I have something of a love / hate relationship with Steemit. On the one hand I love the idea of being paid for producing quality content, but on the other I hate how the reward system works and the behaviour it produces.
When I was first introduced to Steemit by a friend (@slobberchops), I was heavily involved in the crypto investing and development scene, so Steemit seemed a natural fit. I am a developer, so I first thought Steemit would be a paid version of StackExchange where technical users would get paid for answering technical questions. I am kind of sad that such a thing does not exist.
Steemit has been described to me as a social network where you get paid for your content. That is precisely what it is and it is for me precisely why it is broken.
Steemit should be a blogging platform where quality content surfaces to the top. Unlike other large blogging and news platforms, on Steemit there is no centralised curation and quality control. Instead, users vote on content and they are awarded with curation rewards for surfacing that content. The scoring system for curation rewards is precisely defined to try and achieve that outcome by paying the largest rewards to those that vote soon after new content is published and before others jump on the bandwagon.
However, the social network aspect of Steemit and how users are interpreting it, completely breaks the platform and prevents quality content from surfacing to the top. I am told the only way to get ahead in Steemit is to follow other users with high SP (Whales) and to vote for every piece of content they publish. Also, whenever my friends publish new content I am expected to vote for it straight away as part of the mutual benefits of helping each other to earn. It doesn't matter what the content is or even if there is any quality within that content, I just need to vote for it.
I have rallied against the pressure to do this from my friends and it is part of the reason why quality content I produce never gets any traction. It is also the reason I make very little on Steemit and will probably be the reason I switch back to other blogging platforms. It makes me feel guilty not to vote on every little post they make even when I have no interest in the subject, and makes me feel even guiltier when I do bow to the pressure and vote on something I know others will have no interest in.
I find it increasingly difficult to find anything of real interest for me to get my curation rewards by voting for it. The things that are surfaced to me most of the time I have no interest in. This isn't how this platform is supposed to work.
So what's the cure? Ignore trying to please all your friends and make money, and only vote for quality content you have a real interest and you think others will enjoy too. If we all did that then Steemit could be great, but unfortunately I don't see it every happening.
The curation rewards were supposed to surface quality content but instead it has turned into a content ponzi scheme.