When I was in college I made the remark to a professor that about 90% of the students didn't belong in college, they should still be in Jr. High. He got really upset and shouted: "You're erudite... You're an elitist!" Well, here I go again...
When I came to Steemit in late November, I was amazed! It was full of creative people, artists, writers, photographers, videographers, etc. and I felt wonderfully at home. When I posted articles, I got thoughtful responses. When I commented, people commented back and we had wonderful dialogues. I had been writing on Blogspot and this was so much better... not just because of the money, but because it was interactive. Now I'm seeing things that I foresee as troubling.
I write. I spend a disproportionate amount of time preparing my stories, articles or whatever else I post... it's practically all I do. I don't claim to be William Faulkner, I don't think I'm even a good writer (but I am getting better). What I'm beginning to notice is people that create NO content whatsoever... they just comment with something like "Nice post" or even "Follow Me." Why??? Why on earth would I want to follow someone that creates no content? What do they offer the platform, other than an outstretched hand?
Steemit is getting watered down and the reward pool is being taken away by Steembeggars. If this continues, Steemit will be turned into the Calcutta of the social media world! This is what I don't want to see. It might be different if these people were investing their money into Steem, but what I'm seeing is hangers-on riding on the coattails of content creators... draining the reward pool as they go. Here's an example- I posted a chapter of a story I'm doing the other day... I no sooner posted it and I got a reply: "Great story. How about an upvote." If this person read my chapter, he must have been at the top of his class at Evelyn Woods! There's no conceivable way he could have read it. It was just another beggar with an outstretched hand! What can we do?
I would love to see Steemit go back to the way it was. I'm seeing more and more posts expressing pretty much the same concerns... although perhaps in different terms. My real concern is that people that work hard to create good content are having their rewards stolen by beggars. I've been on here since Thanksgiving and have never flagged anyone, BUT, maybe that's what it will take. If we start flagging all the beggars, perhaps they'll go back to the cesspool of Fakebook where they belong.