New to Steem but likin' it!

I joined Steem after the big July 4th announcement. I heard about Steem from Crypto Tre on Twitter.

Since then Steem has gone through the growing pains of an internet entity of hacking and the management quickly responded to the threat. The CEO of Steem told us that the blockchain was never hacked but the hackers exploited browser-side vulnerabilities. My account was not hacked and I have nothing invested in Steem except my time in producing just one previous blog post but this put me at ease.

To me it is cool to be able to make money with a computer and an internet connection. For some people Steem has made that easier. There are about 164 million bloggers. Most of those don't make much money and very few will be able to live on just blogging. I am grateful for the few bucks I make each day on Mechanical Turk.

I am not one of the Steemwhales (https://steemit.com/steem/@oliverb/steemwhale-watching-greater-than-list-of-users-you-need-to-get-upvotes-from-and-watch-for-new-content) Props to oliverb from coining this term meaning guys who "bestow multiple dollars for each upvote."

What I like about Steem is that it is decentralized and allows the user to write interesting posts. As I said earlier, I have only one blog post to date but I like being part of something that seems organic and authentic compared to traditional social media.

The traditional social media, I think, have the valuable function of allowing everyone a voice and removing the barrier to entry to self-promotion from the large media companies such as those that produce movies and television. There are YouTube stars that make more than $1 million USD a year who were previously unknown. Steem has its own place, I believe, as a social medium and will familiarize many with the use of blockchain technology. Steem is an ongoing experiment that I am glad I found.