Recently I read a post about Steemit etiquette. The author made a point about how distasteful it is to beg for upvotes on this platform.
I agree that it sucks to write a thought provoking post only to get a comment from someone begging for an upvote. Didn’t you see what I wrote? Are you that brazenly selfish to just ask for an upvote while providing nothing of value to me or the community? Those are normal thoughts but I would argue to say that Steemit is a lot like the regular world.
There’s a lot of value attached to a social media platform that can result in money. Just as in offline life, there will always be beggars. Sure you can flag them, ignore them, or ask the “powers that be” to remove them from your sight but what if I told you that beggars create the opportunity for us to be good. They always have and even more so now that you can peek into their blog or see their country of origin at times.
Let’s not forget that everyone on Steemit is not a first world software programmer or a FinTech VC. Steemit is global and the world is filled with poor people who beg. They beg , not out of selfishness but out of desperation.
You may not give your upvote and you don’t have to but there’s someone who will and that expression of goodness is necessary in a real community.