Welcome to the 34th weekly installment of my series on Steemit income and growth!
Income on Steemit is generated by "investment" (the more Steem you have, the more you earn) and by "work" (earning Steem by contributing content that adds value). Already having invested my savings in Steem, I'm now working by uploading unique valuable content to the blockchain. My first goal is to increase my average weekly income to 15 Steem.
Calculating weekly income
Considering income from accounts that I own, that my wife owns, and accounts started as group projects with my funds (currently 
Week 01 - 0840 (+ ? ) Steem (+?%)
Week 02 - 0848 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.95%)
Week 03 - 0862 (+14) Steem (+1.65%)
Week 04 - 0868 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.70%)
Week 05 - 0876 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.92%)
Week 06 - 0888 (+12) Steem (+1.37%)
Week 07 - 0914 (+26) Steem (+2.93%)
Week 08 - 0929 (+15) Steem (+1.64%)
Week 09 - 0936 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.75%)
Week 10 - 0953 (+17) Steem (+1.82%)
Week 11 - 0960 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.73%)
Week 12 - 0966 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.63%)
Week 13 - 0973 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 14 - 0980 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 15 - 0986 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.61%)
Week 16 - 0991 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.51%)
Week 17 - 0996 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.50%)
Week 18 - 1032 (+36) Steem (+3.61%)
Week 19 - 1040 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.78%)
Week 20 - 1045 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.48%)
Week 21 - 1051 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.57%)
Week 22 - 1059 ( +8 ) Steem (+0.76%)
Week 23 - 1065 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.56%)
Week 24 - 1073 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.75%)
Week 25 - 1079 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.56%)
Week 26 - 1091 (+12) Steem (+1.11%)
Week 27 - 1100 (+ 9 ) Steem (+0.82%)
Week 28 - 1105 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.45%)
Week 29 - 1108 (+ 3 ) Steem (+0.27%)
Week 30 - 1119 (+11) Steem (+0.99%)
Week 31 - 1151 (+32) Steem (+2.86%)
Week 32 - 1159 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.70%)
Week 33 - 1166 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.60%)
Week 34 - 1172 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.51%)
Average weekly income (last 10 weeks): +9.9 Steem (+0.89%)
It was another slow week for upvotes - worse than last week (which was worse than the week before). At 0.5% weekly, we wouldn't reach our first goal until we hit 3000 Steem, which would take years of full time effort! Hopefully something changes for the better, if we keep giving it 100% and keep our fingers crossed.
I can graph my growth from when I started keeping data:
As you can see, growth (in green) has been falling below the line-of-best-average (in blue). And even that line is below what is expected (red), since all income is rolled back in and re-invested immediately, and nothing is ever spent.
Why isn't my growth at LEAST linear?
This graph may not look like much, but to me, it offers us the insight that the Steemit blockchain isn't growing as expected. Unless it's just me. As I've said many times, I'd love to see other people's data, but it seems not many people are keeping any.
What happens as my growth rate flattens further, and drops to nearly zero?
From an investment standpoint: "Would you invest in something with nearly zero rate of return?"
Let's not even mention the fact that it is taking the effort of several people to pull this off. Without any new content on my pages, the upvotes would be gone, and that's 99% of my Steemit income.
And let's not mention how I had to invest over 3000 USD into Steem - to operate our accounts and generate this supposed growth. Our investment after a year of full-time work is down to 870 USD!
This really is NOT the situation promised by Steemit's front end. "Make money sharing your voice!" We've shared. Ohhh, we've shared. My models have bared it all on this blockchain, and I can't even buy them a t-shirt with the @GirlsofGreen logo on it.
SUM TING WONG
"Just keep grinding, it will happen eventually" does not pay the bills. Nor is that what the slogan was, up front! If that's how it is, let's be honest about it, and stop trying to trick people into signing up here. That's a shitty long term plan.
"Keep waiting" isn't good enough for a lot of people. Maybe my team and I will stick around, maybe not. Doesn't really matter, not many would miss us! We're basically posting for ourselves, for the most part.
But it does point to a larger problem. There are others like me. In fact, I'm usually the first guy around to offer to do something for free. So if I'm losing patience in this project, you can bet your last cryptopenny there are others.
Not to mention, all those who WOULD have signed up and invested, had things been going better around here. People can smell a corpse a mile away. They're avoiding Steemit because they know it's not going anywhere. And that's sad, because without new members and investment, nobody here on Steemit is going to end up hitting their goals.
"It's about community and friendship"
I've heard that a lot, too. If that's really what Steemit is about, it should say that up front. But Steemit is about Steem. That's what makes Steemit different from FaceBook, from YouTube, from Twitter. Not community, not friendship, not networking, not any of the other things people claim it's about when it becomes clear that it's failing at what it's really about.
Stop pretending you can't see the pattern. We've got to face the problem, not keep pretending it isn't happening.
Steem is down to #41 on Cryptocap, sliding down from #16 when I started here. That shows the problem isn't simply that "cryptos are down right now". Steem is losing ground even faster than the others.
This problem will continue to be ignored, but it will have to be faced at some point. When it is, we'll look back unfavourably on those who knew about it but allowed it to fester.
DRutter