"Steem Is BAD"
That's a sentence I've read dozens of times since I joined in July 2016. I have talked to numerous users since I first got here and truth to be told, the majority of the people I've talked too had one thing in common, at least in the beginning of their journey. The first impression they seem to get is that Steem(it) is full of trolls, spam, shitposts and bad behaviour. They mention things like selfishness, greed and doxing. Flagwars, racism and forms of censorship also comes close to the first things they mention. The fact that they mention censorship is pretty awkward when everyone knows that Steem is supposed to be uncensored, but forms of censorship exists. It's just a matter of how you see things.
More than once when I've asked them for some evidence or proof of the things they say, they've given me screenshots of "rewardpool rape" and/or heavily invested Steemians that behaves poorly. Screenshots of "leaders" being impolite to others, Steemians who call each other bad things and screenshots of pending rewards are often used as some form of evidence to back their words and impressions. They believe in these things because these are the type of things that seems to stick the most. Another thing they often mention is that Steem is about who you know and not what you do. They are talking about circle-jerk even without knowing it. The so called "inner-circle" of people who support each other to 100% at all times.
Whenever I encounter any of these people, I try to tell and show them that they are wrong. I try to prove the opposite, even though these things exists. I often recommend specific users they should visit just to prove my point, but no matter how awesome the user I refer them too, in my opinion, the people I talk too often finds something "BAD" about them.
They are looking for bad things. They find the negative sides of everything because they experienced the negative-tone of Steem(it) when they arrived. It's easier for them to see the bad stuff in all the clutter surrounding them.
However, even though most of us would agree that all of these things exists in different shapes and forms, to some extent, there is one major factor that gives us the outcome of all of this. - Different perspectives. These things are based upon how we interpret certain things.
Add the lack of leadership and communication we've experienced for a long period of time on top of that, and we have a recipe for complete failure. Things we can't control, like the value of our cryptocurrencies obviously affects our general feelings and views too. It's often easier to feel motivated and energetic as long as we see green numbers instead of red ones. Red arrows or curves that seems to point straight down to the curb doesn't bring us joy and happiness. It fuels the average user with stress, anger and anxiety.
"A place where only the rich will thrive."
That's another very common phrase I've heard many times before. If you look closer at the things I've mentioned so far, you can quite easily start to see a pattern, or some sort of reason for these feelings and assumptions. I already mentioned different perspectives and that's still accurate, but there is more to it...
These things are often based upon dreams of luxury and the "from rags to riches"-mentality. I won't go so far to say that all of these impressions and assumptions comes from poor people, or from people who lives in misery, even though it might be somewhat accurate. These first impressions I've mentioned are due to several factors, and each factor plays a different, but still a huge part in their different assumptions.
They talk about circle-jerks and slim to none rewards because they compare themselves with other users. I am familiar with the feeling as I've been doing that too, more than once. They mention "reward pool rape" and show screenshots of users with a good amount of pending rewards because they compare themselves. They do all of this out of jealousy and due to the fact that they came here with the wrong mentality. Either being fooled by stupid and ignorant "youtubers" who tells them how much money they've made or out of sheer desperation. Often both.
They quickly realize the truth and they feel fooled and deceived. Once again, the outcome of this and the starting point for all of these impressions and assumptions are based upon money. Money is the underlying factor for everything.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't pay your rent, you'll quickly end up in a desperate position. Desperate situations often results in desperate actions. If someone have spoon-fed you with promises of luxury and wealth you'll definitely going to try it out sooner or later. Out of desperation. Because of that so called "youtuber" who promised you all the secrets that will solve all your problems, you join Steemit with one goal in mind. To make money as quickly as possible, and to make as much as you possibly can. You ignore everything else besides this and you fail...
That's when reality kicks in. You're down to your knees begging for a change, but you continue to fall for the same bullshit you've been falling for before. You choose to believe in these "youtubers" due to your hope, no matter how fishy it sounds. It's not your fault. This is how most of these so called "internet marketers" are doing business. They do business based on your emotions, your current situation and they feed you with empty promises. All based on your feelings.
This is the main reason I personally don't like Jerry Banfield for instance. I believe he's a manipulative person who feeds on other people's misery. I don't know him in person and I have not watched or read everything he has ever written, so I might be wrong... But that was my first impression and it has remained the same even after watching 2, 10 and 20 different videos. However, this is not about Jerry. This is about the outcome of his and similar peoples actions.
If you constantly play with peoples emotions and feelings. If you feed on peoples misery and continue to promise them a safe haven, luxury and private jets, you will affect peoples actions, and also their perspective on things. It's just a matter of time before you've been able to twist their minds and goals.
This is also the starting point for all these false or inaccurate assumptions the majority of the new users have when they join Steemit. I obviously don't blame these "youtubers" for everything because that wouldn't be right, but I do blame their actions and their approach for several things. The truth is, that Steemit, Inc is to blame for all of this too. Probably more than anyone else.
This is truly bad in various ways. It was even worse in the earlier days, but even though this is bad, I can still see the reason for such a bait. It's a fantastic call to action and it will obviously bring more people in compared to something that said:
"You will probably not earn more than a cent or two the first few months."
However, "your voice is worth something" and "get paid for good content" works well to get people on board, but it's devastating for user retention. Yet, no matter how much we've heard about the importance of user retention, we still use this crap as the "welcome sign" for new people.
Listen, I know the reasons for using this and I can totally see why it's a better option than the sentence I wrote above as an example. However, when user A joins Steemit, often because of some of those "youtubers" I mentioned previously, he has most likely already been promised a bunch of different empty promises. The last thing this user needs is more empty promises... But that's exactly what he gets, directly from Steem, Inc themselves.
So, user A writes a post. An introduction or whatever. The quality of his first post doesn't even matter much. He expects the world and is lucky if he's able to earn a few cents. The value of Steem and/or SBD doesn't matter much in this scenario either. This will immediately result in user A being skeptical and angry, but he continues to have high hopes due to all the empty promises he has been given.
User A makes another post, waits for the payout and the results are identical once again. Slim to none rewards, because that's what the majority of users experience on Steemit when they first arrive. At this point, even though it's only the second post, he starts to question the entire thing.
User A remembers or thinks of the "your voice is worth something" sentence and instantly starts to question himself too. Not only the platform or the concept of this entire thing, but he starts to question himself. Different emotions starts to pile up and user A is starting to feel that his voice is worth nothing. He starts to compare himself with other users and he quickly finds all the authors on the trending pages. They, the users, are worth more than user A. He is worthless and it's all based upon the things he was promised from Steemit, Inc.
- That's horrifying.
"get paid for good content" does the exact same thing, but from a different angle. It's like taking a direct hit by a bullet fired at zero distance. The thing is, that user A has already been hit by a bullet before, so this is the second one. These two things are the worst things a user can experience, and I truly believe that this is one of the main reasons for people to leave.
They are being fooled. They feel deceived.
We can't continue to hope that all newcomers are like 50 cent and can survive after being shot 9 times. People aren't looking forward to get a bullet in their face. They leave before more harm is made, and they don't look back.
Customer-Retention 101
(User Retention)
Why should you care about existing customers? (Why should you care about existing users?)
Every business needs new customers. Yet, the easiest and most predictable source of new revenue is right under your nose: it comes from the existing customers who already know your company and have already bought from you.
Here are 5 reasons why you should care about existing customers. (existing users).
Better conversion rates. Existing customers have already bought from you, so unless they had a disappointing experience, they will buy from you again. You’ve already established trust, inspired confidence in your product, and even know something about them, which makes it easier to identify their needs and predict their moves.
Less marketing. You’ll spend less time and effort finding new customers and convincing them that you are the one they should buy from, which means – less expenses. To build a long-term business relationship with a new customer costs 16 times more, than to maintain an existing customer.
Room for improvement. You have a golden opportunity to improve your offering and overall performance just by listening to your customers’ feedback. Was your customer service good enough? Did your product meet their expectations? Was it a good value for money? Just ask, listen and improve.
Higher profits. Selling to existing customers is less focused on price, as opposed to selling to new customers. And since your existing customers trust you already, it gets easier to convince them to become interested in even more of your products or services through up-selling and cross-selling. In fact, Gartner Group statistics tell us that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers.
Lower costs. It’s going to save you a lot of money! According to Bain and Company, attracting new customers will cost your company 6-7 times more than keeping an existing customer; while, a mere 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%!
That said, it's easy to understand why it is important for us to keep our users. Who cares about having 10,000 new people signing up per day when 1% stays for more than 7 days? (No, I don't know any exact details).
Steemit and Steem may have come a long way since the early days. We have experienced many things. We saw 
Instead of using all the tech-terms and expert-talk, perhaps we should start to talk with people in a way that they can understand? We might be (or want to be) better than Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and whatever, but the majority of the people here are from these other platforms. Perhaps it's time to deliver news using emojis and funny memes, so all of these non-experts understands everything they need to understand. The lack of leadership and communication has always been terrible, and it's about time to see a real change. The majority of the people don't want to read or hear in-depth explanations in tech-talk. They want to understand things without having to study computer science, blockchain technology or cryptocurrencies before they understand.
If we don't recognize our users capabilities and needs, we'll never be remotely near a chance for any form of scalability, and we will never be able to keep our users. User retention is not even marked on the map as it is today, so I personally think that we need to start building all the way from the foundation again.
The "welcome sign" could be one of the first things to change. That way, we would at least minimize the risk of hurting people's self esteem, motivation and feelings right from the get go. If we're lucky, it might also reduce the amount of false and inaccurate assumptions from newcomers in their early days on the platform... And ultimately, give users a better experience, no matter the rewards they earn.
I'm obviously not saying that all of these things would immediately turn for the better just by changing the "welcome sign", but it would at least be one small step in the right direction. And we all know that we have alot of ground to cover, so we should start walking right away.
