At the start of the year I began a new full-time job on top of my own business, which was already near full-time hours anyway and I knew it would have an impact on my Steem-ing. I asked 
| Year | Char. count tot. | approx words no spaces | approx. 200 page books (50k words) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 4072720 | 678,786 | 13 |
| 2018 | 6312466 | 1,052,077 | 21 |
| 2019 | 3268668 | 544,778 | 11 |
| total | 13653854 | 2,275,641 | 45 |
These are top level posts only - a total of 3164 so far
Also as suspected, year to date I am 234 posts down on my count for 2018. Today is the 230th day of the year which means that in comparison to 2018 where to the 18th of August I had posted 921 posts (1395 for the whole of 2018), I have posted 687 posts so far for 2019.
So, having the job has cost me a post a day. Luckily, I earn a little more each day in my job than the few dollars my posts are likely to get so, I guess I will make up for it. Also, I have likely bought-in about 1000 of my posts worth of Steem this year alone which means that the job has more than covered what I am missing here.
People often get caught up in the earnings of Steem without seeing the other variables of value here now and in the future. Yes, for a good writer there are other places to earn, but that doesn't always come with the freedom of being able to write what and when you want. It is actually incredible that anyone earns anything here at all by estimation.
For me, I am not a writer though and I am not planning on ever making a living as a writer however, I do love writing and what better way to do what one loves than get paid for it also? On top of that, I am supportive of other people's push into self-sufficiency by engaging in activities they enjoy.
I hear people talk about powering down because they don't get enough support here yet, that is pretty short sighted in my opinion especially considering part of the reason they likely don't get support is because others have powered down their earnings as well.
This project is so far from being an immediate earning vehicle for most people, but for those who actually want it to be that in the future, the only way is through powering up, interacting, earning/ buying some stake and supporting the development of the ecosystem into a place that can support many. However, I do not expect many people to actually understand that because most people in this world have never built a business from scratch and likely zero have done it in an industry that is only 10 years old.
One of the problems that Steem has is that it looks like familiar industries out there, social media, publishing and application development yet, it isn't the same at all. While similar on the face, the base of Steem and the operation and governance of it in a decentralized community makes it fundamentally different to anything else that has ever existed.
We can see at the difficulty other platforms like Whaleshares and Scorum have had to govern and retain users and they splintered off from Steem to show us "how it is done" and all they have become are cross-posted content sites with most users still on Steem. This is more telling than most give credit as they have been able to start from scratch knowing all of the pitfalls yet - still failed thus far.
The likely reason they fail is because they pander to the earning potential of the platform, not the investment potential and like I keep pushing, for social blockchains to be able to build a working ecosystem fitted with an economy, all four pillars need to be balanced.
Again, the economy of this is something people seem to take for granted because no other platform has managed to do what is going on here today. Yes, you might be able to earn a crapload more on Patreon or YouTube if you get traction, but you will not own one piece of it, and definitely not the space your content resides upon, if the content even at all.
The world is entering into a new stage of digitalization and that is the ownership of our zeroes and ones and, how and where we allow them to be used. This is just the beginning of this path and the first order of business is to paradigm shift the general understanding that the internet is free. It is not and never has been a free resource, it was just made to look that way by not having to pay directly to use it, other than the connection fee from a TelCo.
People complain about the health of Steem without recognizing the sickness that is inherent in the very platforms and processes that people want to go and earn upon. There seems to be a "won't happen to me" attitude when it comes to the way the platforms treat their contributors, but what they are essentially doing is pushing individual creators continually out and driving their own preferences to the forefront for consumption - Youtube, Spotify, Netflix, HBO, Medium and all the other content delivery platforms are doing similar.
The thing is, you can complain all you want about shadow-banning, demonetization, censorship, data mining and all the other questionable bullshit they do with the knowledge they have on us but, you can't do shit about it while you are a user of them. These are centralized businesses and wthey can do the fuck they want because we empower them and monetize them, to do so.
Ownership is the only way to have a say in what happens with development, the rest is just whining to Mummy and Daddy and the answer is always the same, "While you are under our roof, you will abide by our rules".
This is where Steem is going to come into its own because while everyone can be on the Steem blockchain, the way they use it, the communities they build and the SMTs they use to incentivize or monetize their users is completely open to preference. OWN your community is more than lip service, it is literally true where people will be able to own their digital experiences, the good and the bad of it.
The technology we are dealing with on Steem allows for a massive amount of variation in topic and approach for usage and, these are only growing. With the coming SteemDAO is possible that even more development takes place that flicks the lights on in new rooms and perhaps, the lights for an entire city to be built into, to be developed and of course as I can never stress it enough, to be owned.
I do not expect average people to understand what is actually going on here because average people will rarely take the time to understand new technological advancement or social considerations that broach economic and governance issues. Average people are average by definition and while the average person is highly affected by these things, they do not dive deep into understanding them. The average person is a user, not an owner.
What people should do is start tallying up all the value of the things they own that can't be taken away from them and work out what they actually hold. I will give a hint - not much. But when it comes to what we create, that should be ours and, we should have control over it but when you are creating for a company, they own and control what you create and all of these centralized experiences are companies. Sure, you can take your YouTube post and upload it somewhere else - but who the fuck is going to pay you for it when YouTube is the only game in town and they own your audience's attention?
But, it doesn't really matter if people see the potential here or not, it doesn't really matter if people come and go because it doesn't fulfill their expectations of experience. What is interesting is that if Steem fails there will be a whole lot of people saying "I told you so" and laughing, while they will continue to be slaves of the centralized media, being fed scraps and having their lives monetized for no personal gain.
Jokes on those who stay with Steem though.
This is where there is a difference in mindset with investors in Steem for monetary gain and those looking for ownership. Monetary gain requires selling into a centralized currency owned by others, ownership is holding and using it in the state it appears.
New Zealand has just passed a law allowing for salaries to be paid in Bitcoin and that means, living costs can increasingly be covered with Bitcoin. This will eventually push-out to other cryptos and soon, the average person will be comfortable earning and using cryptocurrencies to pay for their goods and services - as well as their online experiences and the content they consume.
The thing that most people on Steem are complaining about now is soon going to be inundated with people wanting to do exactly what is possible here, earn crypto through doing what one would normally do elsewhere for free. And once people are actually earning it in their workplaces, they are going to want places to spend it and, they are going to learn exactly what the value of digital real estate is, and how they have been kept disenfranchised from it for decades.
Just like the people who are at the beginning of every new technological revolution, the people of the future will say, "I wish I had the opportunity you did" of the very opportunity that most people right now complain about as if they are slaves.
Steem is always Opt-in and Opt-out in nature. I wonder though as the the world pivots and the way people manage their online lives shift, how many people are going to opt-in to the positions for everyone who opted-out? Remember the name Ronald Wayne, the average guy who sold 10% of his stake in Apple 12 days after it started for 800 dollars because he feared loss -
most of us would do exactly the same thing as him.
A lot of words wasted? I think not.
Add another 1792 to the tally.
Taraz
[ a Steem original.