It seems a hug reason I came to Steemit in the first place, residual payments, may not be a factor anymore. Which leaves me asking, is it all worth it?##
The platform, as I understood it, was designed to reward upvotes through a 30 day cycle, paying out into the future, as long as content maintains upvotes
But, according to this post on github, that may not be true any longer. If the post is correct, one of the founders (I think I have that right, there's so many names here! ARRGGH!) "Dan" of @Dantheman has decided to change the formula.
The new formula is based on one payment in the first 24 hours and a second 30 days later, after which content is archived and can no longer receive upvotes.
I'm not a whiner. I came into this world with nothing, and I will leave with nothing, but while I am here, I expect to know what I am working for. It seems that information is hard to come by on this platform and I wish I had more clarification here.
Let me be clear, whoever built the platform, has the right to do what they want with it. However, having read the whitepaper (as much of it as I understood) I was under the impression that Steemit governance was both decentralized and distributed, meaning one person would not be able to do something of this nature single handedly.
- This was supposedly done out of necessity. It does put a damper on my personal strategy and I think a lot of other writers will agree it's not good for them.
- This puts us in the position of either getting a payout right away, or writing for free, without hope of revenue on Steemit in the future from that content.
- This doesn't seem like a big deal, until you consider this:
Steemit is a block chain, this content will live here indefinitely where anyone can find it!
So, with residual payouts, I have a choice, develop content for a platform such as Amazon, where I take my chances, earn a percentage of royalties and get monthly payments, or publish here, with a chance to get paid every month if I can add new fans, indefinitely.
*Without this, it would seem that your "free" content is available forever, and any premium version you may produce in the future, will have to compete with the free "steemit" version you posted here. *
**This model overcomes the problems with publishing on sites such as Facebook, where the content essentially belongs to the platform, which will essentially be the case now. **
- There is nothing in the whitepaper to keep Steemit from eventually charging fees for membership, which means they could potentially profit from my content, while I cannot past 30 days.
- Getting readers to pay for content widely available on a block chain for free will be difficult.
- If I produce a large volume of content here and someone likes my writing, why not just come here and read? This could put the free steemit content at odds with my premium content on other platforms, forever.
This doesn't take away the opportunity that Steemit represents for authors, but a different approach is called for
If the change sticks and no future upvotes, or payouts are possible then disposable content, short "flash fiction" time sensitive news, or social commentary will be the way to go, rather than longer fiction, or evergreen, useful content, intended to build a reference library of sorts.
- Headlines will matter even more than they do now
- Timing, for most optimum exposure will become of higher importance.
- Courting the attention of whales will become the only way to make any sizable payouts, rather than relying on a larger volume of smaller fish.
The reasoning behind the change is claimed to be storage space, but this comment claims this is simply not true!
Alifton commented 2 hours ago • edited
The reason for the 30-day window is to allow old posts to be archived -- get them out of the database. Our memory usage is already getting uncomfortably large; requiring everyone to keep everything back to the beginning of time will be counterproductive.
I call shenanigans because the very principle of a blockchain is that it is able to archive everything starting at the very beginning from whence it came. If the problem is simply indexing it in a database then making it easier to query with less stress on your server, maybe it's time to put some of the massive amounts of reserved capital to good use, and make use a data center like every other major platform of this proposed magnitude. The entire "print" library of congress would fit into 15TB and all of twitter from it's inception would fit into 20TB.
Source : The Library of Congress Article On Digital Preservation
Saying it's a memory issue is simply a cop out and a total attempt to convince the less tech savvy that long term accessible storage is expensive, RAM is out of the question, processors are unattainable, and that renting or maintaining a server rack is an unreasonable expectation. The Steemit blockchain does not store pictures, audio, video or anything that is storage intensive right now. Having personally analyzed the blockchain, as of right now it only stores plain text.
So, what's the deal? Why was this change made and will it stick?
We will have to see. In the meantime, I will be working on some new content strategies to make use of the platform differently than I had planned originally.
- Shorter pieces, with more trending subject matter
- Nothing I feel could bring larger sales in the future, for now
- Content, like this piece, specifically designed for consumption on Steemit.
So, what's the scoop on talking between users?
It's touted as a social media platform, but holding conversations in the comment section is not the best way to make new friends. Enter Steemit.chat
Here, you'll find an oldschool conversation forum, with multiple channels useful for aspiring #dolphinschool members.
- This promotional channel, where anything goes is a great place to leave links to blog content you'd like more eyeballs on.
- The Minnow OGlinks is a place for minnows to share links to their blog content for promotion.
- Search promotion for more places to share and explore the channels list for places to share specific content.
By using promotional tools that allow content to be seen outside of trending and new categories on Steemit, you can extend the life of your post. In most cases, posts only get promoted for 12 hours, unless they become trending, or hot, while upvotes can be collected up to 24 horus for the first payout.
Homework for day 3 of Dolphin School
- Go to Steemit.chat and sign up for a free account.
- Join channels you feel will benefit you for promoting your blog content
- Share links to your work on Steemit.chat and engage in conversation there.
By building up a network of fellow steemians, we can build value here that can follow us to other platforms and provide new sources of revenue in the future