Three years on steem.

I recently got a notification saying I've been using steem for three years...
Apparently I joined in September 2016 and it was after @getonthetrain told me about it on Facebook.

I didn't really know who he was at the time as I add a lot of people on FB without knowing them.
And now I consider him to be a good friend even if we've never met in person.

He just mentioned it one day to me on one of the status updates I made and I Googled it and YouTubed it to learn more and I was excited and skeptical.
After researching it for around a week I decided to give it a try.

My first introduction post made a couple of dollars if I remember correctly and I was pretty hooked right away to know my first post made me more than all other social media combined.
I've never made a penny on any other social media.

And to be fair I haven't cashed any steem out yet so I haven't technically made anything here either.
But at one point in time my account was worth $50,000 when the value of steem was higher.

Now it's only worth a bit more than one thousand, but... That's still something.
I could cash it out and have something for my time which I've never experienced on any other social media.

I'm going to try to keep this short, but when I say that it often still ends up being really long lol, so... I'll do my best to keep it brief.

I've generally been very supportive and encouraging of steem, barely ever complained and mostly only showed thanks.
I still feel that way and am grateful for my experience on steem even if something happens and I never end up cashing out and made nothing in terms of money.

Early on I learned to try to look at steem less for the money and more for everything else it offers.
The new ideas here and the unique people here are fascinating. There's so many creative and interesting projects and communities.

The lack of censorship is one of my favorite things. I'm big on free speech and expression and that reason alone was enough for me.
And then I eventually took it a step further and took some of my initial earnings to create a contest/community of my own and... Wow. It changed my life, I was super depressed and it made me so much happier and helped so much. I'll never forget how influential and powerful that was for me...

Founding the @ifc has been one of the most memorable and important things to me in my life.
If it wasn't for steem or something like it I can pretty confidently say that would have never happened.

It's possible I could have at some point in the future come up with a similar idea without steem, but... I really doubt it.
I give a lot of respect and appreciation to steem because of that and I'll always be grateful even if I never see a penny.

In light of that I still got a bit frustrated with the recent Hardfork and made a post about it complaining.
Seemed like steemit inc had been making a bunch of mistakes for quite a while and the value kept dropping and then this new "20 steem rule" which rewards posts or comments of 20 steem or more with more steem and those less than that with less upset me. Seems like it makes it much more difficult for smaller accounts and easier for those in the in crowds or who are popular.

I still think it's a bad rule that will discourage smaller users, but they did some other stuff in the Hardfork as well which seem to have really helped.
The 50/50 rewards and the free downvotes appear to have reduced bidbot use and some other less ethical behaviors on the platform.

I've seen this myself firsthand just looking around and I've seen quite a few others reporting similar.
In fact I've seen a lot of really positive behavior from some of the bigger names.

Looks like one of the biggest critics of steem berniesanders mostly stopped his flag wars and is going back to manually curating and creating content.
And I saw numerous other big critics of steem showing respectful energy and welcoming him back and expressing similar positivity.

I then saw one of the big names buy what if I remember correctly was 250k of steem and another big name bought I think 70k.
Even though steem is around 15 cents, some of these big names are buying a lot. I doubt it's some kind of trick, I think they genuinely believe in steem longterm.

So, I guess to summarize... I was starting to lose some faith in steem and it seemed like things were getting worse and worse and...
Now all of a sudden it looks like maybe things will get better. I can't say for sure, though there is a lot positive happening and good energy going around.

A couple other things real quick... My father @irvinesimages also recently got a number of upvotes on his photography from a whale which was awesome.
And I heard back from the champion of the first season of the IFC after she got the trophy and hat I sent.

She basically told me that the contest was very meaningful to her and it really humbled me a lot.
That's worth more than money to me, and it wouldn't have happened without steem. This platform is so much more than just the money.

It may be harder for new people on the platform to get started and might continue to get more difficult in general...
Though I would still suggest giving it a try if you enjoy chatting with interesting people, blogging or sharing stuff on social media among other reasons.

I'd also suggest to try not to think of the money so much and just enjoy it..

There's a lot of inspiring and interesting things going on and if you get a bit deep into it you may even want to try to think of creating some kind of project or community yourself.
It's an awesome atmosphere at times and there's a ton to learn and check out.

It's almost like being a pioneer in a new land and there's a lot of lucrative potential for people who have good ideas or useful services.
Thanks for reading the article if you did, I'd appreciate hearing any feedback or questions if you have any and peace! Bye until next time. :D

PS I was reading around the other day and saw a comment from a supercritical guy who mentioned the 20 steem rule and a lot of the bad stuff and claimed the positive things I mentioned like the change in behavior of many users and big fish powering up a lot and bernie changing were like tricks basically, and... That he wasn't being fooled by such. I kinda really doubt that and I think there is genuine positive stuff happening and that steem will probably be around for many years, yet I can't prove it either way, I try to stay openminded... I guess time will tell.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash