As the price started to drop early this year, I put everything I had to invest into Steem. It felt like a community thing to do, to put my money where my mouth was. I powered it all up. I had several hundred Steem - quite a large investment.
I've posted enough content (much of it very high or exceptional quality) EVERY week since then, to power several blogs.
Even with all my payouts and other efforts, I'm still down over 95%.
It would have been better off doing nothing all year, and keeping my cash under my mattress. I'd be fully rested right now, and buying TWENTY times as much crypto.
'Get paid to share your views', they said. I gave this site everything I had, and it still pops up a BUY MORE STEEM message if I 'share my views' too often. Ugh. :/
I told so many people about this site. I put my trust in those who were leading it, and my faith in it succeeding, and I vouched for Steemit to friends and family. Now I find myself wishing I hadn't promoted it so loudly, been so confident that it was legit.
My 100% full upvote isn't even worth 2 cents anymore, which is the cutoff for payout. I can't even make something pay out with my full upvote. My little circle of Steemit friends has shrunk, and none of their upvotes are worth anything either. We can't meet the 2 cent cutoff, so nothing we do or say here is likely to pay out. If nothing pays out, our account can never grow, and we increasingly get the BUY MORE STEEM popup (ever since HF20).
I think people are correct to say things don't seem stable or safe here. Where is the leadership, where are the promises HF20 made? Why has Steemit sunk from the #15 crypto to #45? Where did all the money go? What are the site's actual costs and can we see the receipts?