Steemit -- A Year in Review

The financial side

So last year I signed up for steemit. I was pretty excited like everyone else. The prospect of earning money for posting stuff was really intriguing, especially as it initially seemed like it was going to be easier than youtube or other social media platforms.

I posted almost daily for one year now. Currently, my account is valued at something close to 350$. Obviously I am writing this at a time when steem's price is very low and the platform' future as a whole is somewhat unclear. Like all cryptos the value has plummeted by 90% or so over the last year.

So that leaves me with about a dollar a day or a dollar per post, but it has to be mentioned that the real value came from posts early in the year when it was possible to make big payouts. Generally, my posts earn less than a dollar and in fact are only worth a couple of cents if I would not use the bid bots...

Spiky!

Financially speaking, steemit has wildly under-performed and quite frankly speaking it could be seen as irrational to continue posting if one is only interested in the monetary aspect. I have seen many accounts who have gone silent and stopped posting probably exactly for this reason. And yet there are others who make a lot of money simply by having the right followers. The thought, that steemit is easier than other social media platforms is therefore quite deceptive. There are literally maybe only 10% who have made some decent profits which would put it pretty much side by side to e.g. youtube. And it also has to be pointed out that this carrot-on-a-stick model is quite an intentional design choice (see the white paper).

The community side

I feel that largely because it is not possible to interact with steemians directly (i.e. chats, direct messaging), steemit feels quite isolated. There is no real sense of being together with others in a community because it is so easy to lose contact with others.

Nevertheless, there are some who return and there have been some memorable interactions. Probably the most successful attempt at getting closer to the community has been the #LoveTheClouds contest which has been running for almost half a year. I am quite happy that so many have liked it.

But I also have to add that I haven't been too persistent at following other people's posts simply because the feed is cluttered with spam and mostly uninteresting posts (yes, I should probably mute or unfollow them...)) and because I don't have too much time to follow what other people are doing. But I can see some people who are making some really good posts and hope they continue putting their ideas out there.

another planet

Followers on steemit are a disaster. What I mean is that everyone's followers on steemit are made up somewhere between 30%-90% of fake followers, completely inflating the follower base and resultingly one's feeling of success (which, no doubt, was the intended purpose). I have made many posts about this What is up with all of the fake followrs?, but I haven't gotten to the bottom of who is setting up these accounts. It would help if this would just stop.

General thoughts

So, because I am obviously still posting I cannot say that the monetary aspect of steem is all what keeps me going. I would say that it is a general, perhaps naive, belief that things will eventually improve. That we will have a better engaging platform; that our votes will actually have a greater impact and will be better rewarded; that the interface will be made more user friendly (which is a huge barrier) etc.

Probably the best part of steemit relates to the work I have put into my posts. It has inspired me to be more creative: I have written poems, made videos, taken pictures, wrote articles, made art etc. not necessarily because I wanted to be financially rewarded for them, but because it was fun doing them. I would have probably never created this without steemit and for that I am really thankful <3 I am sure that many others feel this way about posting on steemit!

lovetheclouds

I still see the potential of steemit's idea. And I hope that next year it will still be here and it will be all the more fun engaging with it!