Does anybody else feel burned by steemit?

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)

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Does anybody else feel burned by steemit? In particular, anybody with less than a "70" reputation rating ? I do.

I've been on steemit (actively) for almost a month now and admittedly, that's not very long and I agree, I haven't quite "paid my dues " compared to the big dogs around here. I'll also readily admit that I'm not the most interesting blogger and my posts are certainly lacking in community value. No argument there. I quickly understood that maybe blogging wasn't the best option for me to prosper on steemit. So I read the rules for curating.

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Curating sounded like something I could do and do well. And so I did. Very well in my opinion. This game was easy to figure out. Vote on the big dogs and vote early. Having a low steem power balance, vote conservatively, selectively and effectively. Never vote on more than 20 posts per 24 hours. Vote on the big dogs... this, I feel, is the hustle.

I paid much attention to my feed, waiting for those money makers to post. Time after time I nailed it. First upvote sometimes, second upvote often, top ten upvoters repeatedly. And then I patiently waited for those curator steem power dollars to begin rolling in. A week went by, finally, and I watched my wallet.. and watched.. and watched.

WTF? Wait, what? Where's my money? That's it? What about 50% split amongst the curators? And what about being one of the first to upvote, sometimes THE FIRST? Nothing? A few I got one tenth of one penny. Are you serious? On a $1000+ @officialfuzzy post? On numerous multi hundred dollar posts? Most of which I saw absolutely zero? THIS SUCKS. On this post 👇I clearly remember being the second upvote. The author being the first.

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And I got nothing.

And what about the whole 50/50 thing? It's not true. Curating is a waste of time. Steemit is only profitable if you blog. And only if you have a 70 or higher reputation rating. It's f'ed up that way. We know who's making money here and the fake curating rules are set up so those bloggers are the ones getting the upvote so they are the ones continuing to be the money makers. It's vaguely based on content. Mostly on who the consistent money makers are. This is crap.

I gave this a good spin and I tried my best and I wasted my time, attention and effort. It's a sham. I was excited about steemit and I had encouraged my wife to join and blog and I encouraged some friends to do the same. I take it back. This shit sucks. I'll be sure to share my experience amongst my circles. Thank you steemit for (almost) nothing.

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I've made almost $12,000.00 usd since August 2016. Steem was worth .50¢, most of my post were way under $10.00 for months, I survived the hardfork when the pool was drained too! I kept posting at least once a day and also I'm an artist, very niche work. Unlike many post that focus on cryptocurrency and Steemit, which rake in hundreds of dollars. You are right that the algorithms for payout is screwed, do a search. There is or was a lot of discussion about changing rewards. I'm not tech savvy so I can't go into detail.

But I do have to say, $12,000.00 is more than I made on FB or wordpress, and I still own my paintings!

That's awesome, and congratulations.. Really, that's fantastic! But my grievance isn't about blogging or the potential payoff for blogging. My wife had a post bring in almost $140 the other day. That's cool.

My grievance is with the curating. What about the people, like myself, that want to participate and prosper but aren't talented with writing? The potential with curating has been misleading. So essentially, steemit is for bloggers to curate other bloggers and if you don't blog, we don't have anything to offer you other than some good reads. That's how it seems to be.

The curating trail only pays well if you have enough steempower. I'm slowly getting there and I will start seriously curating. You have several ways to make it curating, join a guild or curating trail, buy your sp, build your sp like I've done. I'm going to use a bot to follow my favorites. Many of my favorite bloggers are not high on rewards and payouts. They have potential or are ignored because the rewards pool is only so big and curators like to vote on established content creators. Have you talked with @jlufer, he is one of the most prolific commenters on Steemit. I can't figure out how he does this and stay so kind and personal....

thats impressive, great motivation for me to keep posting!

The work adds up, but it is tough going in the beginning, most of us can't buy our way in, aren't gifted bloggers, and aren't gifted with a Steemit network of whale friends. So one drip at a time the bucket fills up....

Am staying positive and keeping a smile. I have been on here for 2 weeks and have made a little bit of money and I have never made anything for my writing skills so I am as happy as a pig 🐷 in 💩! Great post though and keep up the awesome job! DR

That is a very good post. I did not know that at all! I for myself, try to keep on posting content, that I find interesting. With increasing followers, it should work someday. For now, I don't look at the reward. Let's stick together, as said before. (I never had a post so far, that made $ like yours)

Just to clarify a few things in this post since I think there is some confusion on how earning through curating works. It's unfortunate, but the documentation that is show in the post is very very out of date (not the authors fault, since it is shown on the a steem.io webpage even though it's not linked into the home page.)

There are some things that have been added, changed as well as aspects not somewhat hidden in the math.

Examples of this include the post payout split now being 75% to the author and 25% to curators (which used to be 50/50) and a percentage penalty applied to people who vote before the post is 30 minutes old.

One other part that may not have been fully spelled out in that webpage was that how much Steem Power you have effects what you receive for curation rewards, essentially tranlated into the vote payout weight calculation.

let total_vote_reward = 50% of the content reward
let steem_power = the total STEEM power of the vote
let current_total_steem_power = the combined STEEM power of all past votes
let new_total_steem_power = current_total_steem_power + steem_power;
let vote_payout_weight = steem_power * (steem_power/new_total_steem_power)^2

with the final calculation being
let total_vote_payout_weight = sum vote_payout_weight for all votes on the post

Unfortunately, having little Steem Power means earning fewer curation rewards. While I can see how it can be frustrating if somebody expected without wither building up or buying into a larger account...I don't see how the economics could work if every single person who joined got large rewards from voting. It's one of the few remaining benefits to holding larger amounts of Steem Power.

You can find some of this spelled out a little more clearly here.

None of this is meant to blame the author of this post, but I did want to clear up what I think was a misunderstanding due to that webpage being out of date (and not linked to the steem.io home page). While I can get the frustration this might have caused, I don't really see it's accurate to call this a scam.

To be fair, within the post, I only referred to steemit as a hustle, a waste of time, f'ed up, crap, shit and a sham... haha. I apologize. I was misled, disappointed, confused and pissed off. I did however tag the post with the tag "scam" and have since removed that word. You are correct, that is an unfair tag. You know, the love and kindness and understanding represented within these comments is clear. I would say it's uncommon among social media comments. This community is different and the amount of encouragement here, rather than insult, is striking. And it's appreciated. I want to thank all those who have commented here for being as warm and genuine as you all have been. Thank you all.

I think that's fair, thank you for removing that tag. That is where I ended up pulling the intended meaning of scam from.

I really do understand where you were coming from and didn't want to seem like I was attacking you. My goal was purely to provide clarification for any other readers. :)

I do wish you the best of luck on steemit! And not bad making a little money on this post, hehe.

The payout on this is incredibly ironic, isn't it? Thank you @sykochica.

True true...but if it's made useful for others to learn..I'm all for it. :)

Lol. Ok.. well if you upvote in the first minute, you failed and got almost 0% of your possible curation. The best thing to do is wait 15 or 20 minutes before voting. I don't know how it works, I'm new here too. I haven't made any money really. If you are here just for only that, then by all means go. But there are methods to curating and blogging. And voting in the first minute or two when something is uploaded was the worst thing you could do. I hope you reconsider. I am following you now. Us new people need to stick together. But don't flip out either. Just relax, make friends. Talk about things that interest you, talk to people with the same interest. See how your posts do when you have a couple hundred people with similar tastes.. I see what your frustrated about, I get it. I'm a minnow too but I just 1k and powered up. So my upvote may be worth something now. Best of luck whatever you do though!

I appreciate your input, that also on the dog post, but I'm confused. Have you read the rules?
https://steem.io/getinvolved/paid-to-curate/
They clearly state to try to be one of the first upvoters. And they clearly state that the payout will be 50/50 with a heavier weighting going to the earliest upvoters. So I'm confused. Yes, I can appreciate quality content but let's be honest. We're all here rather than on some other blog sight or social media sight because we want to be paid for our time and effort.

I am here just to support block chains and read and talk about cryptocurrency. And to put a middle finger up to Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube. If you do a search on how to best curate and read a new article. They must have changed it, author gets 75% and curators get 25% I'm pretty sure. And just try waiting 15 or 20 minutes before you curate and see if it works. Or search it and read about how it works now with all the updates. Even look up the new 3x or 4x vote feature coming with the new hardfork.. this place is new. Just relax and give it time. Things are going to keep changing for the better!

The math works out the biggest payout for curating is on the 30 minute mark....I think this rule is still valid since last hardfork.

Thank you.

Good advice. I need it too😊

I understand your frustration. I'm in the same boat. I reading the rules again. Trying to learn.

Yep, not too balanced right now. They have a patch/fork coming that's going to resolve most of your issues. Hang in there.

And they are doing a fork and changing the rules a bit

Just stick around and be patient. Don't forget: you're early bird here

Off to lunch. I agree with @drpuffnstuff. Also, I think a month is not really enough time. Short of starting a new job (Just over broke :) ) most things aren't going to show significant growth in a month.

I get it. A month is nothing, but I followed the rules and seriously received zero. These rules are BS.
https://steem.io/getinvolved/paid-to-curate/

do not vote until at least 15 minutes.

I will definitely look deeper as I go to see what is really possible. I appreciate your feedback and sharing your experience.