate an income stream from and if you'd like to see how then take a look at @craig-grant to see how he makes profits from Genesis Mining and BitConnect.
Don't let all your income arrive from cryptospace
In other words don't put all your eggs into one basket. There are regulatory risks in cryptospace which make it not necessarily a good idea to pin all career hope on making a living from the blockchain. The tax uncertainty is only part of the concerns, as there is the possibility of a crackdown and the possibility of crashes in the market cap to the point where the amount of money you can earn is no longer able to support a comfortable standard of living. The only way to reduce this possible risk is to diversify your income streams so that at least some of your income streams come from sources outside of crypto. These could be passive income streams such as from real estate investments, stocks, or and it can be your day job. You can work in the tech industry or outside of it, but as long as you have other things going on then you will not fear a crypto recession or crackdown as it will be just a buying opportunity for you or the end of profiting from the blockchains.
Don't let all your income be the result of your own labor
This is a critical point, and it is important to note that this might conflict with the labor theory of value. Labor is not the only source of income and not really ideal. Labor requires you to sacrifice your time for money and when you are young with more time this seems sensible, but once you're older, of poor health, or if you perceive due to your circumstances that you have less time? People who have less time don't have as much time to sell and all time / labor theories of value and methods of producing income will fail for people are old, disabled, not in the union, etc. Value is subjective and it doesn't matter who is doing the labor but what does matter is who has the legal rights to the income generated by that labor.
Passive income streams are an example of income without labor. The person who for example makes money from affiliate marketing may not need to do a lot of labor to get a lot of residual passive income. The artist who makes a film or album can get residual income for years with weeks or months of labor. And of course there are many stocks, REITs, and other methods of producing passive income which can fund care for you in times where your health is poor, or where you are retired. Passive income is a critical strategic source and during times when nothing is going on with Steemit or when you're unable to post, the passive income will still keep coming to you even if you're in a coma.
You are really so right that diversification is important. I think assets you can touch, not just cyber assets are important. All your cyber investments could go pouff with an electronic magnetic pulse hit.
Perfect!
"Wait, so you are telling me that I cannot live from a super volatile platform which keeps changing every week and is still in beta phase? You are strange, man. I should probably invest all my money into Steemit and make my family do that as well!" said every successful homeless person ever!
The fact that the super-volatile, weekly changing, beta phase blogging platform is about twice as reliable as the job markets in 2/3 of the western world probably has people's expectations a little skewered ....
Besides, where else can you sell sarcasm for $3 per sentence? :p
Oh, and look up there! A $13 meme!!!
Yeah, the sarcasm must be much better than mine to receive $3 per sentence outside of Steemit. That's why it is impossible not to love Steemit. Also, I already said it before and I'll say it again: it is better to earn unstable $50-$200 than stable $10.
Yup, the job market is pretty much ruined these days, but what can ya do? I blog on Steemit and write for a couple magazines outside of the crypto world. It brings me some money and a lot of free time, so I am happy.
It is definitely not wise to put all your eggs in the Steem basket. There's plenty of other cryptos to invest in and plenty of other ways to earn online. I'm a blogger, and writing for an established tech blog was my main source of income.
However, like you said, some people are just living off steemit right now. But it's okay, as from the rewards they make on the site, they can venture into other fields and build and create new revenue streams.
Great article and some very good pointers. Upvoted :)
If your income would only come from steem there would be steem coming out of your ears and ass. It's damn hard work;).
Grind Hard Steemians!!! I worked on my 21st bday to grow my business.
Excellent post! Focus on augmenting your passive income is the fastest way to financial freedom. Also understand how to reduce your taxes legally.
Developing multiple income streams is never a bad idea...
Ditto with passive income. Thanks for a great and helpful post.
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Just use the funds you earn on Steemit, put them into dividend paying stocks and use the dividends received to buy Steem Power on Steemit :)
Yes totally agreed, just like the saying goes "don't out all your eggs in one basket" (or something like that).
The key is to get involved in more things that create passive income. Have multiple streams of those and you shall succeed.
Just my two cents..
Right, do one thing effectively and then leverage the income from that to establish additional income streams. So if you're good at blogging and have some extra money then you can invest some of it in new areas like real estate, or other things, and see how you do.
A lot of people are travel bloggers, and they blog on Steem, Youtube, Instagram, plenty of ways to leverage travel.