I fired myself
This is how it went down:
A couple of days ago when I wrote the post about all of us being owners. I ended up taking the lecture to heart. I find if I write about something it is because I usually need to sort my own thoughts out about it.
I read my post about how we are all investors vs. customers Which is here.
As a result, I hired myself at $0.00 an hour, to communicate with the end-users about the Steem blockchain and how I understand the vision and value of how things might develop. I thought someone needed to step up and take the job of spreading the Vision.
After a couple of days of trying on that role, I didn't like the job and I didn't like my performance. I just want to be an end-user. I sat myself down and fired me. I made a bad and presumptuous decision to make that job up. For one thing at the technical level, I only have concept level understanding of the Blockchain. In addition It felt so official I couldn't just be me, with my casual style. :) I'm fired. It's okay, I don't mind.
So, for a couple of days I was the Executive Vision Spreader, but now.. I'm back to just being an Opinionated Steemian. If you didn't notice the difference, don't worry about it, it was only an "Inside Job". The pay was terrible also and my boss was inconsistent and unreasonable.
Now that my role is clear, here is my opinion on where we are and how things are going.
SteemIt.com is not the focus, it is a proof of concept project on the Steem Blockchain.
SteemIt, Inc has been telling us since Steemfest 2, that their focus is the Steem blockchain, not SteemIt.com the site. Maybe that was the first time I listened and they have been saying it longer. I didn't love the idea at first, but it has grown on me with time. I support the vision.
We are already seeing new sites like dlive, dtube, and others develop, many of these have an obvious market and a problem they can solve. YouTube censorship and demonetization is one use case for dtube and dlive. As most of you know there are a lot of other communities, platforms and even some SMTs already being planned.
I've heard from developers that the tools they use to "tap in" to the blockchain are under improvement. If you don't like the features of Steemit.com, don't hold your breath for them to change, because I don't know what exactly is in the roadmap, but I assume it isn't anyone's focus. However, I am happy that SteemIt, Inc. is working on the Blockchain because that is the future.
I picture the ability for a "Gift Economy" site, and a "Charity Site", as well as sites for videos, photos, memes, games, news, singers, etc. It is my understanding that at some point in the future these sites and their communities would be able to monetize, advertise, administrate and reward their end-users with their own criteria and goals. This make sense to me because the the current Decentralized Community is kind of dysfunctional and consensus is hard to get and greatly influenced by a few large stakeholders.
What do we do in the meantime? I can only answer for myself. I am going to Just Keep Posting. The price can go up, it can go down, the crypto markets can rise and fall. I will be here posting and trying to gather some Steem. I will support the users I can, debate the issues I find fun to talk about, and answer questions when I feel like I know the answer.
Retention isn't that big of an issue to me, because I have no idea what a good retention rate is at this stage in the game and I am not sure it matters for where we are headed. The price and usage of the site just moves with the Crypto-Markets for the most part.
Everyone can fight over whatever the current topics are and I am sure I will have to jump into some of the debates, because I enjoy them. However, I am not going to lose any sleep over them. I will continue to power up and watch this interesting experiment carry on.
This post is all in fun, which is what I want to do on SteemIt, have a little fun, learn a little, make a little money.
What will you be doing?
Just an opinionated Steemian.