A change of heart
Only just a month ago I would never have imagined that I could have anything bad to say about Instagram, I thought that as a photographer there could be no better alternative for getting my photos out there and appriciated. I have been posting on the platform constantly for over a year and I am starting to grow a pretty substantial following currently at 13,787 people across my three accounts. My engagement is pretty good at the moment but I am starting to see that engagement on Instagram is very hard to do anything with.
There are two ways that I know of to make an income with Instagram and I'll share them briefly.
Drive traffic from the site to a 3rd party platform like your blog or website to monetize the traffic there. (an arduous task involving detailed analytics, A/B testing, setting up email lists, setting up your website, it's a complete nightmare.)
Gain 100k+ followers and cross your fingers and hope that a brand wants to work with you so you can begrudgingly sell your soul to them.
From what I can see here on Steemit all you have to do is post cool shit that people love and the people you interact with decide what your content is worth which is as close to a free market society that you can get! It allows you to take it easy and only focus on creating quality content that you are passionate about.
I think the days of big corporations dictating what can and cant be said online (by outright banning controversial users) is over. It's time for the people to speak up and to be heard, we should have the right to express any idea we choose and let the people decide if it has merit or not and I think we are getting close to living in that reality.
The decentralized blockchain model is cutting out the middle man while cutting operation costs of running a social media site substantially and we are finally starting to get a glimpse of our true worth as content creators! When we post content on behemoths like Facebook and Instagram we are pumping ad revenue through their cold dying hearts.
We are moving towards an era of advertisement free content creation and I am glad to be at the forefront of this with all you fellow steemers!
I would love to hear your thoughts on my thoughts and any ideas you guys have below, is my head in the clouds or am I onto something here? The world moves so fast that sometimes it's hard to tell up from down!
P.S how many times have you pressed that Resteem button so far? One more time wont hurt, try it out ;)