This is my thoughtful look.
What's wrong with Steem in general? I've been on Steemit since January of this year. I've been posting continually, and have gotten my reputation up to a respectable level. I enjoy being part of a pioneering community of people unafraid to explore and to try new things. I've found true, committed people, blogging for their own enrichment and benefit, and striving to make Steemit a better place. There are those who make it difficult, with thoughtless comments, and bots begging for donations, but this is anywhere in the world.
What I like best, is that my content is my content, and there aren't advertisers making money off my content, then using that money to hurt my life through political investments or destroying some ecosystem. Folks should get paid for their content, which is their property, so that part I'm all for!
However. I'm not impressed by the efforts of those building the infrastructure our content revolves around. Steemit is clunky. It's glitchy. It's not polished. And it's not user friendly. The website interface has not changed discernibly in the time I've been using it. Not that sites need to change, but when they appear to be somewhat rudimentary, one might expect them to iron things out and to make the user experience more polished and seamless.
Maybe we could have a couple of templates to choose from. Maybe some formatting options for our photos. My iPhone photos are sometimes portrait style and I'm forced to open them in another program, rotate, then save, or else Steemit doesn't know which side is up. One thing I appreciate, is that I can begin a post on the train, then later log into the site on another computer, and my draft is still there waiting for me. That's rare! Usually it goes poof, into the ether, like with Facebook or other social media sites.
But we don't have to use the Steemit website interface. There are other options. I don't even know how many different options there are. I've heard about "Busy," "Partiko," "Steemshot," and maybe a couple of others. Admittedly, I haven't used them all. I have been using Steemshot for several months, and I enjoy the simplicity, and the extra exposure from the users of another platform. But, I see Steemshot as an analog to Instagram, and Steemshot is no Instagram. And, unless it takes on some of the ease of use, the filters, settings, editing abilities, and polished design, it's never going to be.
Remember MySpace? Remember that you could do all kinds of customization to your profile? There were many layouts and settings and you could use HTML and other programming to make your page unique. And that was a huge part of its decline. High end users made great pages, but the majority languished with ugly pages, and no one had the time to do constant programming on their page. It's about user interaction, not boring programming.
I'm a webmaster at MIT. I'm not afraid of programming. I could make my Steemit page much richer than it is. I could add graphics and bells and whistles. But, that's not my art. I want my art to shine through. I use Squarespace for my website because it provides a quick, easy, elegant, polished interface for my viewers to see my art. They don't need bells and whistles. But they do appreciate polish.
Let me know what you think about my thoughts regarding the Steemiverse. Is that a term? Is now!
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