Six Years Ago...

My first ever digital sign-up was in 2002 (I guess) when Dad got us a "Dial-up Internet" for our trusty Pentium 4 (beast in its time).

I was hardly 10 but being the eldest responsible kid, I helped my father set up a hotmail account which we used to log in to MSN messenger to chat with overseas relatives. (This activity used to be so fascinating...)

It may seem a small thing now but it meant a great deal back then, when the technology was still new in Pakistan. There were hardly any people who owned a computer in the town, let alone an Internet connection.

^{(I can't stop myself from mentioning the first thing I did(played) on any computer was "Need For Speed 2" in 2000. 😄)}

Since then I signed up on a gazillion apps and websites but nothing truly matches with what I signed up for on Feb 06, 2018.

Yours and mine favourite - Steemit. 🥁

Today marks my completion of six years on Steemit. Call it an anniversary or steemversary, I have never written anything in its honour before (I may be wrong though - thanks to my poor memory).

Why?

I was inactive on 1st and 2nd anniversary. I had just started being active again when it was 3rd anniversary so I didn't have much to share about the journey. Then I got super active but I forgot about 4th anniversary. I got inactive again around the 5th anniversary.

Here I am, on my sixth anniversary. Thanks to steemchiller, I came across my account creation date a couple of days ago on SteemWorld - otherwise, I would have forgotten about it again. 😅

This year is nothing different. Okay, maybe slightly - in terms of experience.

^{Image created with AI}

Since I'm all nostalgic today, I scrolled back to my first post on Steem. It was so dumb, otherwise I'd have shared it here. I sincerely hope that your hands get extremely tired midway if you try to scroll down my blog. 😄

Anyways, the debut post made a whopping payout of $0.07 and then consecutive $0.00 on next 5 posts.

And then I made my first intro post which made $0.04 and a couple of good comments. It was nothing better than my first post. I'm not lying if I say I wanted to hide somewhere when I read it today.

Why?

It's a very poorly written intro because I was still figuring out what content works on top of all the technicalities with absolutely no guidance.

But the most embarrassing thing is...

I asked for upvotes at the end of the post. 😂

And not only in that post, I have asked for upvotes in other posts too until someone pointed out that it doesn't look nice. 😅

In my defense, most of the accounts I came across were doing it, so I thought I had to do it no matter how stupid it felt. 🙈

It was also my first experience writing online so I lacked ethics.

Long story short, a dozen more posts ended up with zero payouts and almost non-existent engagement. Instead of thinking that this platform wasn't for me, I started spending more time observing what others were doing and where I was lacking. Finally, payouts and engagement started getting better.

Today, I was wondering why user retention of Steem is so low even with dozens of guides and mentors 24x7 available now. When I found out about Steem, I had nothing but I was so curious about this new technology. I wouldn't know what the heck is SBD, vesting shares or blocks for months. I'm sure early joiners like me can relate.

I was redeeming my rewards but I was certain they were no more useful than coins earned in any Web 2.0 game and I thought of "reputation" as game levels. Even though it felt like a game, I was still doing it because it was a productive way to spend my time.

The day I cashed out 12 SBDs just to check if someone would buy Internet money from me - I realized the true potential of Steem. But by that time, I had experiences far better than money, I had an online audience with whom I constructively engaged on different topics. Steem became a great learning tool before anything else.

I struggled so hard at the beginning that I decided to make things easier for other people. However, I don't have the patience of a saint and I had been rigid with abusers. But it makes me feel happy when someone shares a link to one of my posts to help out a newbie and to know that they found it useful.

Why am I telling you all this?

If you are a newbie, struggling to get attention, I want you to know that most of us have gone through the same phase. Before you quit, know that you won't get the same constructive exchange of thoughts, ideas and content elsewhere. Content creation can be a full-time job but no one is bound to reward you. So if sometimes, you don't get rewards for writing about your best day, that's okay.

In six years, I have evolved as a writer. My activity here has been sporadic but the learning curve has been steep. I have tried my best to give back to the community whatever I learned and however I could. Right now, I am focusing on being a reader and an author.

I'm satisfied.
I'm happy.
I stuck through.