Ever since I discovered Steemit I started feeling a new sense of daily excitement! I'm sure a lot of you know what I mean. Before I became a Steemian I used Facebook on a daily basis, I admit it's nice to connect with family members who are overseas or in a different state and to connect with old friends. The problem is that it's over-saturated with way too many gimmicks, ads, and posts that I could careless for. By that I mean people have totally lost their filters and feel they can disrespect whoever, whenever they want. It has become a joke not only do they invade your privacy by collecting your data and selling it, they monitor what you view in a stalkerish manner and then try to sell you something that you were browsing 30 minutes earlier! FB has also recently been busted for promoting scam ads by posting what they think is trending 'fake news'. One of the most important differences for me is censorship; Facebook, Twitter and Youtube censors you, look at the entire fiasco that just happened with youtube and its advertisers, big YouTubers lost a lot of revenue and some even had content that was political or not up to their standards demonetized or removed. This is an abuse of power from all of these giant companies, not platforms where you can speak your mind without someone monitoring and censoring what you post or upload. We should never tolerate bullying, harassment, hate speech or threatening violence, etc. Bans on these types of topics/censorships are a no brainer!
Steemit has so much more to offer than Facebook and Twitter. A few Pros over Facebook and Twitter are that Steemit rewards you for your content, instead Facebook uses you to make money through their ads. Another great benefit is Steemit sits on top of a decentralized open source blockchain, the Benefits to this idea are endless as you will read below.
When it comes to Steemit vs. Instagram it's pretty clear the pros are your getting paid from upvotes and you don't need any sponsors like Instagram has in their model. Twitter has made it too easy to trash and bash others, they lack the community aspect Steemit has. Besides, who wants to be on a site that sells your tweets to data miners which means they are spying on you and profiting at the same time. Basically, the same model Facebook implements to use its members to make money off of them. Facebook and Twitter are giants on the social media stage and with all that data being mined I'm sure some of it is going to those three letter agencies!
Let's talk more about steemit now! Steemit has the feeling of a small self-sufficient community that can sustain itself. The plus's of being on an open source blockchain are others can contribute and develop useful applications for steemit and they already have with side applications that are helping steemit grow. Steemit also helps people with certain skill sets find work and get paid in steem or steem dollars in the steemgigs section. The possibilities are endless.
One of the first questions I ask myself when I see a Great new idea is what inspired that person/persons to think of that. What was that 'aha' moment for them and I wonder how they feel about the success of their idea. Then I think darn I wish I would have thought of that myself.
The bittersweet part comes into all of this because right now whether you are an author, curator, programmer, a witness or all of the above, we are all making connections with other like-minded people and are helping build a community. My husbad was telling me it reminded him of the early days of the internet when BBS (bulletin board systems) were in motion and anyone with a telephone jack and a modem could just dial in and start a chat with other callers in your area. These services had a big role on how the internet was shaped back in the 80's and 90's it was a magical time when dialing into a BBS with all these weird names and wondering what you were supposed to do next felt like you were involved in something new, special and ahead of its time. Maybe it was the intimacy and mystery of having the direct computer-to-computer chat exchanges with strangers who shared the same hobby as you that gave it that magical feeling which is now so trivial! He told me dialing in felt like you were being teleported into a new universe that had an elementary feeling, like a feeling it was bigger than it actually was. Even the noise of the 2400 bps modem his father had bought him gave him a sense of excitement. Then the big internet companies came along like Prodigy and AOL, and it felt like pandemonium because the intimacy was lost. The way he feels about bulltetin board systems is the way I feel about Steemit.
Thus what I'm trying to express here is that when Steemit grows in popularity and becomes more widespread than Facebook, that personal connection will surely be missed by me. Some will continue their journey here, while others will probably cash out, leaving all the new members to enjoy the fruits of the labor of today's Steemians that helped build this wonderful platform. It's an exciting feeling knowing that one-day steemit will be flourishing, thriving and more promising than any other social media site out there. My only question to you fellow Steemians is how will you feel about it? For me, it will be a happy yet bittersweet day!
