Steemit is the real deal.
But what's the right way to use it?
Everybody seems to have an opinion about this, from the vote-bot developer who has built a profitable business for himself to the penniless minnow who can't understand why her blogs get no views.
For the trickle of new creators of quality content, there has been a flood of abusers, colluders, and work from homies determined to squeeze what they can from Steem and never look back.
If you're fortunate enough to get some action on your posts, your comment section is probably riddled with copy-pasted nonsense.
You could use some of your power to downvote the comments, but then you're taking something away from the creators you would otherwise be upvoting. Plus, if you put one of these users in their place, several more will appear to take their previous place. I wrote a song a couple months ago about the comment abuse phenomenon. It's called Shitty Comments. Enjoy.
More Trouble
Seriously, there are so many things here that you could complain about that I probably can't even think of them all as I write this post. We've got whales fighting among themselves instead of curating new users. The trending page is an entirely inaccurate portrayal of Steemit that does little more than help us create unrealistic expectations. Some people love the bots, but most people hate the bots, etc.
If you take to complaining, it can get a little out of hand. When we spend so much time in this world, it's easy to forget one little fact...
We're Still Beta.
I actually mean it as a pun. Not only are we still early adopters of an incomplete, theoretical system, but we're better off. What's the alternative? We could have kept sharing on mainstream social networking, desperately trying to scrape some rewards out of their crooked system while they scraped our data for their own profits. Trust me. We're better off here, even with all the complaint fodder.
Solutions
The solution for this multitude of problems is simpler than it seems. The easiest way to put is Just Deal With It.
Beyond a Melting Pot
We're not a melting pot. We're more like a big pot that has all the ingredients in it, but they're not melting together. The heat is on high, but the stuff just isn't mixing. There are people from literally all over the world here, which throws a lot of different ethical approaches into the pot.
Steem Ethics
Every person has a personal code of ethics. It tells a person what is acceptable (and what is not) in terms of social behavior. This comes partly from their upbringing, partly from the society in which they live, and from many other factors.
For example: A Steemian has an upvote worth a nickel. He posts regularly and always upvotes his own posts. He then inherits a large amount of fiat money and invests into Steem. Now his upvote is worth $1.50. He decides to stop upvoting his own posts altogether. Why did he do this? Ethics.
A Second Example: A Steemian needs to make .5 SBD by the end of the week, or her family will be hungry. She knows that if she comments on fifty trending posts (even without reading them) maybe one or two of her comments will earn a little something. She copies a generic self-promoting comment and pastes it over and over. Why did she do this? Ethics.