Why Steemit sucks (and probably always will)
I have something of a love / hate relationship with Steemit. On the one hand I love the idea of being paid for producing quality content, but on the other I hate how the reward system works and the behaviour it produces.
When I was first introduced to Steemit by a friend (@slobberchops), I was heavily involved in the crypto investing and development scene, so Steemit seemed a natural fit. I am a developer, so I first thought Steemit would be a paid version of StackExchange where technical users would get paid for answering technical questions. I am kind of sad that such a thing does not exist.
Steemit has been described to me as a social network where you get paid for your content. That is precisely what it is and it is for me precisely why it is broken.
Steemit should be a blogging platform where quality content surfaces to the top. Unlike other large blogging and news platforms, on Steemit there is no centralised curation and quality control. Instead, users vote on content and they are awarded with curation rewards for surfacing that content. The scoring system for curation rewards is precisely defined to try and achieve that outcome by paying the largest rewards to those that vote soon after new content is published and before others jump on the bandwagon.
However, the social network aspect of Steemit and how users are interpreting it, completely breaks the platform and prevents quality content from surfacing to the top. I am told the only way to get ahead in Steemit is to follow other users with high SP (Whales) and to vote for every piece of content they publish. Also, whenever my friends publish new content I am expected to vote for it straight away as part of the mutual benefits of helping each other to earn. It doesn't matter what the content is or even if there is any quality within that content, I just need to vote for it.
I have rallied against the pressure to do this from my friends and it is part of the reason why quality content I produce never gets any traction. It is also the reason I make very little on Steemit and will probably be the reason I switch back to other blogging platforms. It makes me feel guilty not to vote on every little post they make even when I have no interest in the subject, and makes me feel even guiltier when I do bow to the pressure and vote on something I know others will have no interest in.
I find it increasingly difficult to find anything of real interest for me to get my curation rewards by voting for it. The things that are surfaced to me most of the time I have no interest in. This isn't how this platform is supposed to work.
So what's the cure? Ignore trying to please all your friends and make money, and only vote for quality content you have a real interest and you think others will enjoy too. If we all did that then Steemit could be great, but unfortunately I don't see it every happening.
The curation rewards were supposed to surface quality content but instead it has turned into a content ponzi scheme.
reward system works
In my experience it absolutely does not. When I go to Trending, New or Hot most of the articles are not interesting and the ones with the biggest rewards are from the biggest whales with the most followers.
Trending is broken, as I said.. lot of things you are unaware about. None of the people I interact with look at Trending as we know better.
There's a lot of 'circle jerks' and other stuff going on here, but some good content is getting good rewards. My personal policy is to try and give bigger votes to things that took more effort. So a comic that may have taken days or weeks to draw will often get more than a five minute blog post. This is not a hard rule.
I'd love to see someone build a Stackoverflow equivalent on here. It shouldn't be too hard as the tags can categorise the questions and we have a voting system to get the best answers up. Of course this can be abused in the same ways, but it would be a great way for people with the right knowledge to earn. I know some put a lot of time in Stackoverflow just for the badges.
Steem/Steemit is just a platform. It's up to us what we do with it.
I think a paid StackOverflow could become a full time job for the right technical people answering questions. I might have to try and develop it myself.
I’m not familiar with StackOverflow myself, but there are several Q&A style Steem front ends in development as possible starting points, such as https://musing.io
I didn't know about that one, thanks. It looks promising. Really we need StackExchange to introduce a crypto since all the infrastructure and user base is already established. That would rock.
They’d be a perfect candidate for something like a Smart Media Token when they launch. No need to run a blockchain of your own when you can build on top of one of the existing chain projects like Steem! Even pre SMT some sites (BeScouted.com is probably my best example) are integrating Steem into their existing infrastructure.
A lot of the Steem sites are open source, so you may find something you can base it on. It's quite possible there's already something being worked on. Maybe on @utopian.tasks
I've followed that account, thanks. I'll have a ready through those as I find the concept of the Steemit crypto fascinating. It just needs the right vehicle.
I've delegated you some extra SP so your vote can have a bit more impact. Enjoy!
wow, thanks Steve. That is incredibly generous
You join a not particularly exclusive club who I've supported like this. It helps to spread the votes out. Enjoy
STEEM Blockchain / protocol can be used for all kinds of applications. Steemit is just one example. No platform is perfect.
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It's just my experience Steve that I get pressured to upvote friends posts and I am told it is the way to get noticed and get ahead.
I may be different to others in that I usually write blog posts because I enjoy writing them. I don't need to be paid for them, but I quite like getting some engagement for them via comments and discussion. I spent quite a while on Tumblr before using Steemit.
I think the views of someone like yourself with a high SP will be different from minnows such as myself. I don't really get many votes and the ones I have are small. I want to reserve them for content that matters to me. There are quality posts on here, but I have to look really hard to find them. The system isn't surfacing them to me.
Your votes won't have a huge effect so you may as well use it as you like. Nobody is really missing out if they don't get it. What you can contribute are your comments. Some of us are really into the conversation.
My vote is not huge, but I use it to support the content I think needs more exposure. I also re-steem to my followers, but I don't always see that make much difference. The fact is that Steemit is pretty small. You may not get a lot of random visitors, so you have to get out there.
Thanks for the advice and support on my posture. I will resist external pressures and only vote on content I feel needs to be seen by others.
I started writing a comment but it became too long and I also made a small video as a reply. Here it is:
https://steemit.com/dlive/@hashcash/251cc040-9688-11e8-b2de-f7be8f055a16
Thank you for your excellent response. I have responded fully on your posted, but I agree completely now with your response.
I am so glad I posted this article. It has convinced me I don't need to play the Steem game and can just continue to vote for content that I want to promote.
I just came across this article which gives me some hope for the future of the platform. At least Steemit surfaced this one to me:
https://steemit.com/steem/@therealwolf/let-s-talk-hf20
Yeah, I read that one, too @steddyman. There are also other things in the works, mostly to address some of the "false circlejerk" tendencies.
I would recommend reading @cryptoctopus' article from earlier today about the development of "Steem Authority:"
https://steemit.com/steemdev/@cryptoctopus/user-authority-a-better-reputation-system-with-interesting-applications
Thanks. Interesting.
I don't think we have got together since you joined Steemit and there is so much I could tell you about it. Having written this tells me you have not given up on it, more want some points of view and explanations.
The chops.support steemhunt article that you staunchly refused to give your $0.02 too was simply to get the account over (40), and for no other reason for the purposes of the byteball giveway.
Its not like I do these everyday and I can assure you that your followers would not have thought badly and would not have even noticed that you voted up such a 'terrible' article. The have better things to do with their lives.
There is an awful lot of things that you don't know about on Steemit that I could introduce you too, but the bandwidth of this message is insufficient to get it across.
I don't follow any whales and don't vote any up, though I follow a couple of Orca's who have shown me some attention.
It is true that there are 'circles' but isn't it like that in every aspect of our lives? You talk to the same people at work every day, you have the same circle on Facebook too?
There are certain users on Steemit that I do vote up every article, its true but with good reason and that is trust. All my curation is manual, I dont use autovotes except for the curation groups which gains me auto-bonusus, something else you are unaware of.
The ROI here is incredible if you use your SP correctly. As I said.. we need to talk. Give me a shout.
All that is far to complex a game for me mate. I just want to go to a site to find good quality content and vote on it if it is good. Simple as that.
centralised curation and quality
Yeah... that doesn't work lol. I've been only upvoting things I value as per content I want to support. Effort matters, as it's work done, at least it matters to me, as well as the quality of the information being presented. Things are quite wacked out from regular reality here. It's a gamble at getting paid by others caring to upvote you. So many people aren't bloggers, and they don't want Steem to be a blogging platform (even many rich, as they just want quantity of ppl to come so that STEEM can go up in $$$), even though that's how it started.
Thanks for the confirmation that I should stick to my guns and only vote for content I value and that I feel others who follow me will be interested in.
I can definitely appreciate some of your frustrations and concerns @steddyman.
It's interesting how we arrive at Steemit with such diverse interpreations. I came here in January 2017 because this seemed to be very much like the "Social Blogging" platforms that were popular around 1999-2006 (pre-Facebook and MySpace) and I really enjoyed that format.
I'm also a 20-year veteran of "content for rewards" sites, so I came here with a HUGE dose of skepticism, specifically centered around the core thought "Yeah, this is an awesome and beautiful idea, but AS USUAL these people have grossly underestimated the sheer depth of human GREED."
Which has proven largely true. The problem ANY site like this faces is that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people out there who will flock to any place where they can click a few buttons to earn 1/2c. And they tend to descend like a swarm of locusts and destroy everything for everyone else.
"But how bad can it really BE?"
Oh... REALLY. FUCKING. BAD.
Like everywhere else, Steemit is no different from life, at large. The rich get richer, usually at the expense of the poor. In between that, there are little pockets of people who choose to form their own communities to bypass the naysayers... and they chart a course of their own.
It's not perfect, but it's certainly not all bad, either.
Thank you for the detailed reply. Even though I had a downer on Steem at the time I posted the article, airing these views has given me more confidence to promote only the content I value.
You are right about the problem of the hoard of people that will abuse a platform to earn a buck. Even though it frustrates me, it must be incredibly difficult to define a platform that doesn't suffer from it in some way. People will always find loopholes to exploit the system.
Nobody I call a friend here has ever pressured me to vote for them. Anyone trying to pressure me into anything I don't already feel welcomed to do, these are the people I distance myself safely away from. There is a lot of that around here, "Do this 100% for me, and I'll do this 10% for you". Don't buy into those schemes. I've been here a lot longer, and I am still searching for better communities to work with, because many of them have a secret hand pulling the strings you don't find out about until it is almost too late. Be careful is all I am saying. There are a lot of good people here willing to help out if you treat them with kindness and understanding.
Also I would like to add, the goal for me has never been to make it to the trending or hot pages to make a buck. The goal is to make an impact on someone's life, and let others make an impact on mine.
Perfect thanks. That's a perfect philosophy. I also don't want to have to get into using curation bots and accounts. For me the base platform should just work so I am going to ignore all of those things.
Couldn't agree more. I was pretty impressed when I first came across SteemIt. Well, not anymore. Seeing posts about crypto all the time is annoying. People post here for the money, not for the love of writing. And, mind you, bots started commenting on my posts. I love technology, but I don't want bots or talking blow-up dolls as readers.
And SteemIt doesn't even have Pages like other blogging platforms offer as standard, or a sticky post feature, or even statistics! What kind of a blogging platform doesn't offer that?