I began cryptoblogging back in early 2018, on a site called Steemit. Nowadays you are much more likely to find me on Read.Cash or Publish0x. So what happened, and why do I now spend much more time on either of those sites than Steemit? Well, let's compare these sites. This articles compares Publish0x and Steemit, but I plan to write one comparing Read.Cash and Steemit next, so please follow if you want to see that (spoiler alert, it is going to be pretty one sided). I have already compared Read.Cash and Publish0x in a previous article..
The Argument for Publish0x
Tips provided by the site
This is huge. Publish0x itself provides a certain amount for tipping every day. This is the best way I have seen to encourage tipping, especially when you get paid a percentage of any tips you leave. It is literally free money for both authors and upvoters. This has helped me get more tips.
Ease of use
Publish0x works essentially like any normal blogging site. If you have written online before, you'll get how Publish0x works immediately. The layout is like a normal website, and the writing editor is reasonably well put together.
Steemit works on two of its own unique cryptocurrencies - STEEM and SBD, your upvote value depends on how much STEEM Power you have (which is just normal STEEM stored in a way that makes it more difficult to access). STEEM power also impacts how many actions you can take on the site over a period of time. Your upvote value also depends on your voting power, which you can change manually, but also depends on how many upvotes you have given recently, and recharges over a period of time. Steemit has a lot of upvote bots, which are essentially accepted on the site because it is one of the only ways for small accounts to potentially make money. The editor is poor, and doesn't allow saving multiple drafts. Got all that? Because that's the basic version. Explaining Steemit really requires its own article.
Less toxic community
Steemit is infamous for its often absurdly toxic community. On Publish0x you are never going to see an article pushed to the top of the site that accuses another member (without evidence) of being a pedophile and making numerous sexual jokes about them. Yes, that really happened on Steemit. More than once! Then you have major users creating bot networks to downvote every post another user makes. They often try to justify this as taking some moral stance, but it destroys the community of the site and just makes it a series of toxic feuds that tear everyone down. The amount of beef in the Steemit community makes WWE look mature and peaceful. Publish0x really just doesn't have this problem.
Lack of improvement
Steemit, in many ways, has barely changed since I joined it over two years ago. It is fine for a new crypto site to have problems, but the lack of progress is very concerning. Steemit has fallen behind, and will only fall even more behind if they don't get their act together. You can't stay stuck in 2017 while everyone else is improving.
Better average payout
For most people, you are going to get a better average payout per article on Publish0x, especially early on. It's not just hard to get attention on Steemit, but there are also just not many people who have valuable upvotes, since the Steem Power system links how much an upvote is worth to the amount of Steem Power a user has. Unless a new user wants to pay for Steem to make into Steem power, they wont have much for a long time. This leads to upvotes that are worth a fraction of one cent from most users. On Publish0x your first upvote every day is worth closer to 3-5 cents.
Views/Exposure
At least in my experience, I have managed to get way more views on Publish0x. I have a few articles with over 1,000 views, and many with hundreds of views. Steemit got rid of its view counter ages ago, but my views were a fraction of that.
Easier withdrawal of funds (Any ethereum wallet vs. few possible exchanges)
Publish0x allows any user to withdraw their funds to any ethereum wallet, while STEEM is only accepted on a couple of exchanges. Fortunately, Binance is one of the exchanges that takes STEEM, but this is still very limiting.
No hardfork drama
STEEM recently went through a hardfork recently that led to the creation of HIVE and Hive.blog as an alternative blogging site based on Steemit. As with any hardfork, this was filled with drama and bad blood. I wont get into the whole reason for the fork here, but this is yet more drama for the Steemit ecosystem.
Fast account approval
This pretty much explains itself, but I got approved to write on Publish0x in less than a day. The last time I checked, Steemit accounts can take days to more than a week to get approved.
The Argument for Steemit
More people get high payouts
Although many Steemit users hardly get paid anything for their articles, a small number get large payouts from twenty dollars to a few hundred for a single article. If you are one of those lucky few, you are in great shape!
Larger community/comments
Even after a year on Publish0x, I still have a decent number of articles that only get 1-2 comments. These comments are real and can lead to good discussions, but obviously there is only so much you can do with that.
More articles/sub-cultures
People on Steemit blog on tons of different topics, while Publish0x is more focused on crypto. Publish0x allows blogging on different topics, but the way the community has emerged just happens to be more focused on crypto. If you do blog on certain specific topics on Steemit you have a decent chance of finding a little community (often a nicer one than the culture of the site as a whole). I got a decent number of followers who I regularly had interesting and polite discussions with.
No special deals or promotion of articles
I'll be honest - I've benefited from this on Publish0x. From time to time the site gets donations from certain projects, mostly famously Brave Browsers and Basic Attention Token, which leads them to offer contests for authors to promote that brand. I made some decent money off a good article I wrote promoting Brave (which is genuinely a good browser), but to some people this favoritism may be a turnoff. This can lead to a huge swell in articles about a certain topic all at once, which can get annoying. Personally, I haven't found it too troubling. I haven't seen them promoting anything that I thought was bad. However, Steemit is totally neutral in terms of promotion.
Steemit is built on a blockchain
The fact that Steemit is built on the STEEM blockchain makes it more censorship resistant than Publish0x can be. To most authors this probably wont matter much, but for those who write about more controversial topics, this is definitely a positive.
Purely Opinion
This section is for significant differences between the sites that I think are so opinion-based that I do not feel like I can objectively tell you whether they are good or bad.
Different Currencies
Steemit uses its own currencies, STEEM and SBD. Publish0x changes currencies from time to time, but is currently using Ethereum, BAT, and Loopring. I can't tell you which currencies to prefer or what projects to believe in.
Referral program for Publish0x, but not Steemit
This is probably positive for authors, because we get a slight bonus on Publish0x for referring users, but some users may find it annoying to see lots of referral links.
Conclusion
I feel that Steemit is essentially the site of the 1% - the top few people on the site have a great experience, while most people do not get a whole lot from it. Publish0x is more of a site for the 99% - for the vast majority of people it is a better, more profitable, and easier experience. Overall I'd easily recommend Publish0x over Steemit. With that said, it's always possible to crosspost between Read.Cash, Publish0x, and Steemit to maximize your earnings, if you are so inclined.
Sign up for Publish0x here: https://www.publish0x.com/?a=pnel78MdKB&tid=h
(And yes, that is a referral link ;) It gives me a slight bonus and costs you nothing.)
Join Steemit at Steemit.com