I haven't crunched any numbers or recall any now but just from looking at my feed and followers with Steemspectacles it is easy to conclude that a lot of people who used to be active have left Steem or have decided to take a break during the eight-month bear market. Many consistently active Steemians have criticized the people who are away for being "fair weather Steemians" and lacking dedication. They have been called short-sighted. In fact, if your goal is to grow your account as quickly as possible, the question whether or not it makes sense to soldier on through times of depressed STEEM price deserves a closer look. It depends on several important variables. One thing everyone has in common is 24 hours per day.
Let's first assume that we're not talking about those people who live off Steem. Assuming that one has another job or source of income to pay the bills, whether or not it pays to dial down your activity on Steem and go somewhere else, keep it steady, or even ramp it up depends on the following factors: possible alternative sources of income (not passive), free time available to you, how effective you are at networking on Steem, the price of STEEM and SBD.
Keeping in mind that your goal is to grow your SP as quickly as possible, it makes perfect sense to dial down your Steem activity if the following conditions are met:
- You have another side job that pays significantly better than Steem in terms of fiat (STEEM and SBD prices down).
- Your side job and Steem activities are taking as much time as you have for such pursuits.
- You are not very good at networking and getting a lot of large account owners to upvote your content on Steem.
If the above is the case, it makes sense to do something that pays better and invest that money to buy Steem Power on the cheap.
If, on the other hand, you are good at networking and you have orcas and whales starting to follow and upvote you left and right, you should keep active on Steem even if you're not getting all that much value in upvotes, yet.
If a big reason why you're active on Steem is having fun, then you should Steem, particularly if your side job sucks. Another possible reason to keep active on Steem could be that regular activity will help you develop a skill like writing or photography while getting paid for it, however little.
When the prices of STEEM and SBD are high, it makes perfect sense to double on your Steem activities because you get better value for time spent.
I suspect, though, that many of those who've given up Steem because of the low fiat value of the rewards, are not spending the time saved by doing anything productive.