When I first found out about Steem (I know we’re on Hive, but that’s the chronological order of the story) I thought: “ok, this is it… I will put all my time and energy into this platform so that I can make it big” (which meant to line up my pockets). I suppose this mentality came from observing what other people did on social media like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, where the bigger egos grab lots of attention, which translates into economic rewards through advertisement.
Since I didn’t have much experience on living off social media, I did things the way I felt was right and that included trying to post as much as possible and making content that could appeal to a massive audience in some way.
With the passing of time I realized that there was a community with a very different mindset. While the search for economic rewards was present, there was a lot more interest in sharing, collaborating and having fun, rather than the obsession for having thousands of followers and being an influencer.
People with as little as 100 followers could do quite well on the platform, provided their content was of good quality, thanks to tribes and those who took the time to hunt down the nice posts to support.
Now things have evolved and Hive exists. I’m guessing while Hive will thrive, Steem will end up dying, unless it decides to take a different approach. Tribes have been replaced by Communities and through Peakd we have an amazing visual presentation to our blockchain world.
Despite all the changes, the community remains with a strong determination to help each other and grow collectively.
I actually started this post with the intention to thank 
Though it might seem like I strayed from the topic, the truth is that these things are very related. The initiative presented by these well known Hiveans is a good example of how things work around here: you help me, I help you, we help each other and keep the inspiration for making things happening going.
Something I particularly liked about this contest were the guidelines that invited us to describe ourselves having in mind passion, effort and personality. What a great way to incentivize the creation of high-quality blog posts. I think anyone who writes with that in mind will end up creating awesome content worth appreciating.
There are many things that come to mind regarding of how collaboration is important and how we can achieve so much if we based society on this value instead of competition. However, I just want to say a big thank you and try to use pumped votes to help out people who are putting out their passion, effort and personality into Hive.