Why Steemit is amazing, despite all its problems

I’ve been on this platform for only two weeks but I want to share why I’m come to love this community more and more. I joined because I like writing and thought that if I can earn money on it, that’s perfect! And I still want to, of course, but over these two weeks I’ve read a lot about Steemit, other peoples experiences with it and a friend of mine is big blockchain-fan so he’s been talking about it as well, and I’ve come to see a bigger picture than just money making.

The things I’ve come to realize and why I think Steemit is amazing:

1. It’s trying to create a local community in a global world. The ethos of Steemit from what I’ve read about it is to instill a sense of community where you are not an anonymous, one-of-a-thousands-unseen member (even if it can feel like that in the beginning) but to create a sense of belonging and participation. Steemit wants quality posts, it wants people to engage with each other in an intelligent way and not just a “like-and-leave”-manner and so many of the members are trying their best to help other people succeed just like they have. I feel there are real people behind it, writing about their experiences and willing to discuss and share their ideas. Of course there are people just trying to make money and exploiting it too but the technology (very transparent and decentralized) and the ethos behind encourage a sense of realness, not just an anonymous profile.

2. An extension of the above is that I feel like I’m part of a community and I want to do the best in it. @arcange has been a big inspiration for me in that sense because s/he (with many others, I don’t know their names but I know they are out there) are putting so much time into Steemit to help it grow, keep it clean from spam, promote newbies (“minnows”) and make Steemit better. When I see them putting in so much time I want to do my part too to help the community grow and become better! Thank you @arcange with all the rest of the “crew” for doing a fantastic job! And thank you all of you who write quality posts, posts they want to read themselves, pouring their heart, ideas and experiences out to the rest of us to be inspired and learn!

However, I do know there is a big problem with Steemit too, low-quality content that floods the feed and maybe earn even more money than the quality posts, minnows that can't climb the ladder because their posts never get seen and have a really difficult time earning money (it's not like I have a big following either making loads of money) etc. Maybe I'm naive but I believe these are problems that can be sorted and there are people (whales!) out there trying to find solutions. @yallapapi wrote a good article about it here. Steemit is still evolving and the fact that whales are trying to find a solution to a problem that in practice doesn't affect them (they will earn money with or without helping minnows) just proves the point I'm trying to make: Steemit in its root is meant to be a community where we help each other and where real people matter, not only money making and shit content.