Around the world and down to the granular individual level, personal finance carries with it a range of taboos. While it is fine to talk about the earnings of a Hollywood star or even the boss at work, talking to each other directly about personal wealth or lack thereof is not something most people are accustomed to. On Steem, this is both a blessing and a possible curse.
It is a blessing because the transparency of wallet and transaction means that the entire ecosystem is much more open and as a result, the dialogue surrounding financial considerations follows suit. This creates an environment where it is easier to get deeper learning as there is a look behind the curtain and, it increases the potential to attract users as it is possible to see precisely what the earnings look like on Steem - something that very few platforms and potentially zero centralized ones give an accurate insight into.
The negatives to transparency however are large and create an obstacle for all facets of experience here. Yes, there is the jealousy that is inherent when there are differences in outcome, but it goes much further than that. Now, how many accounts are out there where people are happy to show their face and reveal their identity? While the anonymous truth teller might be one narrative, a great deal of people are unwilling because there are financial transparencies here too.
Ever noticed that there are very few people inviting their families here? It is all well and good to compare Steem shortcomings to Facebook but it is an entirely different experience. Inviting a friend or family member to Facebook doesn't reveal earnings, it doesn't come with votes that have economic value and it doesn't encourage scam and circles in the same way as there is little value for most people in doing so. Steem is quite different in this regard.
This is also likely why a lot of people will attempt to detach their Steem interaction from their real life name and while they may share their content on Twitter, do they use their main Twitter account - Or are they anon there too? While we can argue about the pros and cons of anonymous and pseudonymous accounts, most people in the mainstream world are more trusting when there is a face and a name behind the words, a person who they can consider responsible for their actions.
For those of you who are into investing, do you take investment advice from people who have no names, and are faceless? This is something to consider when looking at investing into marketing efforts, because most people are not going to even attempt something that they can get for free if they do not hold some level of trust in those who invite them in.
There are more reasons why transparency and anonymity create barriers to onboarding, but one thing to consider is that a product or service does not face the same hurdles because brands are not expected to have faces. Instead, brands build a brand image around the experience of their deliverable in a way that attempts to target those who are most likely to utilize what they offer. While faces of the company may be used, others look for trademark recognition or experience driven attachments.
As I see it, this is why it is up to individual communities and applications to market their products and services effectively and build compelling enough use cases that those who use and support it are willing to push them onward through word of mouth. The problem with a centralized marketing effort is that it will be built to attract a targeted audience and what might be effective to draw in one type of user, can completely turn away another as they are insensitive to a wide range of the audience.
However, when an application has its use case and experience, it can predict what types of users it will attract. For example, a sporting application might not focus on attracting music lovers as they are looking for those who love sports. Sure, there can be overlap in interests, but for a marketing campaign, a one-size-fits-all approach is more likely to not fit many in a compelling enough way to change behavior.
That is the goal of marketing isn't it? To evoke a behavioral change that support the goals of the campaign. If a restaurant creates an advertising campaign that makes people feel like not eating their food, you might consider it a failure. A they say, know your audience and this means to know them well enough to understand what interests them and mobilizes them to act.
But, how many anonymous accounts that want to stay anonymous are going to spend their effort to onboard people they know when those very people are the ones that become the weakest link in maintaining anonymity? Onboarding to Steem is difficult at the best of times, let alone to unfamiliar people without showing your face.
One of the reasons Joe and Jerry were able to onboard wasn't just because of the promise of wealth, it was because they were faces on the screen and people figure, if this is bullshit, they know who they are. Because of this, they were able to onboard and people believed their BS claims because they dealt with people, not a tiny little profile picture of whatever random image most people use on Steem and other places.
Again, do you take investing advice from randoms on the internet with no face and no proof they have any knowledge whatsoever? For the most part, likely no. But once there is a face attached, it all becomes more believable, more legit, more compelling. This likely doesn't sit well with the people who value their privacy to the point that they do not want anyone to know who they are - the truth from behind the mask people - or is it to mask the scam?
We are human, we are programmed to trust people. We are programmed to not trust people who won't look us in the eye - and many other factors. I think the anonymity and the open finances create hurdles to mainstreaming as on average, we are both culturally aware not to reveal our personal financial information (no matter how curious we may be about other's earnings), and programmed to be mistrustful of what we cannot see, including people promising investment returns on the internet via money that doesn't exist.
No matter the good intentions, it takes time and education to shift culture and we are talking about two factors of our experience that are deeply ingrained into our behavior and potentially, hardwired into who we are as a species. There are challenges to onboard onto Steem for many reasons, but it is senseless to leave out the average behaviors of humans and how we generally interact and operate personally.
A decentralized community that encourages anonymity by having transparency of financial data creates a host of sticky problems that are difficult to overcome. While some people here might be okay with it on Steem, go up to your colleague or best friend tomorrow, look them in the eye and tell them exactly how much you earn per month, show them your bank account and then, demand to see theirs. while this might not be quite what happens on Steem, it doesn't mean that someone doesn't feel like it is that way.
Cultural norms and the stories we adhere to direct our behavior and that means that in order for marketing to work, we have to be able to differentiate clusters of norms, identify a target audience and then develop the message to work at their current position to shift their norms to where we would want them to interact. Targeting a heavy metal fan, or a toy train enthusiast will likely require different messaging.
It is no wonder so many onboards fail here because so many of them have been brought in under the proviso of earning, not experience. Facebook doesn't offer earning, it delivers connections to family and friends and encouraged inviting them in at no cost and most importantly, no personal exposure to risk for sending the invite. On Steem, there are risks in invitation and revelation, some of them real and some perceived, but no matter - most people are risk averse.
Facebook took zero investment. It also offered zero ownership.
People thought it a good deal and revealed themselves completely for no financial incentive.
It is funny on Steem as many people won't reveal themselves because of financial incentives. They don't want their neighbors tracking their wallet, they don't want their boss to know they are earning on the side, they don't want to feel the jealousy if their friend earns more, they don't want to be the target of those who cannot control their own jealous feelings. There are a multitude of factors and everyone has a reason why they don't reveal themselves, but how truthful is it - or is it a way to control their own narrative, to justify their behavior, to hide the truth?
This is the problem isn't it? We work in a trustless system yet, when it comes to building a lasting and robust community, trust in humans is still the largest factor - and the most difficult to build without a face and reasons to hide it.
Is it impossible to mainstream? Not at all. But to change the cultural norms across a vast a diverse user group That is not here yet takes time, investment, patience and - a lot of uncomfortable conversations.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
