In continuing my initiatives to persuade new people to join Steemit, my efforts seem to get met with an inevitable dose of skepticism. That's somewhat to be expected... people are always skeptical of things that haven't been tried before, and things they don't really understand.

So this post is directly and indirectly addressed to all those skeptics who keep raising this one particular question...

Oh, Steemit PAYS You to Create Content? It must be SCAM!

Oh, Reeeally?

Sunset
A very vivid late sunset

Seriously folks, the one thing I just don't understand is this notion-- which I have now run into repeatedly-- that Steemit "must be a scam" because contributors here are actually rewarded for their work. Further to that is the further implication that Steemit "must be a scam" because the rewards are in our own currency-- Steem-- rather than US dollars.

"Well, if it's so legit, why don't they just pay in dollars? They must be hiding something!" they say.

So I wanted to take a deeper look at these concerns-- because maybe they are legititmate on some level, based on prior experiences-- and try to wrap some perspective around them. So let's look at some of the ways content creators and social media users put their work on the web

Writing Content for Publication and getting paid

The "getting paid" part bothers me really bugs me, as any kind of indicator that a scam is afoot.

ApricotBlossoms
Apricot blossoms

Let's say someone writes an article and The Atlantic Monthly or Time Magazine picks it up and pays the creator $500.00, that's definitely not considered a scam. In fact, you get congratulated on your "success."

Similarly, if you create content for a web site and they pay you $200.00, that is definitely not a scam-- it's considered "compensation for work done."

So the money angle just doesn't work for me.

Writing Content for Facebook and Social Media

At the opposite end of the scale, lots and lots of people create billions of pieces of content for Facebook, tumblr, Pinterest, WordPress, Medium and other places... and not only do they never get paid a single cent, but the service providers make huge profits from that content by selling advertising, customer lists and more.

But apparently this kind of "people's work being exploited for FREE" isn't considered a "scam" by the mainstream, either. Most puzzling.

Creating content for your own blog or web site

Then there's yet another option-- which I am personally very familiar with.

EucalyptusBlossoms
Our eucalyptus tree in bloom

Yes, you can get paid for your content by creating your own blog, then spend years building a following, and then adding Google Adsense and Amazon affiliate links to your pages. As a result of which, you might end up with $30-40 a month in "commissions."

I've done it. I have the deposits to prove it. Let me also add that it is a lot of work!

Evidently, that's also not "a scam," in the eyes of most people. That's just "hard work and perseverance." Although... it does seem to become "a scam" when Google suddenly decides to yank your Adsense account because they almost arbitrarily decide they don't "like" your content, anymore. Or you "did something" that was against some small rule on page 453 of the user agreement.

Now, let's talk about Steemit

On Steemit, contributors get compensated for their content, as a result of being creative and their posts being rewarded through a process of peer curation.

Seagull
A Lonely Seagull...

Yes, it's absolutely true that the rewards are paid in our own currency named "Steem," which is essentially a form of "digital money." For ease of understanding, think of it as an organization paying you in their stock, rather than with cash. Undeniably, it still has "value," but you can't just run down to the corner store and buy a sixpack with a share certificate.

There are actually benefits to the rewards not being paid in regular $ currency-- specifically that the fact that you can't just cash out and go buy groceries every time you have $5 serves to encourage contributors to keep their rewards as "SteemPower" and gradually become stakeholders in the Steemit community.

Another benefit is that since the Steemit "treasury" isn't funded by dollars (or other cash), the platform won't just "go away" like many other user-generated-content sites before it, when they ran out of cash.

So how exactly is that "a SCAM?" It Isn't!

The argument is, most often, that Steem is perceived to come out of "thin air." That it's basically "Monopoly Money." So how can it be "worth anything?"

The Blue Butterfly of Happiness

Let's take a closer look at that line of inquiry.

My best answer to that is "How can shares of SnapChat be worth anything?" The company may have millions of users, but they have yet to figure out how that translates into making any money, at all. SnapChat barely even generates revenue, let alone profits.

And yet, the value of its stock is held up by the belief of investors that "it has value." And that "it's something great," with the potential to have a major impact on the web

Well, in a very similar way, Steem (the currency) is traded on "altcoin" currency exchanges and fluctuates in value just like shares of stock... and is mostly on the rise, because investors believe the Steemit social content site is "something" worth investing in.

And guess what? If you become a Steemit contributor who chooses to become a stakeholder for the long term... not only will you get rewarded for your content, you may also benefit from the price of Steem going up over time.

And that, my friends, is not going to happen with money you get paid for an article you wrote for a magazine, nor with your Google Adsense money and especially not if you keep allowing Facebook to make money off your content you are giving them for free.

And that last thing? The Facebook thing?

In MY world, that's the REAL "scam."

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)