In defense of finding value on Steem

in #steem6 years ago

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What Steem is and what it will become is a topic which is garnering some interesting debate recently. It has always been discussed one way or another but in this moment the possibilities seem to be both closing and opening in ways which a least feel a little newer than before.

This is largely due to the continued proliferation of apps built to integrate with Steem. These apps use some part of the Steem blockchain to realize their goals. Note that it isn't really right
to call nearly any of these "dApps" or distributed apps, because they are in fact centralized. They are also not really "apps on Steem" because no code runs on the blockchain. I recently discussed this and jokingly coined the term "dAppish" which you are free to use :D But then again, this is so much nitpicking so I'll move on.

Conversations so far have focused on either lamenting or rejoicing in the demise of Steem as a blogging platform. While I have every respect for Steemit Inc., they have failed to offer a modern and compelling blogging tool in steemit.com, and alternate offerings have been blinkered by the example they set. With the rise of non-blogging apps using Steem many see it fit to call Steem-as-blog dead.

On the flipside there has been slowly growing excitement about the new apps, as well as the usual conservatives reminding us of the fable of Icarus in their own way. It's a point that needs to be made, but I think we can indulge in a little excitement from time to time. There are some really great products out there and as they cut their teeth and make or break it, I feel like we're entering chapter 3 of the life of the blockchain. See chapter 1: those first in; chapter 2: early adopters.

But you probably know all this already. :) What I really want to discuss here is the things that will not change in all the weather and tide changes we find ourselves in: finding value on Steem.

The fallacy of quality

In @taskmaster4450 's recent post, they dismiss the practice of prioritizing quality articles as snobbish, hurting adoption and stifling innovation.

There's one thing I definitely agree with about this position, and that's that new people are often told "the way it is" by existing users who claim some authority on how stuff is supposed to work here. In other words, they lay down rules and say "this is what we all do" without admitting to the diversity of action and opinion on Steem. We are conditioned to accept a homogeneous culture as it's what we find on Facebook, Twitter, Redit, etc., so it doesn't seem odd to newbies. But it causes quite a lot confusion. I've tried to do my part to encourage new users to look around at what people are doing for themselves.

But the real bugbear for me is the claiming that writing and reading high quality articles is elitist. Immediately this accusation smacks of the kind of anti-intellectualism that has gained currency in a world of highly processed media.

On the one hand it often comes from a place of anti-authoritarianism, specifically against the fallacy known as "Argument from Authority". That is: trust me, I'm an expert. I support this criticism. If I accept someone's ideas I try to do so on the face of the ideas, not on the status of the speaker. I expect other people to take the same liberty.

However on the other it claims that no one is to speak knowledgeably about a subject, and that anyone doing so must be "talking down". I think this betrays an insecurity on the part of the listener.

Perhaps it has more to do with the kind of speech used. For example the kind of speech I'm using here and now is the kind I use when I'm trying to be specific and meticulous. It could definitely sound a bit haughty. That is a cultural issue and a difficult one. It's hard to change how you speak, and hard to change how you hear speech.

IoP, the Internet of Preferences

What is the relationship between Value and Quality? I think that there is no one answer for this. There is however a key difference in consequences, and that is this:

Value is a language we all speak, whereas Quality may not be.

Value may be related to quality and it may not. In many ways quality is subjective and so is value. But value is an emergent socially agreed upon property of objects, quality is an imposed socially agreed upon property. This is especially true for objects with have no essential utility, and Steem posts fit into this category.

The founders of Steem wanted to have it all, and for us to share in that. High value and high quality. In the last few years though we have discovered that value is all that remains.

Here's another maxim I've observed:

Value is fundamental to the Steem blockchain, whereas Quality is a function of the interface.

What that means is that value operates on the lower strata of the infrastructure, it is recorded and we interact with it using actual blockchain operations. We "agree on it" by our usage of it and the usage the core blockchain code enforces.

Quality is something we can only get from an interface. Blog posts are the simplest case. I mean you can read the text (though it's mostly markdown and HTML) straight from the chain but 99.999% of people are going to want that presented nicely. But when things get any more complicated, with games, product hunting, videos, music, etc., we can only perceive the quality through the interface.

Doubling down on quality: a Steem magazine

I'm currently developing a project called Gleeming. I'm not sure exactly what it's going to be yet, but some kind of magazine. My focus is on:

  • Bold and attractive presentation
  • Externally facing (i.e. not the Steem in-crowd) packaging
  • Archiving the best older posts of Steem
  • Soliciting great writing
  • Renewed support for authors (evergreen) without hacks

I strongly believe that casual high quality blogging on Steem is coming to an end in it's current formation, it's time to do something about that ourselves.

What inspires me and what has always kept me here is the depth of thought that my favorite writers bring to their posts. Of course the rewards tap into your primitive incentive response but really is it reading insightful words that has been my favorite part of the journey.

If this sounds interesting to you get in touch, and get involved in what comes next. If I do it alone there won't be much in it!

Final thought

Should we happily marshal in the torrents of selfies, cat videos and gibberish dAppish encoded data on the Steem blockchain?

Absolutely!

Should we reward it or even down vote it?

That's up to every account-holder to decide and as long as Steem is Steem, this fact will remain.

Image source

I actually searched for "terrible stock art photo" to try to get a juxtaposition going on but I ended up stumbling across this image which actually really fits. Go figure.

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I don't think it's coming to an end per se. I came here two years ago to write fiction. Since then I have written both blogs and a considerable number of stories. It's why I will continue to come here.

I also write shorter stuff and I do agree that different techniques are coming into play. However, I think quality writing will always be number 1.

I write fiction as well. Unfortunately, I’m still relatively new here, so I’m still trying to figure out how all this works. I admit, I haven’t posted much, but I’d appreciate any advice you could give me.

I could probably throw out about 20 to 30 pages of advice. However, if you want you could probably look for me on discord @jeezzle and I can answer whatever questions you might have. I might even have a few questions of my own.

I think the steemit use of upvoting bots of damaging the interest in original works

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If we want mass adoption we need to be more like @surpassinggoogle's idea of @ulogs where people are asked to post about their life. Following in the footsteps of Facebook. Facebook connects people to people by letting them be themselves.

Another large internet presence is those sites connecting people to information. Search engine powerhouses that serve up nothing but links. So along comes dappish sites like dlike.io...

Another large group of internet users like sharing photos at sites such as Instagram. So along comes dappish sites like steepshot ...

For steem to increase in value we need all these options, drawing on huge numbers of users and then the key happens... Large advertising and marketing types realize we have millions of eyeballs. Something they will pour money into trying to coax a few people to try their goods and services.

"Quality" content is certainly a piece of the puzzle, but steem will never reach the moon without all those other pieces of the puzzle that bring about mass adoption.

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That's cool, somehow I missed @ulogs . For real there can be many awesome ideas for ways to use the content focused nature of Steem for some specific purpose. The magazine idea is another such idea and I don't think any idea needs to be as comprehensive as Facebook or whatever. We'll have the bigger projects but my person interest is in the niches. Niches can be good too though. In a way a newspaper is a niche and look how well they have done historically.

Renewed support for authors (evergreen) without hacks

What do you mean by support for evergreen authors. If you are interested to publish a digital magazine on evergreen articles on Steem blockchain, how about monetize it through Ads. The interface will support ads (e.g. Google Adsense). The revenue from the Ads can be used to buy back SMTs. Authors will earn SMTs for ever based on their popularity of their article. Hard to judge the popularity, perhaps earning from Ads can be parameter.

Bottom line is evergreen articles should be rewarded forever based on popularity (e.g. visits), however, it is possible to reward them beyond seven days in Steem blockchain. Perhaps an SMT with Ad interface can help it fly.

By evergreen I mean continued rewards after the 7 day mark. But it's not clear to me what the exact best way to structure it is or how to fund it. I have a few ideas which I'm chewing on but the thing that's clearest is that it's needed and I think it's solvable in some way.

I'm 100% against using Google ads in any capacity. I'm not against ads per se but definitely not by a third party. I have an idea for a Steem based ad network but that's another story ;)

You have a good idea. I've been webmastering since around '95 and all the gurus have preached find your niche. Something I really was never able to do. haha I have a hard time focusing on a single tree when there is a whole forest to explore. Perhaps that's why I still work for a living... haha

  • I'm really amazed that hard print magazines and newspapers are still around, but they are. They most all do have an online presence. Some more than others.
  • Interesting stats from https://www.statista.com/topics/1265/magazines/
    Each year $75 million is spent on the 7216 magazines which are read read by 95.33 million people to see $14.43 billion of ads. The biggest advertiser is L’Oréal SA, a world leader in the beauty industry.

Interesting stats and analysis. Thanks, I'm encouraged by this.

Interesting stats
And analysis. Thanks, I'm
Encouraged by this.

                 - personz


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

The truth is spelt. Thanks

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You make an interesting argument. I don’t see value in Twitter or Instagram, but millions of other people do. Maybe we should ease up on the policing of content.
I guess the main issue is people getting butthurt about someone being more successful than them for doing less work. That would be a hard sell to many users, even if in the long run it meant the platform grows.

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Very interesting, I'm noticing many users of Partiko lately. Appending the Partiko link to comments is a great idea.

That's ultimately what the issue is. I've trawled through many a post about people complaining about "reward pool rape" but offering only the fact that memes and certain so-called low-quality content is more successful than their own posts, which they've spent hours on. I think spam should be roundly demolished, but posting memes is something most of us do on a regular basis. Yet there are plenty of people on here who think memes should never be rewarded.

One thing that I really appreciate about Steempeak is its Guaranteed Steem Minimium Income Tool. It averages responses on your last posts and gives you a projected baseline income for the month and how many posts you make during that month. I say all that to say: people need to temper their expectations.

I had a big, long fight with a guy who didn't understand that Steemit isn't Steem, so I think a little introspection on the part of everyone is a healthy thing.

Yea, i do sgree

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hahaa "butthurt"

People who get upset about stuff like that must not have spent any length of time in the real world. :)

QuoteBut the real bugbear for me is the claiming that writing and reading high quality articles is elitist. Immediately this accusation smacks of the kind of anti-intellectualism that has gained currency in a world of highly processed media.

Yes. I have an issue with these kinds of sentiments, I’ll leave my thoughts perhaps for an article... although I think my antagonism towards anti-intellectualism are a not-so-subtle undercurrent in my own work 😉.

Count me in with your project. I’ve also been thinking along similar lines. You can DM via Discord using the same name (Petah Raven metametheus).

Glad to have found you!

This awsome post shows how value can be represented by much quality of the content inside and not the visual quality of its layout and formatting. And I see also a value for the blockchain in your article.

Your usage of the word emergent is really fitting to the whole value/quality topic and like you have said it: quality and value are subjective.

And extremely relative to the situation, consument and context of the content (in relation to other content).

I also agree with you that we need these catvideos, selfies and mass consumption content to grow and to see what is quality for us personally.

The usage of steem power is up to everyone on its own but developers on their side should concentrate on future save applications with good UIs for nice readable content. The ideas of the dAppish sites are nice and fill in big niches of social media but they are not innovative at all. The applications right now are just implementing already existing concepts on a low level of integration of the blockchain.

Your projection about "steem is in its 3rd step" is nice and I think it is a good stage for the level of usage of the blockchain we are into right now.

But I really really hope the 4th will be here very soon and will target to make the existing tools / editors / sharing-possibilities better and more user friendly.

Steem is pretty UI-oldschool and really needs a rework.. I mean - I am commenting on my smartphone right now and there is no possibility to make the comment text field bigger. And this is just a simple example.

Thank you for writing and inspiring my friend! I am happy that I read your post and also used a translator to get all words right haha (a translation service would be awesome too ^^)

Oh ehm and your project sounds really interesting ! I would like to help you with something - if you need help with I don't know what ^^ I can script python a bit, programming c# make graphical stuff and so on and I am active in some discords / can promote and test and what ever.. so let me know hihi

I think, you are right

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I think, you are right

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Returning to the platform after a significant time off I noticed that I could no longer expect ~$20 for a quality post. My most recent scholarly article (that has exited it's payout time) garnered a measly $4.57. I don't know if this is the result of my long absence or some disappointing new trend in the platform. For example, I notice your post has a slew of "pay to upvote" bots pumping up its value. While this doesn't break any rules, it certainly violates the spirit of the platform.

Regardless, I welcome the idea of a slick "SteemIt Magazine."

By the by, I'd like for the "academic" tag to get more use. My intention is for it to be used on articles of high enough quality they could be submitted at the university level—or, in my case, actually are papers I've submitted with some images added. This to distinguish it from other "education" posts.

Bots have taken over steemit and are what is what now unfortunately, has been for a good little bit. Proof of Brain has become Proof of Bot Use. Actual quality posts go by the wayside never to be seen while stolen content, stolen memes and shitposts roll in the bank.

Things have definitely changed but in my experience they were always changing, one month to the next. Remember the whale experiment? That really threw a lot of things out. There have been eras.

However yes you're right, today writers of interesting stuff don't get rewarded as well. The focus has shifted more to return on investment that curation. We have to roll with it. So there comes this idea for a magazine.

I'll go into more detail next time but it would have sections if done right. Academic / scholarly might be too narrow, can you think of a good parent category for that that doesn't dilute it?

Upvote bots are damaging the community

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Quality is somewhat part of playing the game here I think. It isn't needed but, it is an approach that can attract a different audience. I am pretty sure that if I had posted memes and selfies instead of what I have done, I wouldn't have had the opportunities I have had.

Not everyone can do the same though which creates barriers to entry and a competitive advantage for those who can. The audience may not be as large but the audience who enjoys it find enough value in it to reward it. It comes down to tastes and preferences as well as perception of what holds value.

It sounds like an interesting project and I am keen to find out community reactions. I do think that Steem needs to start facing outward though as there is a lot of internal marketing but that does little for adoption.

Right, so that's why specific bApps / dAppish apps can help to keep the dream alive. We can just expect the main feed to become like what it looks like if you were to aggregate everything Google transmits to a single stream ... our feeds are likely to trend towards chaos. It won't be long before front end interfaces stop using it.

We shall see what people make of Gleeming. I'll do a little demo release soon I hope that people can play with.

It won't be long before front end interfaces stop using it

I am surprised they include it at all in the UI. It would likely be more beneficial for them if instead of including all Steem trending, they filtered it to be Trending posted through their particular app. This would mean that those who use it would have more chance to appear in that Trending section at least.

Keep it coming

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Keep it coming

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All I really want is readers.

I recently wrote this to @minismallholding:

"littlebitfarm (55) · 13 hours ago
I was posting somewhere else that it would be great if there were topics that we could choose to have our posts bubble around in for a length of time. I'm not sure how to construct that, but maybe some sort of time constraint. So say you choose homesteading, then your post will bubble in the homesteading section for say 48 hours. So it's like post juggling through some sort of algorithm. Perhaps you could only choose one or two posts a week to bubble, or something like that! I think of it like the balls in a bingo game, bubbling around. I don't know, but there has to be a good way to make it more effective. I'm not suggesting in anyway that I have all the answers, lol!"

Bots don't read, and respond! I have one account. I actually write my own poetry, fiction, and non-fiction for. I also post my own art, and take my own photography! Yet I cannot get anybody to read, because my posts sink to the bottom like a stone! It's very disheartening! It caused me to take a several month break, which didn't help! I am the real deal, but there is little to no benefit to it!

Interesting concept of "bubbling". I guess the more fundamental question is how are people consuming content? How can we improve that?

I think the whole concept being explored here is excellent! However, it's not enough to get participants. You have to keep them coming back for more. Seriously, I am not just complaining. I'm trying to put forward ideas.

Bots may not read, but if exposure is what you want, using some promotion bots can help you get it. Maybe it shouldn't have to be like that, but it is.

That's one of the things I'm interested in providing alternatives to.

I’m interested in making sure that long posts still are being written too because I have found this aspect very enriching... maybe @rhondak would be interested in this project?

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Feel free to hook me up

Great post very thought-provoking and I read every word

You are a genius

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