In my time on Steem I have heard a lot of people talk about the 'ecosystem'. I have always enjoyed this analogy, and it has given me some insight as to what is actually going on here. In this article I am going to explore this idea a bit and see what we can learn about the block chain.
I have mostly been using Steemit, and am now transitioning over to busy as my main method of writing posts and doing day to day things such as using the wallet. I have also used and enjoyed dTube until my compact camera broke - meaning I am now unable to make videos. Steepshot I have dabbled a little in, and it's pretty snazzy. To be fair to my own integrity and the curation trails I am a part of - I feel much better about writing comprehensive articles though. With Steepshot there is a fairly low word cap, limiting the amount of information you can get in.
I think it is 
The thing about this Steem ecosystem is that things are happening here very fast, and they don't necessarily obey the natural (or unnatural) laws which the fiat economy has been using for thousands of years.
The metaphor which is handed to us as we come aboard the Steem ship is the ocean metaphor. The newbies are plankton, working or buying their way up to minnows. These fish grow larger and larger, into dolphins, orcas, and finally whales. It's a fairly simplistic metaphor, and the basis of division is how much Steem power we have to do our voting with.
I'm not sure what Witnesses would be, perhaps coral reefs or kelp forests. They provide continuous abundance and functionality to many creatures. Without them nothing can actually live here.
One possible implication is this idea of how these creatures actually eat each other. Whales sift through the plankton, the dolphins and orcas eat the fish of various sizes. I'm not sure how true this really is - it's me just extending the metaphor. Eating each other to get ahead is a competitive state of mind carried through from capitalism - yet here on Steem we strive for something more progressive, right?
I appreciate the ocean way of seeing things, especially since I got to congratulate myself for recently passing that 500SP mark. I am now a new category - 'minnow'. This blockchain is just like an RPG game, gain gold an experience - level up.
That's a moment to celebrate, since I think I have only put in 15 or 20 Steem which I bought with bitcoin. The rest is from votes, and that is mostly due to being part of 
Back to the Ocean though, what else can we contemplate on which relates to the ocean. Well pollution for one, I find it apt that Steem should be an ocean when we live in a time of the most polluted oceans even known to humanity. No Understatement.
What is the pollution we face here? Trite & Shite (Scottish accent intended) content getting unbelievable success? These are the oil spills, the sewage continuously spewing into our ocean, the phosphate fertilizer runoff. The thousands of bots, spamming day and night are the micro particles of plastic. The whales who keeps their votes to themselves are the deep sea trawlers. Destroying it for all of the other life forms for a no hassles bit of profit.
Those are some dark analogies, so I want to balance this out with some more hopeful imagery in the next section.
This is a new metaphor, and one that I hope will give a new perspective on how we can work together to create community abundance.
In the forest we have plants, lots of them, also insects and birds. There are bacteria and fungi. It's a thriving humming piece of life, and you can feel it if you spend time there. There is an unseen intelligence running everything. On this blockchain we have to be this intelligence, endless lines of scripts give us the structure (the laws of life), and we as the organisms must organize this into a balanced ecosystem.
The whales and the witnesses are the trees, yet it's important to note that it's not just individuals that are trees. These trees are community accounts which have a massive network of associations between all of the other plants around them, with the birds and the bees, the passing monkeys and birds, and the fungus beneath the earth. It's so important to see ourselves as part of this magnificent connected system - only then will be be creating sustainable economies.
For example
The metaphor extends further, because I have seen before my eyes how tribesteemup has spread it's seeds to create new groups and projects. These new young trees include 
Stolen content, sloppy writing, bad pictures, poor work. These are the thousands and millions of seeds with genetic variances. Unforunately they don't make it. We let them die and rot back into the earth. Life is abundant and always has another go, content creators can always change their ways and make new connections. We refine the ecosystem, we mature it - instead of taking a dying seedling and putting it into a hydroponic grow house.
Life isn't naturally moralistic, it always seeks balance and sustainability. It always seeks diversity.
Through curation trails we all continually support each other, the small and the large all benefit. We get to engage with people and content that enriches our lives.
The newbies are no longer plankton, they are now the fungal mycelium. For those scientists and mycologists out there, you will understand how important this life form is. Well established forests always have a huge fungal mass, the ancient forests have an incredibly high bio-mass all due to hidden fungus networks. This network is so important because it adds an additional neural network to the trees roots.
Trees talk to each other, and they actually exchange nutrients, they let each other know about pests and diseases. The forest is alive and continually exchanging information. Having the mycelium network means that the underground connection of the trees is more rich and complex, they can exchange information and nutrients more readily.
Another thing to note about this ecosystem is it all relies on connectivity and communication. Each plant large and small has a particular niche, and they interact with all of the plants around them - mostly symbiotically. The idea of competition in evolution was put forward by Darwin, yet it is not actually a very accurate representation of how most ecosystems function - it is more a justification for human brutality and ignorance.
It is not just up-votes though, those are one vital nutrient but we need many. It is communication which ultimately keeps everything alive. The discord groups are the neural networks of the ecosystem. These are the pheromones above ground and roots networks below ground. This is where the real action takes place - it holds everyone and everything together. We communicate and find readers and real engagement, we develop relationships and our place within the forest is strengthened with deeper 'roots'.
It's all about mutual support, what we are naturally built for.
