Hi, folks.
So I just found out about this site from one of my facebook friends. His name is Leon Fu. He's a regular at my restaurant and I knew he was always big on crypto currency, he even managed to get me to buy a few bitcoins for funsies.
I'm by no means a 'committed' crypto enthusiast. I don't really fit the bill of the 'average' bitcoiner, or 'steemer' if you will. I'm a small business owner, self made millionaire (at least, my accountant says I can be one if I ever want to sell my shop), a socialist, philanthropist and a minimalist. Basically, I never cared about money, which makes it easy for me to give it away. So I do.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm looking at this whole Steem thing with greed removed from the equation.
And right now, there just isn't much I'm seeing that would actually drive people here if they weren't drawn here specifically for money.
Every other post I'm seeing in the front page is something along the lines of, "Hey everybody! I love Steem! Lets talk about Steem! Steem is great!" or "How do I get noticed on Steem to make money?" I took one look three days ago and went, "Boring" and didn't log in again until today when Leon convinced me to give it another go.
I mean, there's a ton of potential here, just think how rich this place could be if a fraction of Patreon users moved over here. How about the content creators at Deviant Art? I already sent a message to one of the folks I'm supporting on Patreon to check out Steem at some point, but right now there's no real community built around his specific niche (sci fi writing) and no real way to create one.
That's another thing. What if I don't want to see all the 'Steem is wonderful' or 'This is how Steem works' posts?
I mean... I'm already here. I don't really need more convincing. I understand the value of the 'How does Steem work' posts, but can't that be on a sidebar somewhere?
There doesn't really seem to be a way to filter my results on the front page. I do understand that this is still in beta and I'm sure a lot of functionality is yet to come, but it looks like some of that appeal to human greed is intentional. I mean, instead of the # of votes, you have a dollar amount to show how much 'money' the post made.
The first impression I got looking at that front page was not that different from that same sticky, slightly slimy feeling you get when you're 18 and you get tricked into going to a Vector Marketing seminar. (You know those guys that sell the overpriced knives?)
You can practically smell the greed and envy in the air.
And I don't think that's a good thing. It'll drive away some of the people who actually want to bring something to the table. People who are there for more than just money.