Dear Steemit,
Hey! It’s been awhile. It’s me, MadBitcoins again. Still rocking the bitcoins. Enjoyed the ride and while not in a position to buy the dip, I am certainly enduring it. But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about today. Today I’m here to talk to you about Steemit, why I’m choosing it over Medium for my future blog posts and how I accidentally continue to get paid for a single steemit post I wrote years ago.
A few years ago I wrote a “Hi Steemit” type blog post. I told you about what I’d been up to in the crypto-youtube scene, told you some of my heroic history and tried to fill you in on the amazing backstory behind MadBitcoins, truly one of the most prolific and prescient characters in all of crypto-youtube and even youtube history. And to “Say Hi to Steemit”. Sure I’d seen some of my friends doing it, to great acclaim, and I figured, sure -- why the heck not. (later my friend Jackson Palmer would follow suit, and would have so much success that he donated the funds for a massive Dogecoin/Steemit Party at 20 Mission in San Francisco.)
So I wrote the post. Full disclosure, I had blogged before (class of ‘97, learned HTML in ‘95, websites better recognize, byatch) so it was no big deal to pound out a post, put in a few pictures, videos and links, read it two or three times to make sure it was perfect and pow -- another blog in the can.
The response, however -- was amazing. The original post generated more than $14,000 in “Steem” and I of course, immediately sold half. Getting paid for a blog post was amazing, but I was sure that it was a fluke. Future posts seemed to confirm this belief as I never could seem to hit that home run again and while I did have a steady stream of singles, eventually I lost interest and went back to making YouTube videos, which is still pretty much what I do most days.
But my steemit money, well it just sat there. And yes, I guess the record shows I was pretty diligent at transferring it. As it turns out I’m not the type to leave a non-empty account. Everyone always tells me these stories about finding old wallets full of Bitcoin or twenty ethereum in an ancient trading account, but it never happens to me. I’m Mr. Clean it seems (for better or for worse, as many have maintained fantastic gains by accidentally holding (leaving some extra bitcoin and litecoin on an old computer could even save the profitability of your mining operation -- depending on when you choose to crack it open and if-- you remember). But not for me. I always empty out my accounts. However with Steemit, I couldn’t do it. I was locked in. I had to hold. (sure I guess since then, they’ve changed the rules, and maybe I could have restarted my transfer at some point and claimed all the money, but I’m telling a story here) So hold I did. When it started, I think Steemit post paid me around $50 a week. It was pretty sweet. But within a few months it had gone down and I was getting $20 and soon lower. More like $5. It was hardly worth checking. Cool, but not as cool. I tried posting about some of my YouTube videos and livestream events, but Steemit just doesn’t seem to dig video as much as I do. They want long form writing. Serious content, like the stuff you find on Medium and I -- well -- I was busy making YouTube videos.
But now I’ve got some time off from traveling and started writing again. And I thought, where am I going to post those book columns? Where can I blog again? First off, I didn’t really want to self host and be in charge. I don’t want to re-open the ball of wax that I should really be focused on reworking my old database structure, writing some PHP/mysql and importing my archives so that everybody could see the old stuff. I want to be focused on writing the new stuff. Sure, if I can figure out a way to import some of the old archives, that’d be fun -- but really it’s about the new stuff. It’s about getting back into the practice of writing instead of just being focused on the practice of making YouTube videos. It’s time to be a triple threat. Writing -- Reading -- Making YouTube Videos.
So for those of you who are looking for a moral in this post, don’t ask for one. I’m not here to comment on the economics of steem or why it’s working now or might not work in the future or what it all means. For now, let’s just rely on the quotations of Samuel Clemens who you might better know as Mark Twain who said “I’d never get in a fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrelful”. That is to say as I think Charles Dickens would have said, “If you’ve got a sucker who’s willing to pay by the word, I can make this thing a little bit longer and make maybe just a little bit more.” And he said that often.
I was going to surprise you with finished work, but the true spoiler and announcement here is that I’m re-launching my epic monthly book column - Things I am reading -- right here on Steemit, instead of Medium, because in the words of Krusty the Clown, “you drove a dump truck full of money up to my house. A dump truck.” and because Medium is cold and unfeeling and I think at Steemit, people might actually read my words, comment and maybe even check out some of the books for themselves. Hell, it’s the internet, maybe you already read the book or would find the book article on purpose by searching for it by word on Google. That’s the only way you can search on Google! By the word. Well maybe voice and stuff too, because this is the future. Anyway. Thank you for your kind attention. Please keep on Bitcoining, Happy Steeming and catch me on YouTube at the World Crypto Network and MadBitcoins.
Book column launching soon in this space -- please “follow/subscribe” as I continue to work on my backlog from failing to write the book column last year, which I am so far behind on I might start publishing as daily updates.