I doubt I'll make it to 4 years, but I've been working on Steem/Hive full time for more than 3.

I find it gets less accessible and user friendly as time goes on (and it didn't start very accessible or user friendly).

The fact that the currency is inherently designed to lose value over time wasn't known to me at the start, so I put $5000 into this chain, which was everything I had to invest. Put your money where your mouth is, they say. Power up for victory, they say. Haha. We have gone from top 10 to #147 on the crypto cap list while I've been pouring myself into this place. For $5000 invested and 3 years of full time work, I have $1300 to show for it. Not $1300 profits.... $1300 total. That's what happens when a currency loses 90% of its value, every year. No matter how much of it you bring in, you're still losing.

I refuse to use smart devices, and I can't have a bank account. So that's my line in the sand and it can't move. For me, privacy and decentralization are not just wishes, they're necessary for my survival. I have found recently that Bitcoin is not private or decentralized in any way, and that it's not possible to use cryptos without a smart device and/or involving governments, big corporations, and banks. Crypto isn't private or decentralized. Steem/Hive is the same - not private, and not decentralized. I can't even move my tokens around anymore without a smart device, bank account, or government ID. The promises of crypto have not been realized, and we're moving further and further away from them every day.

How to survive here? Simple. Be willing to give everything and get nothing, year after year, with no hope for anything else. If you can do that, you'll easily survive here as long as you want.

PS: This comment won't post. I'm getting an error: "Transaction broadcast error: Obsolete form of transaction detected, update your wallet."