To compare Facebook and Steemit is not a fair comparison at all.
I have been active on Facebook for ten years now and have invested a lot. There are thousands of posts, two serious relationships, one marriage, a baby announcement, travel pictures from all over the world, hundreds of parties, possibly thousands of tagged pictures, many photos of drinks at different stages of empty, updates from new jobs, a new business founded, dozens of long-form posts, shared links, Instagram connects. The list goes on. Plus 732 friends.
Even though I have put in a lot of work, the investment sunk into Facebook by themselves dwarfs the GDP of most small countries. Comparing the work of thousands of professional developers, hundreds of UI specialists, app creators and a swarm of behavioural psychologists against Steemit in Beta is a little irresponsible.
Call me irresponsible. It won't be the first time. But the fact of the matter is, Steemit has left Facebook in the ashes already in my opinion.
I am not a fanboy of anything. I am not blind to the numerous obvious problems at Steemit, the many more subtle ones and will not pretend I can actually identify them all. There are some issues I would really like to address here but I am likely be labelled a 'whiner' by some that are more intent on padding their own pocket than actually developing here. When I say problems, they are what I see and from my perspective and may actually not be problems at all with a little more information provided. Some of the things I see are definitely not problems for everyone here but they are other posts perhaps.
But the first beauty of Steemit should be that it is open to raise these issues. In fact in Beta, it should be welcomed when it comes freely, and encouraged when it does not. If used well, it will help the platform dominate into the future by not making the mistakes of the past.
When Facebook does stuff, they just do it. All of the complaints are posted to various platforms yet, Facebook don't care one iota. The change is always made for their gain, never the community's, no matter what their marketing says. And they know, due to the sunk cost fallacy and developed reliance on their system, no significant number ever quit.
The next benefit is obviously the reward. I cannot pretend that I don't get any rewards, but I definitely am not going to appear in trending anytime soon. However, it is nice to get some recognition occasionally and support for the amounts of work I put in. It would be great if I could manage to make it a little more balanced and consistent at times however. This is by no means a perfect system though and needs a lot more tuning in my opinion but, a small reward is better than no chance of a reward at all. But even that attitude only goes so far.
Facebook pulled in 8 billion in revenue in Q1 this year. How much flowed back to users? I think that answers that one.
As much as I would like to be able to somewhat live off my rewards, I can't compete with the big names here and the gap seems to be widening as more users flood in. This is a risk in my opinion as if there is not enough support for content providers, in time it will devolve into a sharing platform like the others where professional viral content companies and celebrities compete for the lions share and the average user posts pictures of lunch and gets 2 cents from their aunt's upvote. Out of pity.
But reward is not where Steemit burns Facebook either. There aren't too many posts of party pics, not too many selfies, lots of experts, many discussions, many people trying to offer their view. There are many trying to turn this into Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all rolled together. In my opinion, that would be a mistake. Some people are failing here too with poor engagement, low-quality posts and sharing rehashed words of others. And others are getting frustrated and disillusioned by the lack of attention anyone pays to their work.
But, the reason I think Steemit is killing Facebook? I will give three key reasons instead.
Firstly, I am more honest here. Surprising isn't it? I am an honest person generally in real life and on other social platforms, but here I feel comfortable enough to give deeper views. I am able to open up and take the hit if necessary which doesn't seem to happen. I get supported to develop instead. This means that I am increasingly willing to put more of myself out there. If you knew me, that would mean something but since only one or two of you overlap in my walking life, you will just have to trust me.
Secondly, I am willing to invest my time and even potentially some external money at some point. I spend a lot of time and effort writing posts like this that I am not overly comfortable writing, in the hope that it will somehow make the platform better. The number of times I complained about Facebook? Never. It is not because I think it is awesome, quite the opposite. I know it would fall on deaf ears, so why bother? I feel that there is still a chance here that posts like this will be read by someone that can do something or say something. Perhaps a witness or a whale or somebody. Even though I am a little fish, I feel I can still possibly get a message to the big ones.
Lastly and most important of the three, I am developing. I am not here to brag about a holiday or tell what an awesome restaurant I went to (although many do that here too). I am here to share my experiences with the aim of helping others. It isn't very easy at times. For all involved maybe. But here I am every day spending time inside my own mind, exploring my memories, facing long hidden pains, questioning myself and the world in which I live and looking for different ways to improve both. It is like therapy.
I never felt like Facebook was helping me be better. Here I do.
Since joining Steemit, my Facebook posts have almost dried up and now consist of a few photos of my daughter to keep people somewhat in the loop. Twitter has also dropped off though I didn't invest as heavily there. Instagram has turned into a random post every week or two. And my Premium account at LinkedIn will be shut down soon I think. I no longer watch any TV series, the only movies I watch are the ones I go to the cinemas to see and I have stopped almost entirely watching or reading any form of news. So far, I haven't suffered from these events. Actually, I have benefitted greatly.
This is obviously just a personal account and actually a very poor Facebook v Steemit post but it is something that I have been meaning to approach for a while. My hope is that Steemit will lead others away from the nonsense of that which is social media and be something new and different altogether. Somewhere where people, groups, communities can grow and develop and make real differences in each others lives, while sharing the wealth and benefits that normally only the few get access to.
It has a long way to go however and the long-term success will take a reevaluation by some of the influencers and controllers of what is important to them. Short-term gain, power plays and draining of our resources by those in influential positions is why many of us ended up here at Steemit in the first place. Will this go the same way? I don't know. Are people looking to hijack the incomes and centralise power here also? Probably.
I have spent too many years investing my time into different platforms with the promise of something better. I have high hopes that Steemit can deliver. But like I said before, I am just a little fish. Even though the pool looks large for some it is not for everyone. I think though with some deep thought and planning, we could make it an ocean that provides for us all.
Just a few thoughts to add to the blockchain if there's any room left.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
I took a little poetic licence with the Steemit logo.