Hey Steemians!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and all the other celebrations everyone enjoys this time of the year. I haven't posted for a while now, partly because I just felt like I really needed a break. I told myself not too long after I finished my finals that I would have more time for Steemit, I was excited about this, but then it caught up to me really quickly half a week after that I was very exhausted from the fall season and my class finals. It also didn't help that finals happened a week before Christmas week and boy has that been crazy, it's like that every year and it never seems to not be that way.

I'm back now though and I have something I want to rant about and it's in regards to Steemit. Is it worth the effort to do these posts? I'm throwing this question out here because I've asked myself this a lot these past three months of being on the platform. I've watched big influencers come to the platform. I've read dozens and dozens of blogs from the more popular bloggers here. Everything from games, to cryptocurrency news, novels, and short stories. The crypto news in particular is always intriguing to me because I'm not a super savvy crypto guy. It helps to read up as much as I can on the subject as I know very little about all the intricacies involved. I write and hope that people see it and like it. I also write because I enjoy it, I have this weird habit of not writing enough even though I do like writing. I guess that hardest part is being creative on the spot. That's something I need to work on.

Anyway ...crypto is intriguing for a few reasons. I'm the kind of person that always has ideas, business ideas that is. It's why I chose to go to business school and study business. When I think of cryptocurrency I really think about the kind of opportunities that might come along with getting involved in it. This curiosity has lead me so far to coins like, Storjcoin, Smartcash, Steem, and more. So far out of all of them Steemit has yielded the best results, not lately, but I've had some success here and there. Why is that important though? Perhaps this is where I feel conflicted and why I've asked myself whether steemit is worth it.

It's important to first state that I love this platform. I see the good it has done for many individuals, couples, and families. There really is a lot that the platform has done for many people. I just have this damn pessimistic long term view sometimes with projects like these and perhaps I'm this way because I've been jaded by so many other attempts at leveraging platforms in the hopes that I could capture some kind of audience. The sad thing of it lately is it's becoming increasingly harder to just be yourself anywhere these days. What I mean is, I can't do and say what I want without some kind of censorship consequence. Not that I have anything to say that is super controversial in the first place, the point is, more and more other platforms that allow you to have a voice and create content are more concerned with the business aspect of their platforms. Or they're too concerned with being politically and socially correct.

It's a terrifying thing to be honest with you guys. I grew up when the internet was super young, I've had my fair share of trolling and being trolled. Back in these days things felt a lot more free than they do now and I think that's whats most scary about reality right now. Not to mention net neutrality and the can of worms associated with that debacle, it all just makes me sigh deeply.

Then we have steemit, thank god we have STEEMIT! It's very invigorating to see a community like this, a community that chooses what content gets rewarded. This concept in itself is fantastic. BUT, and there comes the but ...I have a hard time seeing the long picture here regarding scalability. I've spent a lot of time reading about crypto, one subject that seems to always creep its way to the trending section of this site is the viability of steemit and whether new users can climb their way to "whale" status. Another, "Manual curration vs automated", these two seem the most popular subjects regarding the steemit platform and are the easiest for me to digest in the most basic way possible.

There really isn't any way good way for minnows to grow their blogs, why is this? Well it's pretty simple. There's a large influx of new accounts being created and this will only increase more over time, this is at least what I'm lead to believe. This isn't a bad thing but it has a major disadvantage and this goes back to my concern about scalability. The fact is this, at some point there will be so many people posting, and not enough people willing to find and curate good content. I think this is why we've seen the rise of many community driven bots. Bots that function in a similar fashion to how algorithms work on other platforms like YouTube, Facebook, etc. They're not exactly like them, but in concept they serve a similar function. That function being to go out there and curate content that other people think is good or find interesting. At this point I'm convinced that they're necessary, and they'll only become more important as the platform grows.

We need to be careful however. I'm not a coder, and I'm probably not the best person to talk to about how something like this should be implemented but I want to throw a few ideas out there for anyone who might find it helpful. If it's going to be incumbent of the community to provide tools that will help minnows then there needs to be some sort of ethics code implemented. Too much we see with other platforms only certain, specific types of content that gets popular. This sort of "coincidence" isn't healthy for any platform. It shouldn't be a problem though right? I'm not convinced, even though a lot of these bots that upvote content require voting delegation which is given by the community. There still isn't a lot of upward mobility here for smaller investors. Same thing with people who send SBD to said bots for upvotes. You do usually get returns, I've tried this myself, but it's not in all honesty the greatest. In my opinion, we shouldn't have to feel trapped in this cycle of buying votes. It really sucks, because usually it doesn't get us anywhere.

If bots are not the solution then what is? I've seen suggestions to improve development of the platform. I don't personally know exactly what this means or how it would look. I do however feel like there needs to be some kind of improvement in how the trending page works. I don't think views matter, or resteems as it doesn't impact how well a post does. I could be wrong please correct me if this isn't the case. Again this is a scalability issue for new accounts, what kind of tools do we have in order to get the whales of the platform to see our content when you have a new post going up almost every minute.

Is steemit worth the effort? If not for the money, yes. This is whats really shitty. I think everyone who puts any considerable effort or time into their blog will want to see something out of it right? Am I the only one that feels this way? Personally I think it's worth it whether I get anything out of it or not. I look at this platform if not for a means to make money, as a tool to practice and continue writing. However I can see how someone, even myself at times might get a little discouraged if our posts don't go anywhere. In fact it's one of the best feelings to see something you worked hard on get rewarded. So it it worth the effort? For me yes, for others maybe not, but maybe that wouldn't be the case if there were more tools that allowed for growth. I'd like to hear what you guys think, do you agree or disagree, or have any other thoughts. Please share those with me in the comments section bellow!

_{Stay tuned for more!}