I've spent dozens of hours making posts I'm really proud of, caring about my content, editing carefully, and taking Steemit seriously. Then I ran into this Bandwidth issue that makes my account effectively banned. I have not spammed or gamed the system in any way. I have gotten the Curie vote a couple of times because they liked my stuff, not due to cheating the system or paying for bots. I am just putting in time and making solid, albeit sometimes long posts with visuals.
No one told me I would be rewarded with resteems, upvotes & followers, while simultaneously punished with a dreaded "bandwidth exceeded" Scarlet Letter pinned to my chest. No warning from the ref?
It's basically the equivalent of the "spinning beachball of death" that locks up Mac computers. I was really enjoying Steemit. Should I not invest my time on this platform from here on out? I don't understand the logic. I would happily make shorter posts that take less time and make my life easier. I would happily not use as many visuals. I was just trying to make visually cool, thorough posts. Do less work you say? OK, sure. You don't have to twist my arm. I'm happy to limit my usage, just give me a heads up!
But I never KNEW of this issue. No one warned me. I had no idea this was even a thing. Also, it kinda looks like a scam to get people to buy stuff if I'm honest. It's that "hey you like it here? Seems like you're doing well, cool. Now buy Steem and spend money to continue k? Thanks!"
That is very disappointing. And while I'm here, I've also noticed it takes a lot of time to simply load up an article or even sign in to Steemit. For an hour the other day, I lost all the money I had earned in my wallet, just out of the blue! It just disappeared for over an hour. It eventually came back but there is some REALLY weird, glitchy, buggy stuff going on in here lately. I'm not sure what all this is about. Even view counts on posts are suddenly gone.
But Steemit, don't blame the speed and quality of your servers on the users of your platform. That's called projection. We're here to take part in an awesome community that you built, and we thank you for what you've done, but we should not feel guilty for doing solid work, and then posting it on the platform!
These are not just little surface cuts or glancing blows, these are knockout uppercuts and fatal flaws in the system. I would like to stay and be a good contributor, but it's pretty difficult when are not allowed to, you know, CONTRIBUTE! Somehow this post processed and went through, although I have no idea why or what changed because the last dozen times, I got the bandwidth notification spinning beach ball of death! All these rules are so arbitrary and they are not doing what they're supposed to. They are encouraging spammy comments and discouraging authentic, quality posts! Kind of the exact opposite effect actually.
I FELT like I was doing well. But I'm not sure. I feel like I'm a happy, smiling customer in a nice retail store, but one of the employees keeps following me around, looking at me sideways like I'm going to steal something. That's a pleasant feeling. Now, I don't have much choice but spend to less time on the Platform, if any at all. And now, every time I comment, or put up a new post, or even edit an existing one, I'm ducking my head worrying about getting this message of ominous, impending DOOM, that in my imagination sounds like one of those game show buzzers when you get an answer wrong!
I'm actually kinda bummed about this turn of events. I was working hard, but seeing results. This kind of took away my optimism. It's that "I knew there was probably a catch" moment, you know what I mean? Just letting y'all know what happened in case I disappear. It's like being shadow banned on YouTube. It kind of feels like censorship and also the polar opposite of meritocracy.
By the way, it says: "actions such as posting and voting use computing resources placing a real cost on the community members who run the Steemit Blockchain for everyone."
So we are supposed to feel guilty for participating in the very thing the site was created for? I thought posting and commenting and interacting was encouraged, due to it being pretty much the whole business model of Steemit and all! Your job is to have adequate servers and good code.
Our job is to interact, post content, create relationships, & hi-light great work from others, right? There should be no guilt or shame here. What is this the Catholic Church?! So users are supposed to interact, but just not TOO much or you'll burden the IMPORTANT members of the Steemit Aristocracy. The digital priest class has spoken.
It's like a water shortage in Cali where the working class people have to watch their usage, while all the rich people water their lawns with sprinklers day and night. Oh! I have one more analogy: you guys are like the girlfriend who comes over to break up, and then asks to stay over and watch movies. SOOO many conflicting messages here folks! I threw in all the mixed metaphors I could think of, which is my subtly, subversive, passive aggressive way of protesting. Everything else is hate speech these days so we have to get creative.