From the start I could see that Steem could benefit those who create content, but who struggle to earn much from it on-line. A few YouTubers make good money, but the majority will make little or nothing. Bands make money by selling music, merchandise and gig tickets. Artists need to sell their work, either orginals or to publishers. All of these could be making money on a daily basis just by posting on Steem, but it is only happening to a very limited extent.
I can see a few reasons why Steem is not getting used by such people and I hope to get other opinions on this, especially from those content creators who are using Steem.
This is quite likely unless Steemians have been reaching out to them. There is little or no visible marketing of the Steem platform going up. Maybe Steemit or others are doing deals behind the scenes, but we need ads in mainstream magazines or on sites that will be seen by the artists. I have mentioned it to plenty of artists, but they have not taken it on for some of the following reasons.
There are something over a million Steem accounts, maybe nearer two million by now, but only a few tens of thousands are active. Many of those are bots and there are a lot of people just playing games or just interacting with specific aspects. That probably leaves a few thousand who would curate good content. Some of those may have substantial SP, but are they looking out for good, original content? The lack of users is a bit of a chicken/egg situation as good content creators would bring an audience with them, but may want one that is ready-made.
Any artist with a social media strategy is likely to be committed to publishing on a specific set of platforms and these are likely to be those with the widest possible audience. If they are going to be making their art too, then there may just not be time for Steem. They are missing out on the rewards, but when they can reach thousands elsewhere who may buy something that may be a better use of their time. I had a comment discussion with bassist Steve Lawson on his blog that related to this. He has been writing about the benefits he gets from using Bandcamp.
Steve Lawson did seem a little suspicious of this aspect of Steem, but we need to sell it as a freedom rather than as something related to people buying drugs on-line or some sort of pyramid scheme.
Well we know that it is. You can extract Steem to spend via various means, but that may be harder in some territories with restrictive crypto laws.
It should be easier now and anyone with a good amount of SP can create accounts with resource credits. I have done this for a few random people on Twitter and delegated to them so they can operate. This should not be a barrier.
This does happen as there are people who are quite happy to mess things up for the 'LOLs'. Good people have been driven away from Steem by flagging campaigns. Some have accused @SteemFlagRewards of this, but I see little legitimate content being flagged. There have been cases where I disagreed with some of it and I spoke out about this. There is plenty of real abuse that needs taking down.
What do you think? How can we overcome these obstacles. I am looking for things I can act on as I really want to see some progress.
Steem on!
The geeky guitarist and facilitator of the 10K Minnows Project.
