"You can get paid for blogging" - what?!

Hey steemians!

My name is Ned. But instead of making a classic introductory post describing my background, I've decided to share my first impressions of steemit and its unique community.

How did I find steemit? About two weeks ago one of my great online clients told me about some fascinating developments in the crypto world. Among other things he repeatedly mentioned some brilliant guy with the name Dan, EOS and a platform that allows users to "get paid for blogging". What!? Is that even possible.

That of course sparked my interest! I simply wrote down the word "EOS" and later googled it. That's how I found more info about steem and steemit... And here I am :)

Never blogged in my life

First and foremost, I want to clarify that I'm very new to crypto world in general and also to posting anything on social media. You won't believe it, but I have never posted/commented anything on Facebook (I don't even have an account), Google+, and have made just a few test tweets on Twitter. Why? Because I simply never felt the need to do that. However, now I've changed my mind. The reason?

I will be totally frank, the reason number one is to earn some crypto money, I won't hide my intensions. However, there is much more. I've always wanted to write down some precious lessons, observations, gems of knowledge that I have acquired in my life, simply not to forget them. What I've seen so far, I feel confident that steemit is the right place to do just that. This will for sure help me and hopefully also other people.

What I've learned in these first 10 days

Simply put, much, very much!

On steemit every opinion really counts and you can express yourself in a productive way. I have found that I can earn money by thoroughly reading posts, thinking about what was said and expressing something valuable or encouraging. Many steemians appreciate such an input. They comment back, which makes me really happy. And sometimes I also get an upvote for that ;)

On the other hand, I have also noticed that nice but empty words and expressions don't work very well (e.g. "Thanks for this info; You are the best!; Please upvote me!") I also don't see much value in posting a bunch of posts (some do this every few minutes). I actually started to ignore such posts altogether!

So, what do I think of steemit? Simply put:

👍 The good of steemit

• super great community of very friendly, colorful and encouraging people
• rewarding system (in terms of money and also in personal satisfaction)
• you can learn so much on any topic in a very short time
• you can learn a lot about crypto currencies and crypto world in general
• there are no annoying adds
• it feels like playing a game, a very good and realistic game, with a great rewards system that is unbeliveably real :)

👎 The bad of stemit

• can be extremely adictive
• can divert your attention from important aspects of your life (can hamper communication with real people around you)

Thanks!

I just want to thank all the ingenious people that made this platform a reality. I am sure that future of steem(it) is very very bright!

And yes, it feels awesome after clicking the "Post" button for the very first time in my life :)