I remember when I first started here how excited I was and how positive I was. When I was only getting cents for my first-time releases, I got curious how the others were doing it, whose payouts regularly saw more than 50 or 100 crypto dollars. I remember very well saying to my husband, "I'm going to try that." A blogger whose posts I enjoyed reading posted in the science corner and I asked her how she had managed to get a regular rain of rewards. After a few forays into the back chat rooms, I had realised that it was possible to join a guild and I threw myself into it with vigour.

Part of me knew that as well as the themes I really cared about, it was always a game we were all playing.

The inconsistency in one's own existence, that the individual is always also considered valuable, knows about the group dynamic that gives it all a semblance of insignificance. In the sense that it is advertising, for example.

The highly rated postings are the advertisements for newcomers to try out to see if they get similar attention and rewards as those they have taken as their role models. There is nothing wrong with that for a start.

It was only over time, as I became aware of the flag wars at the edges of my perception, that I developed a view on this. For my sake, of course, it could have gone on forever and I really couldn't complain about too few payouts and attention.

But the self-saboteur in me also questioned what I was actually doing and the critic regularly asked me: what are you promoting? Does it have anything to do with your reality? Isn't blogging also a form of extroversion and the desire for recognition, a compensation for something?

Those who were severely disappointed have, in my opinion, been caught up in their own foolishness, that this is about more than passing time and following a mega-trend, where it is about using one's own person and throwing oneself on a market that does not guarantee any commitment.

Criticism of the operators of this platform feels like spoken into the empty space, actually a soliloquy, since no contracts or guarantees are negotiated. This is the expression of modern man, who is active in the media and is always on probation in the great field of uncertainty.

There is no point of contact, no real person with a legal name to whom one can turn and with whom one can negotiate a fixed amount of money for a limited period of time, for example, according to which one is then paid. Since none of the higher ranks seems to have such a contract with anyone either. As nobody enters into a stable, transparent, binding and legally secured relationship with anybody, everything remains rather opaque and vague.

The advantage this offers at the same time is not to commit oneself anywhere, to act when one feels like it and to withdraw when one does not feel like working.

When I compare my existence here with previous professional and private relationships, I come to the conclusion that this non-commitment is two sides of the same coin: I don't have to stick to anything, I have the freedom to come and go as I please. On the other hand, none of the interest groups want to have anything to do with people whose commitment seems somehow uncertain and want to oblige you to work regularly. Over time, however, it becomes obvious that you can only keep this up for a certain period of time because, I think, arbitrariness still gets the upper hand because you simply cannot take this sphere seriously.

Others who try to influence the sphere with dogged seriousness and ambition will sooner or later be overwhelmed by the too loose and anonymous relationships, and will cut back on their initial commitments. The exception is probably those whose real weal and woe depends on the flow of money and who, they may tell themselves, cannot afford to do anything other than create blocks and beat the publicity drum.

In a way, it's all not such a great evil, I think you always have to be clear about the space you are entering and what you intend to say to it.

Awareness of the internal politics, yes, I agree, that may not be something people do have. But gaining awareness about it, often does not make ones own stand and notion better. Oftentimes I think that it might have been better for me to not involve myself too much in those politics.

Ah, ... I cannot cut myself short. Apologies. But I think you can handle it :)