There is a worrying trend happening on Steemit right now. We are collectively creating an echo chamber of the same ideas and upvoting and praising in an endless cycle. Yes, Steemit is a great platform. Yes, it's revolutionary and a complete reworking of the idea of social media.

Do we need to be told 20 times a day how great Steemit is?

We have some great bloggers on here publishing great stories. We also have some great bloggers publishing nothing more than Steemit puff pieces. By upvoting the puff pieces we are telling the world that the content that has the most value is...well...advertising.

Advertising is from the 'old world'. We have the power to say we don't need that here. What we need to do is to start rewarding those that add value without resorting to altering their work to sell the platform.

Waitaminute...random-potato, haven't YOU done that very thing?

I have and we're all guilty of it. We see the posts that are trending, doing well, making SteemPower. We want to emulate their success so we jump on the bandwagon. Maybe it's time we stop. Maybe it's time to step out of our comfort zone and start looking at content that isn't about 'How to do well on Steemit', 'How to get noticed', 'Why Steemit is the bestest thing everrrrz'.

We are the reason Steemit will succeed, yet we are also the reason it will fail. The future of this platform is in our hands so let's make the right choice.