Happy Steem Birthday To Me

Last week I celebrated my birthday on Steem. Three eventful years were completed last Saturday, which I didn't actually realise until my @steemitboard message on my last post.

Funnily enough I was meeting @ericvancewalton and his lovely wife on the Portobello Road in London, as they are over on a flying visit checking out this wonderful city for the first time.

I love the fact that I was meeting them on my Steem birthday, and it's a bit of a shame I didn't realise at the time as it would have been nice to mark the moment with a raised glass.

No matter, fun was had by all.

Gratitude

When people ask me how I feel about Steemit, the first thing that always comes out of my mouth is the word gratitude. I am extremely grateful and happy that Steemit came into existence when it did, and that I was lucky and curious enough to check it out.

It has allowed me to live a certain life these last few years, and even though it can no longer sustain me, I shall be forever grateful to @ned, and @dan for shaking up the world and bringing me along for the ride.

Changes

I first became aware of the word hardfork in relation to Steemit. I think it was around HF15/16 that the phrase worked its way into my general lexicon, and it represented the first of many changes on Steemit.

One major change that happened a few hardforks later was the move from a 104 week vesting period, to just 13. For those of you who aren't aware, the original time period to withdraw all of your funds from Steemit was two years!

I actually wrote an article at the time saying what a brilliant idea I thought it was. My thinking was that having such a long period whereby your funds where staked into the system, meant that you were less likely to act in a way that damaged the system.

In my mind the 2 year vesting period was the perfect answer to the prisoners' dilemma, in which every prisoner is offered a chance to win a million dollars each, but only if everyone agreed and nobody decided to take the money for themselves.

Unfortunately I, nor the developers saw what this meant as far as where the power lay on the platform. So the stake weighted voting algorithm was changed and the vesting period was changed from 2 years to 3 months, which in some people's minds is still too long.

Frustration

Not everything has been plain and smooth sailing on the good ship Steemit, a lot of us, and I am no different, have voiced frustrations at the way the ship is being steered.

The biggest one for me was marketing, I shouted myself hoarse between about August and October 2016, because this was when Steemit was getting a lot of positive press and free PR.

I felt that @ned should have utilised some of Steemit's then, very large war chest and spent some money on advertising the platform whilst everyone was talking about us.

Alas, anyone who could have made that happen either ignored or disagreed with me. Unfortunately now my frustration is borne out of watching a half-hearted marketing campaign happen three years too late.

Don't get me wrong, I love @andrarchy and I think he is actually doing a great job, however I think his hands have been tied by some pretty awful leadership decisions these past few years.

Community

I mentioned at the top that I hooked up with @ericvancewalton last weekend, and that really does highlight the way in which I have become a part of Steemit and the larger crypto community.

I really value the connections I've made on here, and as well as meeting Eric, I went to Steemfest last year and met a whole bunch of amazing Steemians that I hope to see again among others, later this year in Thailand at Steemfest 4.