The Steem Blockchain keeps changing all the time and it's nothing compared to what it used to be when I joined 2 years ago. I have always enjoyed being part of this platform and love to think about how everything works and where things are potentially going.
I tend to flip between seeing it all as a worthless Ponzi and being super optimistic like the full-time bloggers that only talk positive about Steem 24/7 despite the fact that Steem has been one of the worst crypto investments on the market. I do try to always keep a skeptical view not getting lost in wishful thinking and I'm not sure about some of the recent developments on the STEEM Blockchain.
Too Easy to Earn STEEM | No Reason To Hold SP
This is basically my main concern. When I started on Steemit it was a huge challenge to earn Steem and the only way to earn more and grow was to Power Up your Steem increasing your own SP. Genuine social engagement also was a great way to grow as comments tended to get upvotes while you got to know more like-minded people on the platform. All this showed some kind of longer-term commitment giving more reasons for others to upvote you while also increasing your own upvote value a bit. The busy Upvotes came along giving more incentive do better as they are linked to the combined SP of all your followers. It made it quite hard for new people who were in it just for the money to get something going on the platform causing a low retention rate. So a real commitment was needed to get something going.
Right now with all the Dapps that hold a lot of SP, it feels completely different and actually way too easy to earn part of the reward pool without the need to have any kind of investment into the platform. Anyone can just create an account (or multiple accounts), post complete useless garbage with 0 engagement and start earning Steem just for a profit without it having any negative impact on their earning power if they just sell it. In fact, going about Steem from an angle of starting a genuine blog putting a lot of time in writing about what truly interests you while powering up is probably the absolute worst way of going about things and getting anywhere.
Formula To Earn on Steemit with a New Account and Minimum SP
Make Daily Actifit post: This takes little to no time, just install the app and track the steps you make on a daily basis and take 1 minute to make the default spam post. There is no point in putting any kind of effort into it creating a custom image since it won't make any difference earnings wise. You get an Upvote from Actifit and earn AFIT Tokens that can be used to buy bigger upvotes.
Play Steemmonsters: Try to get your hands on a Steemmonsters Promo code or invest the 10$ which is actually well worth it as it gives a way to grind out DEC that can be used to get upvotes from 
Esteem post: Esteem gives good upvotes every 2 posts if I'm not mistaken regardless of the content while taking 10% cut on the post rewards. You have to make sure to make another shitpost to profit from those also adding all the other tags that potentially give extra tokens that can be sold for Steem.
Drugwars Reply Those that have been playing the Drugwars ponzi still can get upvotes from that account. Instead of having to make a one-click shitpost on your blog it now has moved to post it as a reply on their forum.
Palnet | steemleo | sportstalk | spt | zzan | steemace | battle | ... tags: Using all these tags is pretty much mandatory and you are currently far better off staking these tokens compared to having actual SP Powered Up. Few of these tokens seem to be actually about the community but instead for most, it's just another way to earn on the platform.
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There are many more ways to get upvotes without the need to have any SP whatsoever and from what it looks like there will be plenty more to come in the future.
This trend of being able to earn on Steem without the need to have any SP or real content raises a lot of questions for me. I see more people decreasing the SP by powering down or leasing it out already since there seems to be little reason to actually hold SP. HF21 will likely increase this trend as investors (bid bots) will also have less reason to hold SP . While the selling pressure of Steem inc has been reduced, the selling pressure of the ones who leech just to sell will likely increase.
Even though I'm not selling myself, I do want to do well on Steemit and feel somewhat forced to in a way to also bend my ways a bit to do what's most profitable at the moment. What I always liked about Steemit is that it has been a friendly environment to have a blog and meet like-minded people. You are able to empower yourself while helping out some of the people you really like giving upvotes asking nothing in return. The idea that it's extremely easy for anyone with no commitment to come and earn Steem really worries me as someone who is in it more for the long run.
Solution ?
If dapps would set minimum SP requirements that are linked to the upvotes they give out it would already give more reasons to Hold SP and be a big step forward to combat all the ones that just want to profit from them. Steemmmosnters with the Dec tokens is actually a good example. You can only earn so much as a starting player without investing some into the ecosystem.
It would be nice to hear some opinions in the comments. I still want to increase my SP to 10k, but aside from it just being an even number, I literally see no reason whatsoever to do it right now.
