Interesting post. Never really considered this question. In fact, it never really occurred to me that steemit changed anything in my life, as I haven't really had any changes. ....except I have as it turns out.

So, I found out about steem from a military buddy who had hopped into crypto perhaos a bit before me. He encouraged me to check it out and I did. Seemed to make sense, why not make some money while you puttered around on social media. So I endeavored to figure out this new platform.

Like I said, I didn't really consider any changes going on in my life because of it. But having read @bluelightbandit 's post, I have now considered it through his eyes as it were. And this is what I found.

First off the same thing that you did Brother, I've made some money here. I'm also not getting rich from Steem, but I have done pretty well in the last 6 months. As I read through all the post on how to do things here, this guided me on how I could throw more out to the community and at the same time make more money doing it. If I were to spend more time at it I'm sure I could do quite well, but I have a lot of things that I need to do in the "real world" to make ends meet. The joys of owning a fixer-upper home chief among them.

However as I look deeper into it, this platform has actually made me quite a bit of money in crypto in general. Quite a bit of what I know about investing in crypto I either learned from different articles here, or those articles led me to search out things that I would not have known to look for lest I had read these articles. I was also able to put forward questions both in my own articles, and inside the comments of others articles. This continued to further my education in crypto, which directly translated into how I purchased. Even during this recent correction my portfolio still stayed at four times what I started with. That's nothing to sneeze at and is in great part because of my time here on steem.

I too have "met" some very cool people. It's also fun when you're meeting folks from around the world and interacting with them. I've done several really fun challenges or contests, not the least of which the Selfie Challenge which is how I met blue. And there is a certain satisfaction because I invested a little bit more in the platform than some with being able to help out some folks that might need a little extra help in their life.

As far as negatives, I don't see any of them as terribly pressing. Sure I've spent a little extra time, lost some sleep, but sleep is a crutch and I don't do much of it anyway. LOL To be honest if it wasn't hear that was costing me sleep it would be Facebook, or reading about something that piqued my interest at any given time. So I'd be up anyway. It hasn't really kept me inside, because some of us don't have those weather issues being that we're in Southern California. Of course here I am not being able to sleep, so I can just hop on and spend some time to try and get me back to sleep.

So I don't have to say that the pros far outweigh the cons for me, and likely will continue to do so. And hopefully we all will get rich from posting, although I won't hold my breath, which will make all the cons worth it. But if not, it really doesn't matter it's still worth hanging out.