Why Steemit Dolphins Will Become More Important Than Whales
So I've been noticing something over the past few days.
There are substantially more dolphins on Steemit every single day. Over the last couple of days my posts are being built up with transactions of over $.10, this is great news for all of us. Even a week and a half ago when I first started on Steemit the up votes I was getting that gave me good cash were mainly made of Whales and Minnows. Of course all the serious $$$ comes from the Whales, but it's imperative that Dolphins become the majority in my eyes, they are Steemit's middle class.
Steemit's middle class is growing!
Everyone knows that the middle class is the true backbone of a strong economy. While it slowly disappears in most English speaking Western countries as well as many other places in the world it grows significantly on Steemit. Soon enough the influx of new users will level out and we're going to see the middle class/Dolphins of Steemit gradually become an essential majority (I hope). Of course it would be great if we could all be Whales, with each of us up voting nearly every decent post we see just so everyone gets a huge piece of the pie. Truth be told, I am yet fully understand the economics of Steemit but if the majority of us were Whales I believe it would be unsustainable.
The influx of Dolphins shows how hard people are working.
It's not easy to become a Dolphin let alone a Whale, it takes a lot of Steem Power to get to that illusive point. It's comforting for me to see that every 5th or 6th up vote I get on a post is from a Dolphin. It shows me that if I keep working on my blog, writing and continue to post good content I'll be a part of that club and it'll give me the power to influence others posts more greatly.
Why are Dolphins so important?
Because we can't rely on Steemit Whales to give our posts value, as it stands I'm not sure if there are even more than 100 Whales right now. With several posts (if not more) being published every minute we honestly can't expect Whales like @dantheman and @berniesanders to keep up with all the good content, let alone up vote every single one of them. That's why I believe it's super important for us to keep building our pod of Dolphins, one day soon a post will be able to get into the hundreds of dollars just from up votes given to us from our finned friends.
As more users come, more up votes become available. Just imagine in the future when a great article can garner 1000 up votes easily. Lets just say that only 1 Whale up votes this, as well as 800 Dolphins and 199 Minnows. For the sake of the argument I will give them each a value:
Whales = $100
Dolphins = $1
Minnows = $.1
1 x $100 = $100
800 x $1 = $800
199 x $.01 = $1.99
$100 + $800 + $1.99
= $901.99
Now, that's not quite $35,000 for a make up tutorial but hey, if I could make $901.99 off of one post a week I'll be a very happy man. I believe everyone currently involved with Steemit that keeps putting in maximum effort will be a Whale or a Dolphin by the end of year and I can't wait for that!
JUST KEEP SWIMMING GUYS!
PEACE
The whales are actively seeking out people to promote up the ranks. We have no incentive to be a majority holder of a small puddle. We would much rather be a minority holder of a giant ocean. All that matters is that we grow from a puddle, to a pond, to a lake, to an ocean.
Whales are small in the grand scheme of an ocean of fish.
I have been trying really hard to move up the ranks through being active and helping out the #steemit hashtag on instagram and help sign up people from that community to Steemit. Feels so lame bringing in new members and then only being able to vote them up 1 cent when they introduce themselves... after 500 comments it also feels like whales only look at posts and dolphins are almost just as rare as them in comments.
Lately I burned out and lost the incentive to keep posting when a post about the facebook community makes 10k and none of the "whales" ever reply or reach back out to someone.
I have also invested 200 Steem of my own purchase so all you see in my wallet isn't just from what I've earned here.
Don't get discouraged. What @dan said is absolutely right. If your quality posts and comments aren't being recognized it may simply be that the usage of the site has exploded and whales can't be everywhere. This is a good thing because it means that usage is growing!
But as more and more dolphins (and just regular fish) grow up, there will be more and more powerful upvotes to go around all over the site.
New Chinese Dolphins here, i am a bitcoin long time holder, i heard and registered just a few days ago, i have 37k SP now, i am introducing steem to my Chinese friends and answer FAQs everyday, but It's hard to sign up even for my friends who is a software developer because of the Chinese Firewall, few Chinese use reddit, and it's impossible to sign up with a newly created account, Facebook was blocked too; VPN was blocked as well, not all of the place, but in some big cities such as Beijing, ShengZheng, etc. The police will talk even arrest you if you provide VPN service, One of my friend went to the police station yesterday because of this. And i posted about it, and tried to reach dan and ned in the wallet, and even posted on the github, but failed.
As you can see, the tag "cn" rise quickly , from nowhere to near top 10, because my friends and i posted a lot of posts for newbies, i upvoted every post in the cn tag to encourage newbies, and answered a lot of questions, and we are trying to build a Chinese community , we created QQ groups and wechat groups, the group numbers are growing fast.
Sorry to post here, i upvoted myself, i hope you developers was able to notice the problem and fix it for Chinese, thanks.
Yes, 99% of Chinese internet users don't have Facebook or reddit account, and Facebook is blocked by Chinese Firewall. They are very difficult to create a steemit account in China.
However, 99.9% of Chinese Internet users have QQ or Weixin accounts
I'd strongly suggest to @dan and @ned that Steemit team support for QQ or Wechat verifieation.
I really think that is really hard to build local community here. China is big. What with much, much smaller country. I recently received some upvote love for my post from some big holders and received only $5. I even ask @smooth for help :) Someone who will try to wright something on Croatian (I'm from Croatia) will not have any chance here.
I've noticed that Cn tag moving up the ranks. I think you have spotted a massive potential market given the social media problems you describe in China. This would be a massive coup for Steemit if it fills the vacuum.
Great work that you do! I wish you much success with growing the Chinese community!
I'm Chinese too! Have a look at my article - I went on a Chinese dating show Fei Cheng Wu Rao haha.
That's a relief to hear! I'm hoping to get some wind beneath my wings as well, so I'm staying as active as I can and contributing as much as possible (without getting fired).
I agree, system is being used widely, usage will keep increasing. We will see some improvements, test few things and innovate. That is what we are here for, to not get stuck but move forward. btw, checkout #steemmobile. ;-)
Thank you @smooth, you will see soon those steem dollars will go to good use of the community for my next post!
Btw, since people listen to you, there is an account on Instagram called "steemit" and when asked if it was an official one it said yes, when asked to prove it by replying to me here, they gave no reply but still followed me and continued to make another post. So I hope you can warn users about their personal information and/or passwords.
Thanks again.
Upvote my post plz
duplicated
Don't get disheartened. Build your reputation over time. It will pay off in the end. Help people and the karma will eventually pay off.
It takes a lot of time and effort plus a lot of creativity to get noticed... ive been here for 10 days and rarely get noticed but my spirit wont be defeated. I will continue to be active and enganging and try to add value in this community by creating more contents and hope to get lucky that a dolphin or a whale will take notice of what i do... whining wont get us to the whales... we have to work for it... good luck to all of us.
the thing is that because in numbers whales are small the best strategy is the pump as much content you can pump and with high quality so once a whale spots your post he actually think it's up vote worthy.
I think that once we can actually follow others and receive notifications people can grow some followings that will read their posts so they will grow together with their audience.
The more entries you send, the more chances of winning..
I love it that @dan is actively engaging with the community! There are so many things on his plate but he still finds time to comment on new posts and put up some posts himself! cool!
You are right, but in this early stage whales still decide what content gets visibility. From my own experience, when I started first mobile app initiative, tried to ask number of questions, but somehow no answers, slack invites are closed. Finally spent few days to fiddle around and checked out Steem codebase to get a feeling about API for mobile app. Now posting updates almost daily, development continues, but getting testers is crucial in start of the project, if your post doesn't get visibility then no testers, no testers no encouragement. Though when you see recent post of someone else getting noticed, shows there is still interest, so you keep going and hope once application will have all features you will slowly reach users by providing quality.
Let there be an app that offers, for starters, these basic functions:
followdata from the blockchain - which is recorded by steemit, but not implemented yet. This would allow to have something like the Facebook feed: content of people one chooses to follow. With checkboxes to ex-/include posts/replies/votes, of course. Relatively simple filter.(steem OR steemit) AND economy, for example. Simple filter too.Traders will have even more wishes.
There is a huge demand and only little supply so far. piston.web almost comes close.
> so you keep going
Please, do! I have nothing to offer than, hopefully, certain rumors about a certain market that is soon going to fill up, steem willing, stake your claim.
Good to hear :) That's what I thought!
Holy schnikies, I bet you weren't expecting @dan himself to reply.
You got the big man backing your post :D
It's very hard to get some people to see that...
Cg
good to hear that
Nice coment @dan hehe
That's kinda what I figured was happening, you're looking for solid, involved, active individuals to help promote and grow the network.
As the dolphin class grows the whale class can relax, at this point the voting system should also have a much more natural feel to it as well which I for one am very much looking forward to. The diversification of post material is only going to grow and that alone is exciting.
It gives much tranquility that bring value to the community, really 8]
What are you looking for during your seeking? In the beginning I think asking the right questions will help lol
>The whales are actively seeking out people to promote up the ranks.
@dan
A "tricky" whale vote himself for creating dolphins masked as the same whale, it's logic :)
If not, upvote me and make me a new good whale to help me grow the italian community, thanks
Well how about we redistribute some of this wealth in some way dan ;) Maybe make the community contribute to projects that get everyone involved instead of chasing around whales.
That's pretty awesome any other platform not naming names the whales will always want to keep the wealth and build it and build it not pass it on so others can succeed. this is why steem and steemit will be a great crypto from now till when it ends infinite! :) keep up the great work boss.
Great way to extend the metaphor!
Well said @dan, glad the middle class is growing though.
What he said
You are absolutely right, we must try to create an eco system catering for all kinds of "fish" living together and helping each other out to survive. Promotion and adoption are of course the most inportant aspect right now, but scalibilty will come through upvotes and new users. The ocean is a big place, we all got a part to play in this.
@dan What sorts of things are you looking for? Variety? Certain types of content? Quality means a lot to different people.
Awesome
Happy to fill out the dolphin application
True but there is a limit to what you can see. There is a huge amount of material coming in and it is increasing all the time. As more and more dolphins emerge this will also help to increase diversity in what gets up-voted. Since the whales are limited in number there are likely to be certain types of topics that get overlooked simply due to personal preference.
Dolphinatley
for sharks.
Keep calm, Steem and Post on. our post shouldn't be centered on how much we can make in the now. Because if you continue to post great content and create a following rewards in Steem are sure to follow.
I make a post about 4 cents if it's got 0 votes.
10 bucks if it has a lot of votes.
I must be like a krill. Not even a Minnow.
Getting upvoted is so random. I don't quite get it but I'm trying.
Great post!
Thanks for keeping an eye out for this type of info, it is very encouraging to read about it. Namaste :)
There is no economy without the middle class!
link to where i have featured your post https://steemit.com/life/@gavvet/daily-pick-of-hidden-gems-8-featuring-dragonslayer109-as-author
A minority of whales will great a majority of superdolphins that will take steemit to new heights. I truly believe this:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@razvanelulmarin/we-were-promised-a-revolution-and-the-whales-could-take-us-there