RE: Why did I stop following TRENDS on Steemit and rather focus on TOPICS I am interested in, looking for REAL PEOPLE
There's definitely an underlying political debate on Steemit. Steemit behaves with a "Free Market" ideology. It's not a good platform if you take away money, there's a handful much better than this (Reddit, Medium).
If only money and whale votes matter here, it's a matter of time it collapses or becomes something I don't want to be associated with. Great content is here and it's not being appreciated. Controversial and nonsense will always have an edge, just read any news site nowadays, it's all about clickbait headlines and stupid top 10s.
That is the major problem the current Steemit system has in my opinion. The second one is that it's the most refined self-censored social media. It's hard to truly voice out opinions because a whale downvote will end your reputation. At the same time, people continue to upvote posts that know are mediocre but whales upvoted. They earn their curation rewards and that's it, they are happy with that even if mediocre content ends up in the trending page.
Some of my views here:
Unfortunately, the fact still lies that everyone here is for the money. Let's not deny this. Great content is subjective because it is also a social network. There is no definition of unique and great content here. The fact that it is a social network network means that who have more friends, who wins. This also means who have more friends at the top. But this also means selectively choosing the "right whales" to work with, the whales whom you feel share the common ideals about steemit. I am working with a few whom i think are actually awesome whales. I don't want to say who because i don't want things to become political. I work on #academiaspotlight with them. Figure out yourself. I don't blame them for not voting on my posts because first, i don't promote my posts to them, other than #academiaspotlight. Second, maybe they see it and don't think is a good post, i don't know. I think I am also not the type of great marketer and promoter by shoving my post everywhere.
Believe it or not, when i joined early June when there were no daily payouts, steemians are still not totally sure if it was for real, i think back then the mentality of steemians was more like doing it for fun. And indeed, it was fun. But soon, i noticed all posts were about steemit. I got really tired and went on a first hiatus. Because of that hiatus, i missed the chance to become the fat dolphin but i did not ever regret it. I could actually if i just want to blog on steemit in every post. But by choice, i did not. After 4th July payouts, i noticed the market got really crowded.
The flagging should really be clear. Right now, it does not seems clear and yes, it seems unfair to some people. But trust me, there are whales flagging but i have also seen kind whales who helped to unflag. I have even seen kind whales taking the time to translate chinese posts, actually reading it and upvoted but they totally did not have to.
Just some of my take. There are kind whales and dolphins here. But you have to make the effort on your part to figure it out . Cheerios.
You got some valid points here . I getting tired as well looking at various discussions I find absolutely boring , same for some so called popular people but I made a choice for myself and continue supporting interesting people I appreciate . I enjoy my ride meeting great ones like all of you who took time to even look at my posts so far. I refuse to get into anymore discussions , nor will I write about whales , dolphins or steemit .There are so many here who have something very valuable to share . I find them
This was a bit sarcastic :) https://steemit.com/video/@mammasitta/dare-to-jump-whales-and-dolphins-belong-to-the-ocean-in-lombok-indonesia