How To Actually Bring More Business Owners To Steem[it]

in #business6 years ago

When I was in Israel in September, I met a guy who runs a merchant cash advance company out of Cyprus.

It's fairly common for Israelis to move their businesses there for tax purposes. From what I understand, you can claim residency status in Cyprus if you live there 60 days out of the year. Their tax rates are very low and it's only like a two hour flight from Israel.

So this guy heard that I was doing work with crypto and basically asked me: "Do you know anyone who is looking to sell massive amounts of Bitcoin?"

🅱️ang 🅱️ang



By that point I hadn't done much work in crypto for a good while, preferring to focus on building a social media management company instead. But I figured that I could ask around since this guy seemed keen to satisfy one of his major clients.

Because he does merchant cash advances, he does a lot of work with banks. During our conversation, he told me that he'd just kind of fallen into making deals with a few of them who were looking to buy BTC.

At some point in our conversation I asked him, "How much total are they looking to buy?"

He goes, "As much as possible. Up to $10 billion."

Now.. that's a lot of fucking money. But these are banks we're talking about. So it's plausible that they'd have that kind of cash to throw around.

At the end of the day it's impossible to know why the market is crashing. Maybe some original adopter somewhere wants to go balls out and buy his family some awesome gifts for Christmas and figured he might as well do all his shopping on Black Friday.

Does it really matter? Not really. A crash is a crash and we can speculate until the cows come home. But the fact of the matter is that it's down A LOT and nobody knows when it's going to go back up, if ever.

Sadly, I made the stupid decision of leaving a good chunk of my savings in crypto, figuring that I could always generate cash from freelancing or - god forbid - grinding out a few months selling hair straighteners in some shopping mall. But of course hindsight is 20/20.

Oh well, lesson learned. Next time I'll just eat the fucking eggs right away instead of putting them in baskets. And NEVER underestimate the power of having an emergency fund, regardless of what you think your earning power is.

Because I'll tell you the truth - the last thing I want to go do right now is sign three to six months of my life away to go sell hair straighteners in Africa or some shit.

I mean sure, it would lead to some amazing experiences, deep friendships, and I'd have a lot of cool stories to tell. But the momentum required to uproot myself from Manhattan, get rid of my precious fur coats, say goodbye to my new friends and resign myself to over a hundred days of having slight variations of the same conversation over and over is too much for me to fathom right now.

One thing that I've considered is working as a trainer for short periods of time in different malls. Companies will fly you out and pay you a base salary to train their staff on how to sell. You get commission on your own sales as well of course, and generally this is higher than normal (even for an experienced salesperson) in order to offset the time you'll inevitably have to spend training the staff while at work.

So that's one option. And one that maybe I'll take into consideration. But with today being Black Friday and less than 5 weeks to go until the end of the holiday season, this crypto crash couldn't have come at a worse time. If I leave today, I'll only have five weeks to make as much money as possible until the malls are dead for a solid month and a half. Who knows where the crypto market will be by then?

And that's assuming I leave today.

Which I obviously won't do. I need to sublet (or get rid of) my apartment. I need to send all these extra winter clothes back to my parents or store them somewhere. I need to strap on my fucking knee pads and mentally prepare myself to crawl through the thorns and stones of indecisive women and the artificial lighting of whichever modern day shopping mall I'll be chaining myself to for the next three months.

La petite mort



Because let's face it: there isn't likely to be a miracle any time soon. Yeah yeah, nobody knows what's going to happen in the future and I for sure don't have a crystal ball. But I see a lot of posts on here with people blindly proclaiming shit like:

"Steem is the future! I'm powering up because I believe it'll go back up!"

Nothing could make me feel worse about my decision to hold for so long. No disrespect to the Kool Aid Addicts on here, but seriously... what the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you power up ever? You want your $0.12 upvote to turn into a $1 upvote in the future? Why?

I think it all really just comes down to social pressure from the community. Powering up is the "cool" thing to do and shows that you support the movement, which itself is totally flawed. But I don't feel like beating that dead horse anymore, so let's leave it at that.

Anyway, it doesn't even really matter WHY shit is going downhill right now. It is. And y'all can sit there with your starry eyes and vapidly claim that the crypto market will recover someday... but the truth is that you don't know, I don't know... nobody knows.

The difference, ironically enough, is that very few of you seem to have bet as heavily as I did on the crypto market and now I'm the one who is going to face real world consequences for being an idiot and leaving 90% of my wealth in the fucking stupid ass shit market. It's not fun to see your savings get cut in half overnight.

Especially when you know what's waiting for you when you run out of money: three to six months of repeating the same canned lines over and over in an Abercrombie-and-Fitch-perfume-scented shopping mall while you fantasize about the golden days of coconut oil and tropical Thai beaches.

When I think about how much money I wasted over the past year on stupid shit... oh my god. I remember being in Australia almost exactly a year ago and having $25k+ in my bank account. If you ask me where that money went I couldn't tell you. I mean, I definitely dumped a lot into BTC during the height of the market. But even this year I made a ton of money from consulting that seems to have vanished into thin air.

And what do I have to show for it? A few more pictures on Instagram? A few more friends on Facebook? A few more stamps on my passport?

Crawling through the mud = good



Maybe I'm being too harsh. This year has been one of my best in a long time. As was last year.

Overall it's been net positive. I think I'm just irritable because I'm feeling the pinch and resisting what I know I'm going to have to do very soon.

It's not that I don't love working in malls. Honestly I can't think of another job that offers more visceral pleasure than kiosk sales.

Selling itself is exhilarating, I get to travel all over the world, and my job is actually to flirt with girls all day and play with their hair.

Not only that, but kiosk sales reward you proportionately for how positive and upbeat you can be for an extended period of time. Grumpy people don't make sales. Happy people do.

So you effectively train yourself to be happy, because you know that the alternative is to be in a pissed off mood and not make any money. The worst part about having a bad day on the kiosk is that everyone can see you're failing and hating your life.

They can see the sadness written on your face. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

That's leverage right there. And if you want to succeed in any field, you must have leverage.

I'm reading a book right now by Nassim Taleb called Skin In The Game, where he talks about this exact thing.

Reading this book is like trying to swim through molasses. But I love the way this guy writes. Plus he's also Lebanese, and I have a secret crush on all things from Lebanon. Don't tell my Israeli friends.

Anyway, I'm only about 50 pages in, but from what I can see so far the book essentially says that systems evolved from the people involved having something to lose from their personal choices.

In other words, you can't structure an economic system where certain parties can only experience an upside without a downside. The risk has to be fair.

Interestingly enough, this may be why the crypto market is so appealing to some when compared to the stock market. Look no further than the 2008 crash and ensuing bailouts to see how this shit works: banks lost all their money because of greedy agents writing bad deals that they knew would eventually collapse. Instead of suffering the consequences, the government bailed them out and tried to patch the system with regulations.

But we all know that regulations can be gamed. Get enough lawyers, hire enough ex-regulators and you're good to go.

But the crypto market? That shit is the Wild West, virtually unregulated. If people lose all their money in crypto, well then it sucks for them. Doubtful that we'll see any bailouts because of a crypto crash any time soon. Not to say that this is for the right reasons, but obviously the powers that be are hesitant to encourage mass adoption for this exact reason.

(Interestingly enough, Taleb also says that entrepreneurs understand this better than anyone because THEY are the ones with skin in the game. They survive only if they succeed. More on this later.)

Who's got your money?

Anyway... enough speculation. Like I said, that shit doesn't matter.

You lost all your money, now it's time to make some more. Don't fantasize about the next bull run, because at the end of the day you can't control that shit. And while programs like @steemonboarding seem to have honorable intentions, I don't believe that teaching people how Steem works in German is going to be what brings this platform mainstream or raises the value of the token.

And not to take away from any of the work that @steemmonsters has done to make their game, but I don't think that's going to appeal to anyone who doesn't already use the platform and want to support what seems to be the only initiative that is run like a traditional business and not a money-printing factory. No offense to the other sidechains.

There was a post by @aggroed a few days ago that asked for business plans to bring more business owners to Steem. I wanted to respond, I really did. Especially since my last post was a comprehensive 5000+ word guide about how to start a social media business. I couldn't help but notice the timing of the contest.

I spent two nights trying to write the damn thing but couldn't make it work without the post devolving into a massive rant about what's wrong with this place. And what's another post dedicated to beating a dead horse going to do for anyone?

(One thing I will point out is that it's kind of ironic that a contest submit a business plan was offered to a community with admittedly very little business experience. Would you ask a fat person for fitness advice?)

In my opinion (that nobody asked for), bringing business owners here is pretty fucking simple. You have two options:

  1. Enable ads on the site
  2. Pay professional content creators in US dollars to submit high quality content that is naturally shareable on the internet and use paid ads to drive traffic

I've been saying this shit ever since I've been on here. In fact, I made such a big deal about using this site as a platform for your business that I even got myself some haters. Sure I wasn't the most diplomatic, but I just hate the way people desperately beg for handouts here like a bunch of low status welfare recipients.

You don't have a money problem, you have a creativity problem.

I realize that most people probably won't be motivated to spend a few days writing a 5000+ word post, editing it several times, add dozens of interesting links AND paying out of their own pocket to promote it. But then again, most people aren't motivated enough to work 7 days a week on their own business either.

50,000 users on this site and virtually none of them own their own business. Why do you think that is?

Because this place attracts people who are in love with the idea of getting paid to produce content. And with the criteria for receiving upvotes being 100% subjective ("I like you and/or your post so I'm upvoting you"), this platform has turned into a cliquey popularity contest. High quality content creators are not rewarded appropriately, if they even exist.

And yes, there are curation teams out there who presumably try to promote high quality content - but so what? What is a @curie upvote worth these days? $5? Big fucking deal. Unless you live on the subcontinent and eat rice with your fingers, that's not likely to do you much good. And I don't care who you are or what country you live in, $5 is not going to solve any of your problems.

Pretend you're BF Skinner for a second



Perhaps even more insulting is the fact that I rarely get any upvotes for my own writing.

Let me toot my own horn here for a second: nobody puts as much effort into their posts on here as I do. Very few people are as talented writers, if any. But why don't I get any upvotes from high SP accounts? Why don't they upvote me?

Calm down. It's a rhetorical question. I know why. Because I'm an asshole.

But think about it: if I was actually making money on my posts instead of losing money through paying for upvotes, don't you think that I would post more often? Don't you think that I would step my game up and write even BETTER pieces of content if I KNEW that I would be getting financially rewarded for it?

And therein lies the problem: high SP accounts are more interested in the politics of seeming "fair" and upvoting safe pieces of content by people who aren't controversial, bland ass boring ass fucking milktoast motherfuckers who are too scared to say anything that contradicts the popular narrative, who tout the company line and parrot the same trite soundbytes we've all heard a million times:

"Steem is great guys! I'm powering up!"
"SMTs are gonna solve all our problems!"
"Steemit is the future!"

Good for you little Arjun, you get a gold star and $0.10. Now run along and buy yourself some fenugreek.

But guess what - nobody who doesn't have their head jammed all the way up this community's ass is going to give a shit. Because that content is trash.

Actually, trash is the wrong word. That content has no appeal to your average person who doesn't ALREADY have a vested interest in the Steem blockchain or Steemit community.

In order to attract THOSE people, the solution is actually pretty fucking simple: all you have to do is get high quality content creators to submit their original content HERE first and then either 1) use your fake money ponzi scheme to fund the promotion of their posts (not to the Trending page, but through targeted ad campaigns like Facebook ads), 2) ask them to promote it through their own channels, or 3) both.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Is there any good content on this site that isn't Steem-specific?
  • Is there any content on here that has a wide appeal and is useful to a wide swathe of humanity?
  • Is there any content on here that people would share through traditional social media channels for no other reason than that they think it's cool and interesting?
  • Is there any content on here that people would share WITHOUT the ulterior motive of wanting to bring people to the platform and increase the value of the token?

Gonna have to say the answer is no.

13 Pictures That Prove Barack Obama Is Actually Osama Bin Laden (You won't believe number 4!)



But just imagine for a second if this place was run like Buzzfeed, who has done an excellent job of building a powerhouse publication through clickbait titles and listicles.

Yes they're stupid and pander to the dregs of mainstream culture who are incapable of nuanced thought. But is that really so much worse than the starry-eyed freebie-seeking circle-jerking low-vibration shitposters that infest this place?

I don't think so. I'd rather have this place be full of listicles that could ostensibly serve some purpose (I can only think of 25 ways to eat chips) than having to sift through hundreds of trash posts written by people hunting for $0.10 upvotes so they can buy some turmeric.

And the crazy part is that there are so many high SP accounts on here that could literally fund initiatives like this through their own pocket. So many accounts with 1M SP who can literally pay themselves thousands of dollars per day and use that money to pay authors to submit content. Seriously, how has nobody thought of this before?

Oh wait, someone did think of it. And they wrote 20,000 words on how to make it happen:

Granted, the idea was for a crypto magazine and I was aiming for a volume approach instead of a quality one. But the sentiment is the same: use the untapped potential of a whale's SP to pay professional content creators to regularly produce unique and entertaining stuff FOR THE PURPOSE OF CREATING MARKETABLE CONTENT WITH A WIDE FUCKING APPEAL BEYOND THE STEEMIT CIRCLE-JERKING COMMUNITY.

This is basic business right here: create high quality content so your brand can reap the benefits of engaging articles with lots of the Google Juice and social media exposure that comes with naturally shareable viral articles.

Why do you think this hasn't been done yet?

Easy answer: it comes back to not having any skin in the game. People are constantly incentivized to buy into the circle-jerkism over here ("Just keep posting and commenting and eventually you'll be cool enough to get regular upvotes!") instead of actually using their brains to come up with an evergreen business idea that would work in the real world. And now finally, for whatever reason, someone is actually trying to do something about it.

Most low-level posters here don't have the leverage because they are being fed scraps and promises. When in reality, if high SP accounts had organized and chosen a handful of high quality content creators to act around an organizing principle (otherwise known as "building a brand") this place would be in a much better position than it is today.

But to be totally real with you, I doubt most of the people on here have the stomach for that kind of thing anyway. Statistically speaking it's just not likely that everyone here would be at the proper point in their development to be able to execute a profitable business anyway.

But without the leverage (by withdrawing "charity" upvotes, for example), I guess we'll never know.

Show me your elbows



When I worked in sales we often had products and services available that were higher quality and even cheaper than the competition. But you still need to convince the buyer to give you their money. Superior products don't always sell, but superior salesmen do.

Which is kind of ironic when you think about it: writing software is all about solving problems. So why couldn't they just solve the problem of commercial exposure, cash flow, and creating entertaining content?

Shit, with all the resources @aggroed et al seem to be willing to throw at a new business idea, they could literally save up $20k in Steem and use that to pay a business development consultant to come up with a plan for them. They wouldn't even have to do anything. Just use the money printing factory to do all the work for them, transfer that crypto into real US dollars and use it to pay a real-world professional to map out a plan for them.

I think the real problem is that none of them are willing to take a risk. They don't want to put their own skin in the game.

Hold a contest, ask other people to submit their ideas, and if it doesn't go well they can always just say, "it was the other guy's idea. Not our fault!"

EDIT: To be fair, they get points for trying. But it's the overriding mentality of trying to avoid risk that is the problem, not the fact that they held a contest vs just trying it on their own.

Meanwhile, initiatives that give people the warm fuzzies like @steemonboarding get full community support despite having absolutely zero plans on how to generate revenue. Again, no disrespect to them as I know what they're doing is coming from the right place.

But don't you think that having an actual plan on how to generate revenue should be mentioned somewhere?

What's the alternative? To spam the internet and hope that you'll randomly attract business owners who "get it" and decide to dump their resources into an unproven platform with seemingly unsolvable problems?

Shit, if you can't monetize 50k monthly users, don't you think it's time to change the strategy?

But the funny thing is that SOME people ARE monetizing them. Bid bot operators, sidechains who have secured delegations, and of course @steemmonsters come to mind.

But these just generate their money from incestuous transactions from within the community. So while yes, they are earning real money, that source of revenue is essentially dependent on the Steemit community.

No users = nobody using bidbots.

No users = nobody using sidechains.

No users = nobody playing Magic: The Gathering... I mean @steemmonsters.

Putting it all together



The issue IS NOT that users are paid in Steem to create content.

The issue IS that users are paid in Steem to ONLY create content.

Currently the way it works is that people write their shitty post about how they love breakfast, click publish and hope to be blessed by a generous upvote.

But what if this person took a more businesslike approach and thought LONG TERM?

What if instead of just making a one off post about their breakfast preference, they dedicated their Steemit blog to reviewing different breakfast cereals?

What if they added affiliate links in their posts?

What if they created and sold info products on how to pick the right breakfast for their fitness goals?

What if they offered elite coaching services that included one on one Skype calls, webinars, and a 20 hour set of video modules for becoming a Professional Breakfast Consultant?

I'm not encouraging everyone to just spam affiliate links in their shitty posts... but I kind of am, because ideally that would lead to people at least thinking in a more businesslike state of mind.

They'd ask themselves questions like:

  • How do I get people to read this post?
  • How can I promote it off site?
  • How can I write engaging sales copy?
  • How can I write articles that give the reader valuable information while also entertaining them?

And when you are financially incentivized to do something, the work will generally be higher quality.

Why do you think I put so much work into my posts? Because I'm an egotistical jerk with too much time on his hands? Yes. But also because I use them as fucking selling tools when I'm trying to get a new client.

I can just give them a few links and say, "See? I'm smart. Hire me."

This isn't some shit I made up. It's content marketing.

Look at any popular blogger, IG celebrity or YouTuber. 99.9% of them promote products or services or have their own brand. And this encourages them to create higher quality work because of the amount of exposure AND MONEY they're getting.

Better videos = more views = more ad revenue and more sales of their own products (if they have them).

Steemit has no metric for this kind of thing. Again, it's just a popularity contest - and there are unfortunately only a few people whose votes matter.

So how would this work on Steemit? Think of it like a sort of Business Accelerator.

Essentially what you'd be doing is grooming a group of content creators to promote their businesses on Steemit, with or without taking advantage of the Steem blockchain.

You COULD pay them in Steem for creating the content (bad idea), but I think what would be a better way of incentivizing them would be to use that money to pay for Facebook ads to promote their posts or videos (much better).

If you pay them for their posts in the form of upvotes, then what's the point? They'll be getting paid either way and all you've done is rewarded the act of creating a piece of content.

But if you pay for them to get relevant clicks on their articles and videos, then the onus is on them to write an engaging piece of content that converts into sales, email subscribers, and exposure to the right people.

Not only do you help them grow their business, but you're also getting interested eyes on the website/blockchain itself. Add a little blurb at the bottom that says,

"This post was sponsored by the Steemit Business Accelerator. We pick 10 content creators every quarter and help fund the promotion of their businesses through the Steem Blockchain."

Whatever. You can make it sound nicer than that I'm sure but you get the idea.

It essentially looks like this:

  1. Pick 5-10 content creators who ALREADY HAVE an existing business WITH REVENUE (no wantrapreneurs or dreamers)
  2. Encourage them to create high quality content that converts into actual sales by giving them a daily/weekly stipend in Steem to be used on FB ads

This shit is literally fucking idiot proof if you pick people who already have an established presence. The best part is that you can even hold a fucking contest OFF SITE and get people to apply, Shark Tank style.

I can't think of too many people on here with legitimate businesses. It's also likely that the people I name will cause the upper lips of all you Kool Aid Addicts to curl in disgust. @joeparys, the late @jerrybanfield, and the charismatic and modest @yallapapi of course...

I'd be happy to help with something like this, but I won't hold my breath. For one thing, you guys probably think you'd never hear the end of it.

And for another, I really just don't think you guys are ready to do what it takes to join the business world. It means letting go of this idea of Steem(it) as a utopian society where poverty and world hunger are solved by posting grainy pictures of your African mud hut.

Sorry, but that's not going to work. And for crying out loud, please shut the fuck up about SMTs saving everyone. Go ahead and tell me one ERC token that's had any sort of commercial success. What makes you think that SMTs are going to be any different?

You want to bring business owners here? Tell them that you'll help promote their businesses for free.

Tell them that you'll pay for their Facebook ads in exchange for creating high quality SEO-optimized listicles.

Publicly endorse them so you don't get high SP retards who feel left out downvoting their posts and voicing their useless opinions from the sidelines.

Put up a significant delegation to properly fund them and LET GO of the idea that what we need is another goddamn sidechain.

Like I said I'm happy to help if this is still something you're interested in doing. Otherwise, you're welcome to steal my idea and give it a go.

Mmmmm yeah you like that don't you

Follow me baby, follow me harder



Read these for Ultimate Enlightenment:



How I Used Paigham Bot To Get All My Clients For Social Media Management
F
Steemit's Great Pretender
AUTISM INTENSIFIES
So You Want To Be A Digital Nomad
Take My Crushed Dreams And Snort Them Through A Rolled-Up ???itcoin
Strong Independent @YallaPapi Don't Need No Whale
Hey Steemit Whales, How'd You Like To Fix All Of Steemit's Problems And Make Bank By Doing Absolutely Nothing?
#SharkSchool Lesson 6: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
#SharkSchool Lesson 2: Develop A Taste For Other People's Blood
Mmmm Yeah Baby, Put It In My Reward Pool
How To Stop Being Such A Loser
Why Everything You Know About Investing In Crypto Is Wrong
Why Steemit Is A Giant Circle-Jerk And How To Make It Work In Your Favor
How To Get To The Trending Page On Steemit Even If You're An Autistic, Paint Chip-Eating Bork Like Me
How To Use Steemit To Trick People Into Reading Your Poorly-Written Garbage
How To Use Steemit To Make Yourself Feel More Important Than You Really Are

Follow, resteem and smash dat mf like button like yer daddy taught ya...




👇👇👇👇👇 Smash it right there neighborino 👇👇👇👇👇

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I've said for nearly a year, since you folks started buying votes, these paid programming style posts here on the trending page should be the ads inside posts that contain actual content.

You're up here on the trending page. To get here you paid people to look away, then you wonder why nobody is looking. You're wondering why accounts with high SP don't vote, while paying them to not vote. It's easy to see how this is all kind of pointless.

Even @joeparys here, talking up his approach and thinking it's wise to sell the votes doesn't really know what he's doing. The moment everyone starts purchasing votes to reach the top slots for this so called "visibility" (paying people to look away), is the exact moment the business model falls in on itself. Just image if every ten seconds someone wanted the top slot. This business model collapses the moment it becomes as successful as it can get. So that's pure idiocy. These guys don't know that though. They depend on the next sucker who walks in the door, typically a shit posting amateur who's never produced content online trying to get 'rich and famous' overnight. Most fail.

This model of promotion is a joke. There are only a handful of top slots and if thousands of people tried to promote their posts in this fashion, all they do is end up blending back in with the crowd; making this more pointless than it ever was. The business model is one big flop. If it becomes successful it becomes useless at the same time. That's not capitalism, it's stupidity.

Content producers come first. The ads and promoted posts should be tucked nicely inside posts as banner ads. That would give those who wish to promote their posts a much larger potential viewership, and the content producers would be able to produce content that can reach top slots organically. There are literally thousands of posts published daily. The ads should be inside those posts and the content producers should take center stage to attract eyes to the platform.

The content producers should have to select a maximum of two ads they'd like to include in their blog from a market. In other words, content producers would curate ads and look for something people might want to click because the content producer would be earning a piece of the ad revenue. That click should function like the vote button, voting for the post before the consumer takes off to visit the ad. Those promoting would have to spend more and more to jockey for position within this market tab. If they wanted the top slot there, with the hopes a lazy blogger wouldn't look hard, they'd have to buy STEEM and spend more to boost it to the top. This creates a huge demand for STEEM this current model can't even come close to.

That promotion, on payday, then gets split between the promoters, content producers who hosted the ad, and if there's any profit left that goes to the one who published the promotion.

Everyone then works together. Content producers can earn ad revenue on top of their votes, those promoting have far more potential slots and far more potential eyes on their ads, those selling votes for the ads within the market would earn less per post but far more in bulk. There wouldn't even be enough of them, which creates more demand to buy STEEM on top of all this. Content producers with more stake earn higher percentages of the ad reward pool, creating even more demand to buy steem and power up earnings.

Right now everyone works against each other and the promotion system is a joke. These people could be making far more money but they don't have any experience in the entertainment industry to be able to understand their roles. They want the most money and they currently depend on the next sucker who walks in the door. Everything about their system means, eventually, it falls in on itself.

That's something I wrote, months ago. This dude seems to get it. There was another video made talking about how great the idea is as well but I can't find it. Probably more out there.

There are only about 20 top slots here, maybe a few more. It's pointless to be on this trending page. 1 slot for three days? Your post could be inside thousands of others posts for a week. Maybe 100+ views here, potentially thousands if the promoted posts were inside actual content. Put the actual content on the trending page and these shit posts you people make inside as advertisements.

Most of you guys seem to either want to reinvent the wheel or recycle old ideas (Like Joe emulating Jerry... Jerry failed) instead of taking this wheel, including everything the place has to offer, and making the wheel actually spin.

Anyway, whatever. Enjoy the generic you're so awesome this post was the best ever response you paid for. Have a good one.

we always keep circling back about the bots.. I’m not for or against them.. I just use them because I can. Why more people don’t is beyond me. You don’t get bonus points for not using them. This isn’t the boy scouts. Steemit inc knows Steemit is broken. They are building destiny. Let’s see what that turns out to be

I know this isn't the boy scouts, Joe. If everyone used bots, who would vote for free? How would you sell the idea of using paid votes if you couldn't use the line, "Maybe someone will then come along and vote for your post, since they can see it." Remember? It's sold as 'promoting content'. If there weren't any eyes around, if it was all bots, that means all eyes are gone, and all bots fail. Didn't you think of this before the last boy scout meeting?

But this isn’t the case... there are still eyes 👀 out there.... and there are many people who don’t use bots and manually vote (like yourself) so it’s a mix right now. You’re projecting a Steemit that isn’t here yet... maybe one day it’ll be all bots. But right now it’s not

I know of a better place for bots. I'm not fully against anything. It's just easier for me to piece the puzzle together. For you, you'd have to first admit what you're doing isn't the ideal solution. It's common for people running failing business models to run it into the ground rather than admitting a screw up. Not saying that's you, just saying that's how it is.

We probably shouldn't argue though. Agreed?

I agree with you that bots are not the solution to growing this community. And selling my vote isn’t “ideal” yes I admit that. We may not see eye to eye in everything but I respect you and your options. I’m on Steemit because there’s a million people here and I think the concept of earning rewards for posting is revolutionary. My mission is to help as many people I can and create inspiring high quality content. If it gets voted great if not that’s cool too. It’s out of my control who voted vs who doesn’t.

Nope, we won't see eye to eye, but there's no reason to take anything I say personally. You sell votes and I can't visit the trending page without making a scene. Two imperfect worlds will collide; so what, it's nothing personal.

I've helped a lot of people, or at least tried to. I'm a content producer first though, curator second. I miss the days when this place was jammed with people, but as you can see, my blog is still attracting the organic viewership. The rewards, well, it would be nice if those were higher but I didn't come here to complain about that. It is unfortunate much of following either vanished or decided to hang people out to dry while they sell votes and post on other platforms, ignoring the folks they once encouraged here. That's life, I just keep going. I won't purchase votes though. To me, it doesn't make sense if others earn more from my labor than I earn. In most cases, that's what's happening here. People are forfeiting 90% or more of the stated value of their posts just so they can scrape pennies off the floor. It's their decision to make poor business decisions. I choose not to participate in that madness.

Boosting posts to the top of the Trending page is advertising on site. You're only reaching the Steemit community. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about transferring Steem to US dollars to be used for FB ad campaigns so we can reach a larger audience.

This post = not about boosting to the Trending page

That response wasn't about bidbots. The conversation with Joe turned into that, because that's the part he wanted to talk about, I guess.

There are a million and one ways to attract people to this platform. If they're selling something, once they get here, they don't have eyes; no market. What I was talking about creates the market, with eyes. Much like Youtube but instead of half of the ad revenue going to Google, it stays here in the hands of stakeholders. What I'm talking about creates demand to buy and hold the token, which is important and helps boost the value of the entire blockchain.

If there's nothing like that in place, and we go with your idea, all we're doing is spending money to attract people to the same mess we've been in for over a year. If this place needs Facebook to get somewhere, those people will quickly realize, they're better off using Facebook.

Why should money be spent and tokens sold, potentially leading to a lower token value, to get business here, when one can create business here that is designed to increase the value? You want to siphon money away from this ecosystem and give it to Facebook?

How is giving a handout to a select few supposed to help anything when we've already seen what problems that creates? Where will these lucky 10 go once their handout is gone. With millions of people on this planet, do you really think this place can attract many by giving TEN people a handout?

When you're not busy knocking this place down, or taking a verbal shit on the people here, you sure have a fancy way of putting your ignorance about this entire place on display. Sure, a post with a lot of words leading nowhere makes it appear as if you know what you're talking about, but I've yet to see something come from you that actually makes solid sense. For the most part, you're keen on taking methods that barely worked on the OLD internet, and applying them here, instead of thinking outside of the box, creating something new. I suggest you open your eyes to the potential here, try to understand what's actually happening with "sidechains", SMT's, and everything else you're so happy to consistently shit on.

Tell them that you'll pay for their Facebook ads in exchange for creating high quality SEO-optimized listicles.

Are you on crack?

I reread this entire mess, one last time. My takeaway is this: You came here, once again, to call everyone names and act like a child. Your vision is narrow, you have blinders on. You seem to think the one thing you might know or what you're personally good at will save this place, you want this place to conform to you and your ways, fuck all the rest, you only see potential in about .5% of what this entire blockchain is capable of, and you can't see the progress being made to turn it into everything you're missing.

No offense brother but my shit has more business sense than you do. The idea is to help business owners develop their businesses by posting sales copy here that offers lots of value. Large posts that are essentially mini ebooks. Steem[it] gets the benefit of good content and attracts business owners.

Imagine if some whales got together and decided to have a business accelerator contest. People have 90 days to start a biz and generate as much revenue as possible. The top winners get a year of professional coaching from business mentors to develop the business further.

People are literally sitting on a printing press for money and not using it for anything productive. They made dtube without and plan on how to generate revenue. They made dlive without any plan to generate revenue. Etc etc etc. Steem monsters is the only thing where people actually have to pay to play but it only appeals to people who use this site. It’s like you’re almost trying to not understand on purpose.

There's good content here. Some is crap, but I can guarantee there's far more crap everywhere else. The main issue with STEEMIT is the fact people, like you, take part in exploiting the UI, effectively burying the good content. Nobody who started exploring this site today gives a shit about what you're talking about, yet it sits near the top. This content, and I'm not singling you out, there's more here, but this type of content is what forces eyes to look elsewhere.

There's no money in that. Peanuts.

We want eyes. All I'm saying is give this stage back to the actual content producers and place your promoted junk and advertisements inside those posts. Then eyes stay, browse, and might click the ads, just like anywhere else on the internet. Organically popular and trending posts that got there simply because people enjoyed them helps keep people around. Once those eyes are here, and stay here, you get something like this:
Screenshot (507).png

Billions. "my shit has more business sense than you do." Okay then.

I've explained exactly how simple content can generate revenue and much of it involves putting buy pressure on the token. If millions of STEEM were purchased so people could advertise on a platform that actually sees the potential in content and the eyes that come with it (good or bad content, doens't matter, just look at Youtube), literally everyone here makes money. No matter when you start, there's always a demand to purchase the token.

You're talking about a fucking contest...

Business owners and high profile content producers can create their own app that runs on this blockchain and combine it with the benefits of an SMT. I gave an example of how, here. That also creates a reason to buy STEEM and includes consumer money funneling in. Get your head out of the clouds.

As I look deeper, I'm thinking you want people to grow their businesses and earn fiat. They can do that everywhere else. They don't need this place for that. Businesses that want to thrive here will want to find ways to not only earn tokens, but see that value rise over time. You're proposing people go back to the old ways. I don't think this place is meant for that kind of business and those kind of businesses do nothing for this economy, especially if they're dependent on a bloody handout. They need to invest first, thinking that investment will grow as they grow their business. These things have to work together, not against each other.

This place does not exist in a vacuum separate from the rest of humanity. Yes, I am teaching people to go back to the "old ways," because those ways have gotten society to where they are today. The current way things work on here is fucked beyond belief and not likely to change any time soon.

You personally can have the best ideas in the world, but good luck implementing them. If you were somehow able to wave your magic wand and implement all the changes you think would make this place better, you'd have my full support. But I don't see that happening any time soon and it's not worth it to me or anyone else to campaign for it to happen. Why? Because we all have better things to do.

So the current situation being what it is, it seems like it couldn't hurt to have a little realism injected into this place when it comes to making actual money. Content is valued on other platforms like YouTube because it's popular and advertisers will pay to place ads there.

But this does not exist on here because the content is not very good. Sorry not sorry. If the content was good, it would get attention from off site. It would rank on Google. It would be shared on FB, in forums, and people would email links to each other like they did back in the day. But that doesn't seem to happen, hence the low-ish number of active users.

Plus, the fact that people are incentivized here to spam low effort content in hopes of being discovered by some curation team handing out welfare checks doesn't make things any better. I don't believe that encouraging people to buy into the hype that this place will solve society's problems by printing fake money and handing it out for people to write poetry and take pictures of their breakfast is healthy.

On the other hand, if you're able to properly educate them on creating a business that can teach them how to make money in the real world and not just the pseudo fake money crypto world, then you're teaching them a valuable skill that they can use to actually improve their lives and maybe even give a little back to society in the form of a valuable product or service.

I always said that people shouldn't use this site for income. Maybe people like you can write a post a day and make $10 each time. That's great. But $300/month isn't really that much money, and furthermore it's not likely that many people are willing to put in the time and effort necessary to network just to make that kind of money.

Instead, this site should just be used as a blogging platform where people essentially ignore the fact that there are post rewards. IMO that fucks everything up because it encourages people to "take a shit in the street," a la this post: https://steemit.com/steem/@trafalgar/help-fix-steem-s-economy

But again, it's not likely that anything I say or do is going to change that. Just like nothing you say or do will either. So the system being what it is now and not likely to change based on what either of us say or do, I say the intelligent thing to do is to take a look at the current situation and find the best solution assuming that things will stay the way they are.

I don't think that complaining or talking shit about how the system is being used based on what the rules are now is going to do anything. Create a new initiative that encourages the right kind of behavior, make it extremely obvious that a few people are being highly rewarded for doing something special, and I believe that you'll attract others who will say to themselves, "I could do that" - and then come here and do it.

So the current situation being what it is, it seems like it couldn't hurt to have a little realism injected into this place when it comes to making actual money. Content is valued on other platforms like YouTube because it's popular and advertisers will pay to place ads there.

Exactly. But the content there is given the chance to become popular. Here, the middleman stepped in to promote goddamn monkey posts. We can say this place is fucked but I like to point my finger at some of the individuals as well. The "promoters" here are sabotaging our chances at gaining the interest of advertisers and their billions. These guys want to make thousands while their business model puts selling pressure on the token at the same time.

But this does not exist on here because the content is not very good. Sorry not sorry.

There's far more junk on Youtube. Millions of videos sitting without views, millions of content producers sitting without a paycheck. There will always be junk. It's not all shit, just like here. Unfortunately here, the shit floats to the top, again, because of the promoters. Place one of these "promoters" in a real world promoter position and they'd be fired on the spot, nobody would want these acts at their venues.

Plus, the fact that people are incentivized here to spam low effort content in hopes of being discovered by some curation team handing out welfare checks doesn't make things any better. I don't believe that encouraging people to buy into the hype that this place will solve society's problems by printing fake money and handing it out for people to write poetry and take pictures of their breakfast is healthy.

They're actually not. Nobody is supporting shit content. Those people taking the shit content approach are usually the ones bitching about how unfair this place is instead of stepping up their game. All of the curators I know look for the quality. They sift through the shit, and they find the good stuff. I insist there is good stuff here, and it's rewarded, but it can't reach the top. When I vote, I'm trying to push the member up the ranks. All it takes is one jackass with a Facebook style status message and a bot to push what I tried to promote down into oblivion.

I always said that people shouldn't use this site for income. Maybe people like you can write a post a day and make $10 each time. That's great. But $300/month isn't really that much money, and furthermore it's not likely that many people are willing to put in the time and effort necessary to network just to make that kind of money.

It's not about being in the now. This is more for forward thinking people. The instant gratification crowd will not do well here. People thought I was a nutcase before this year. I saved my pennies, had another investment on the side because of these pennies, that investment grew and paid me a nice salary, all while I was still able to keep enough pennies here to make more pennies. On the surface, it won't look like much, today. Today doesn't matter. $300, on the surface. I can still take much of what I offer here and find ways to sell it for cash in the "outside world." Plenty of entrepreneurs out there work on building their businesses up before they splurge; pay themselves. Making sacrifices is part of the game. Instead of buying beer and a nice meal, I can buy my own top notch printer, something they use in printshops, and cut out the middleman completely, plus this place gave me the incentive to produce hundreds of images, so I'm already set up with a full catalog for the consumer. That's my world though, and there are plenty of others here who've produced material that could be put on paper and sold.

Anyway, we obviously both want to see this place become better. We both see wasted potential. If I could wave a magic wand, dude, I would, but I can't. If you had a look at any of these links I've shared throughout the conversation, follow the rabbit hole, you'd see I've been yelling at the clouds for almost a year. Whatever though, right?

I don't think that complaining or talking shit about how the system is being used based on what the rules are now is going to do anything. Create a new initiative that encourages the right kind of behavior, make it extremely obvious that a few people are being highly rewarded for doing something special, and I believe that you'll attract others who will say to themselves, "I could do that" - and then come here and do it.

This does happen but unfortunately, again, the good is buried under the shitty promoted posts at the top. The good is out of sight, out of mind. People would rather earn chump change. I've seen bloggers here do a fine job, but then they turn around and sell their vote to someone and that someone buries the bloggers work. That's how you sabotage your own business. That's like me putting my artwork on display in a window, then allowing someone to slip me a fiver so they can cover my windows with their shit posts. So I can easily say this platform is screwed, but I also like to look at the people who are screwing it and themselves. Of course the truth hurts and they probably fucking hate me for it. Oh well.

Have a good day.

either steemit will change to most of the changes explained by nonamaeslefttouse and stop some major flaws like bid bots and bot delegation soon - or this whole thing is toast and will be overtaken by developers of new BCs who get it.

You can't seriously say content here is as good as elsehwere. I can go down a Youtube wormhole and 6 hours later be like what the fuck happenned. That has NEVER happenend to me on Steemit. I come here to play the game and suck peoples dicks who have a score higher than me and hope for some upvotes and then I come back and check and collect my 0.11 cents. I come here to play the game and even that is no longer making sense. Maybe there is good content here and I just can't find it because the search function is a fucking joke or because trending and hot are fucking jokes but to me the content on here is not only not good with rare exceptions, its incredibly hard to find those rare gems.

I can say there's far more junk elsewhere, because that's the truth and that's what I said.

I can say there's good content here, because there is. So sorry that you had to do a bit of work to find what you like on a site that pays you to do it.

@nonameslefttouse
I like your ideas and this @phoneinf good guy...

/FF

Read this one. There I cover a few use case scenarios for big independent content producers and SMT's. Something Yallapapi here doesn't seem to get. No offense, @yallapapi.

Hey @nonameslefttouse
I was really zonked out on my sleeping pills (that I get from my DR) yesterday when I was writing a reply and reading @yallapapi , I was a bit frustrated, and I think the "dip" brings up a lot of toxicity, like radioactive cloudy mud from the bottom of a lake.

And sometimes I don't know if we know what we are actually saying. It's like a bunch of people who all wanna escape a horrible and toxic situation and we are all just jabbering away in a state of cognitive dissonance at something that feels like a group sitting at a table in some kind of virtual mental hospital...

Im thinking of some scene out of the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", maybe... Man I love that movie...

Anyway I need to go back and read this post and what I wrote and your reply properly now, UGH...

/FF

Loading...

love it.

@yallapapi, I fully agree with your analysis, again.

I want to add the following:
1.) Vote delegation is the worst engineering mistake of steemit, because it allows the operation of voting bots.
2.) The killing of the view counter is the second big mistake. Even when I am not here for the votes I have at least to know if someone reads my content or not. That feedback is as important as comments or votes.
3.) There has to be some flow-in of fiat money into steemit and this should be done by advertising or affiliate links.
I would propose a system where those are limited to only one defined place on the posting side and the klick revenue generated should be shared 50/25/25 between the content creator, curators and all steem holder.
4.) Skin in the game: Very true! I believe that such changes proposed by you and also by me to some extend should be more likely at the current price levels as the whales are atm the ones loosing the most money.
But one should be careful to know how they got their power.. if they got it by buying and posting in very early or for free their motivation and pressure point is likely to be much different to a whale that bought in with huge amounts of fiat and /or hard work here on steemit at a later point of time - that's skin in the game.

I would propose a system

This is your mistake right here. Don't propose a system because nothing you or anyone else does is going to change the system. You don't have control over that and neither do I.

Take a look at how the system works now and figure out a way to use it to your advantage. Pretty useful skill in general, not just here. Meanwhile, complaining about the system and spitballing "a better way to do things" doesn't get anyone anywhere.

I see where you are coming from and this is definitely a way to think about it.
However you also make suggestions for some not so small changes - which by the way I believe are well founded - and I believe we have every right to propose changes here and I also believe that user feedback is necessary.
And I personally also have the right to decide to dump in money and effort here, or not, or somewhere else.. as everybody has. Just imagine I that I could have some expert economic background about what I am talking...
For me it is very obvious that if you create a (sub-)system that makes no economical sense or has no real use to somebody it will die and just be rendered useless by other systems.. and that's exactly the case with vote delegation and voting bots...

As I have no big skin in this game I could also just wait and see how this whole thing collapses.. however I see the great opportunity and potential in the steem and steemit basis and user group... hence I want to make a contribution to change this for the better..

Honestly I can't think of another job that offers more visceral pleasure than kiosk sales.

If I had been raised Catholic, kiosk sales would remind me of Purgatory.

It is very similar to purgatory. Time passes very slowly. Which is great because when you finish six months and talk to your friends who have been in the same place doing the same thing, they can't believe how quickly the time has gone.

"You've been gone six months? Wow it feels like you were just here."

Meanwhile, you've experienced the emotional roller coaster of record-breaking sales days and soul-crushing gut-checking hours upon hours of dead days in the mall where you couldn't sell a dollar for 50 cents.

Sounds weird, but it makes you feel "wise beyond your years" if only because you feel that time passes so slowly.

I appreciate your post here @yallapapi you make some great points. I agree 1000000 percent with adding the ability to advertise on Steemit. And yeah it hurts seeing the price dip so low. The reason however I’ve bought to the bottom and powered everything up is because of the voting bot passive income. For the past 6-8 months I’ve been earning liquid Steem and SBD and re-investing. Should have been selling it (in hindsight) but the passive income vote idea is smart business (just my opinion). Also by powering up you’re building your brand and if you use your stake to upvote others you’ll start to gain some of the most loyal followers ever (because they are incentivize to engage with you). So yes, if I had a crystal ball 🔮 6 months ago I would have sold all my Steem power and bought back in NOW. But you can’t live like that or predict the markets like you say. So you make a decision. Is this good for my business? For my brand in the long term? If so then buy and power up. Let’s give Steem another few years and see how it all unfolds 🔮😎

Posted using Partiko iOS

this "passive income" from the voting bots is killing steem and hence your investment

please offer a better solution or find a way to ban bots. I’m not for or against them, but if they’re here, I’m going to use them... and this isn’t necessarily true.. the whole market is down right now. Let’s just remember that

I understand your reasoning.
My proposal is to stop all vote delegation on steemit.

That’s a noble undertaking and I’m happy to stop using my bot as soon as there is a unanimous vote on this. but I feel the only way bots will outlawed is if Steemit inc steps in. Not seeing that happen anytime soon

we will see... I believe it is just a question of where the steem price moves from here... that's how free markets work.. if the pain is big enough change will happen pretty fast...

Much like how a crackhead will smoke crack? It's there, it'll mess up the whole neighborhood, but what the hell, why not... who cares, right?

I see your point but this is much different than crack lol and I didn’t create the idea of voteselling. And the idea that voteselling has its goods and bads. Its your opinion voteselling is harming the economy

why do people here produce and post content.
that other PEOPLE read it. right?
so how does it make sense for this platform that you get rewarded by voting bots for exactly the opposite? People not reading your blog but giving their vote to a bot which you pay to vote for you? This only makes sense on steemit but nowhere else on this planet.

@solarwarrior

why do people here produce and post content.

Yeah it's weird.

But if you write about relevant topics, that people will search for in the future. You know "magnetic headlines" etc like, "How to build a crackpipe from a beer can in 3 easy steps", these articles will potentially get millions of views from search engine traffic, and the fact that some dude used a few low ROI bid-bots on that article will be completely irrelevant...

/FF

this platform is so fucked. this platform is setup as a blogging platform yet quality blogging isn't what earns you money and isn't rewarded.this is really more like an mlm program or networking site yet it isn't setup as that its setup as a blogging platform

If you incentivize looking away in an attention economy, that incentive will harm the economy. It's not really an opinion. Just basic business knowledge combined with common sense. 1+1=2. That's not an opinion.

And I know it's not crack. That was an analogy. The effect crack has on a neighborhood is similar to the effect bots have on this neighborhood. I did see you a few weeks ago defending the fact you could potentially be selling votes to plagiarists and it didn't seem like that bothered you much.

@nonameslefttouse good "crackhead" metaphor...

/FF

there is, just need more people to understand and speak about it to get the devs and witnesses working on it: https://steemit.com/steem/@trafalgar/help-fix-steem-s-economy

Once again the rewards system is not Steems main problem and the vote bots are one of the few things that do work around here.

Hey buddy, great post. Steemit is fucking dead and crypto is dead with it. I can definitely relate to you in the sense that this crash has come at the worst time. It feels as if in Entrepreneurship when it rains it pours, when the world shits on your head it doesn't just drop a turd, it diahreas all the fuck over you.

I recently sold/walked away from my business planning on doing passion projects and justhustling. I also knew that I had some crypto I could sell off if I needed some funds. Well as soon as I left one of my income sources Amazon Merch wound up getting fucked with by fake trademark claims so that took my $1100 from that down to about $200 a month. Crypto which was at like 6k or 7k fell to where its at now. Several of the affiliate programs I had bringing in $300 to $600 per month either stopped paying out, changed terms, shutdown the programs. Youtube earnings are down. When it rains it pours, trying to keep a positive mindset and keep hustling.

As for Steemit its clear the creators havn't given a shit about this place for a longtime. most of the creators I follow have left or post infrequently. I agree with what you said about both ads and paying content creators. Most of the contenthere is shit and the search function, hot and trending tabs are fucking terrible so they don't allow you to find the few gems on here. The content is way too centric on crypto and steemit, not gonna get the mainstream populace to come her e for this type of content.

I think in a sense we as a community here think were better than something like buzzfeed, were above stupid articles and clickbaity titles but honestly that's what brings the massses and that's what brings money.

We also need advertisers because advertisers actually bring real money to the platform, without advertisers this is simply everyone trying to extract money from the platform myself included and the only way for anyone to make money or to keep the price up is to find a greater fool to buy this shit.

As for crypto I can't say crypto is dead because crypto has surprised me many times before. Things can turn around in the snap of a fingers in crypto. That said even myself a former crypto fanboy, bitcoin is going to 100k type dude, I don't see anything happening.

Crypto is an amazing revolutionary technology but the reality is the best technology or best solution doesn't always win out, soemtimes the best marketing wins out over the best product. Bitcoin and crypto and allowing anyone to have a bank in their pocket without third party intermediaries is a fantastic idea. That said most people don't really need the anonymity or freedom that crypto offers. It was great for buying weed off agora but when I buy an XBox 360 I don't really give a shit who knows or if a banks in the middle of that transaction and for many people they already have a credit card, it gives them rewards, its easy and convenient to use, it may even give them a free warranty on the xbox so why would I use crypto which is more difficult to use, isn't my normal behavior, does't have rewards, doesn't have chargeback protection. There's just very little reason for your average person to start using crypto. Maybe if you're from Venezuela or operating in a black market space but outside of that crypto just isn't needed by most people. Ive heard for a new technology to take off it has to be 10x as good as the previous. Crypto is amazing but your average credit card user isn't gonna switch over.

I also think the timing of the run to 20k was terrible, not that anyone had any control over that. The vast majority of people who got into crypto got in towards the end of 2017. So say 100 miillion people are involved in crypto. Maybe what 20 million of them are early adopters and got in cheap and 80 million of them got in at the peak. That 80% of crypto users has a bad taste in their mouth from crypto, they lost money, heck maybe they even got involved in some ponzi scheme shit like bitconnect or lazer and they further associate crypto with bullshit.

Even people who didn't get involved in crypto saw from the sidelines and news media what happenned. In order for crypto prices to go up we need greater fools to buy it and I don't think we have any fools left.

I think getting more business owners to get engage with other people here in steemit or in cryptospace could really give boost to all of us specially for the community in general.

You got a 92.44% upvote from @upmewhale courtesy of @yallapapi!

Earn 100% earning payout by delegating SP to @upmewhale. Visit http://www.upmewhale.com for details!

Business is business

Posted using Partiko Android

With all that Steem has to offer already, we have to remember that it is still in its infancy. Iyt is up to us to nurture it so that it grows in a productive and useful manner and does not just become a way for a handful to become rich and for the masses sit crying out to be heard.
Your article was long but worth the read. I am bookmarking it to come back to it later when I am not as tired.

haha, wow dude, that was a hell of a post, obviously i can't read it all ... yeah, ya know all da eggs in a basket ....

nassim taleb and venkatesh rao were my 2 big finds in 2018, so yes, it is all about SKIN IN THE GAME ... that alone would clear up all the shit in our financial military techno complex system, but alas powers that be won't give up their bullshit

anyways, good luck, etc

oh yeah, the other thing is, yeah blogging and taking pictures of butterflies is a cute way for getting people involved... but the only way things are going to role entrepreneur wise around here is some killer apps, storefronts, or other awesome innovation... crypto social networking is still plausible, but a bunch of sites/spaces could do it well, who know who will win

Now THAT'S a post!

I can't help but have my mind linger on that beginning part though.

Market's crashing, banks wanna' buy billions of dollars worth of bitcoin? HMMMM. I DUN LIKE IT! Not one BIT! No body sell to any banks, or i'll annoy the heck out of you!

Besides THAT off-point, I've been thinking on this kind of stuff a lot as a newbie, as it seems many of the people who have invested a couple years into this platform are really bringing it up more often.

The question that I and a lot of other people I see are wondering is, what does steem want to promote? And you are right that Buzzfeed posting those kinds of "Wanna eat chips upsidedown while parachuting" blogs seems mindless and empty, but it's a LOT better than someone just posting a single picture they took off the internet, a single run-of-the-mill sentence they thought of on the fly, and then waiting to get dollars paid out to them and then complaining when it doesn't happen. And I've only been here for maybe a week.

I've had to learn that just because someone has a "60" next to their name, it doesn't mean their post is going to be valuable. I've had situations where I went to read something and found out it was just an excerpt from someone outside of steemit, a little credit to their name on the bottom, and a picture of a pretty lady. This person had a high 60 rep, and the rest of their posts on their blog were literally just random pictures and one-sentence comments underneath them.

That seems like a rather self-defeating point of the system, doesn't it? If ANYTHING can be upvoted and a rep can reach especially high numbers just because you can supposidly buy them, then what does that number represent? I guess it taught me the lesson of not necessarily having too much faith in the surface, and doing some background checks on the author before I upvote something that they didn't even make. (Though they had the cleverness to make sure it didn't qualify as plagiarism, I have to give them credit for that) For all I know, the only reason some people have that number there is because they delegated their votes to a bot and then had those bots upvote them so that the number went up. That doesn't seem entirely fair, though I can't say it's not rational.

But it seems that the current system might be fixed to promoting either REAL content people would pay money for, or an actual product, as you said. And yes, good content can also count as product. There is no real product or incentive for someone to come here and post meaningful things when they can in all reason just belt out easy, meaningless stuff and get a better payout and votes for it. 30 minutes to write out a meaningful post versus 30 seconds, same payout. You would need to be IRRATIONAL to choose the first -- I guess I am irrational in that my ideal for content might be totally mundane, simple-minded and whatever-else-have you, but I'd like to see a good amount of thought and time put into it, no matter what it ends up saying in the end.

Now, in the end of the day, I do have a lot of trust and faith that this platform will seriously become something, whether there is more chances to get business owners here through advertising mechanisms, or if they start reviewing the system to create incentive for that they DO want in the next coming months. The pressure and the demand will be what changes the situation. When it comes to people and societies, if there has been one thing I've learned in my measily low-amount of years alive, it's that people like to wait until they have no choice but to change things, and then things magically start getting better.

Still a raging optimist though! A tiny-fish optimist, but hey, we all gotta' start somewhere, right?

Sorry if whatever I said is nothing new, but at least to me this is a valuable discussion, and I thought I might throw 2 cents into it, even if it's a small, whimpy 2 cents.

nice article indeed
i quoted this
I'd be happy to help with something like this, but I won't hold my breath. For one thing, you guys probably think you'd never hear the end of it.

You nailed it! what does every entrepreneur want? A problem to be solved that. As far as steemit I agree, I’m down about 6k here not a life changing deal but I could power up and invest more to help people that are less fortunate and UV them on good content. Our business isn’t going very well at the moment BUT compared to most people in other countries we are living the dream. I have been here for a little bit but mostly troll post but this one has me thinking. Kiddos to you, you have a lot of talent writing!

Very informative man. Thank you 😊

Posted using Partiko Android

I appreciate your hard work for this posting.

Yeah, we suck.

No but seriously, I think everything has improved quite a bit. I don't think the content on Steemit is crap per say, I just think that most people are not emotionally engaged enough to care about the content. An article written by Buzzfeed or whoever will easily get lost among all the other content here because a lot of people don't actually care about spending time to enjoy content, but just want to post their own shit and get upvotes. I'd say the problem is that people are talking at each other as opposed to with each other. That is actually improving though. There have been a lot of improvements with engagement on this blockchain whether you like it or not and I see things getting better in the future.

I don't think the content on Steemit is crap per say, I just think that most people are not emotionally engaged enough to care about the content.

Here's the problem: People on Steemit write for other people on Steemit BECAUSE ONLY other Steemit users can directly reward them.

On literally every single other website, people don't get paid by other users from a bottomless money purse, so they have to think a few steps ahead if they want to make money.

The reason content here is shit and not interesting to the internet at large is because of this reason. My idea was to attract people who have the 2nd mindset to simply post their content here. Content that is shareable, viral, and most importantly marketable.

I guess so. I suppose since people are being rewarded with Steem here, they aren't thinking about expanding outwards. I am guilty of this too because I barely promote my own posts outside of Steemit, even though I think my content is really good.

It's actually a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. You are just thinking about this small community and neglecting all the connections you could make outside of this place that will be far more valuable then someones $10 upvote.

I'm gonna need to keep this in mind and make a conscious effort to actually share my blogs/videos much more to the outside world.

Thanks

@yallapapi Was this written with a micro-dose, or nah? Either way, slightly harsh yet entertaining..... we need a dtube rant from you (w/ micro-dose in effect).... even if it's short and unedited.

I've been microdosing every day now for about a month and a half. So yes.

Shit is amazing and I'm actually running low. Thanks for reminding me.

Keep it up @yallapapi , someone needs to flog all us steemit wimps into doing something great!

I have been a web publisher /webmaster for 20 years now .. and I agree with you 100%.

when i first seen this site , i thought .. its straight out of the 90's , wow this is like my first site.

but i am hoping the people running the show , understand the big picture here , understand this could be the world wide web of tomorrow if they do this right .. so far .. its not the right direction that's for sure.

BTW , i love your ideas

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Enjoyed your post. Not sure if your right about everything, but you're probably close. Well done, produced a lot of lol's as I read it.

Congratulations @yallapapi!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following categories:

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Hi @yallapapi I love the idea of promoting on facebook the publications that companies are created ...

The only bad thing is that Facebook is not allowing to advertise about Steemit.

They have not rejected 3 publications because they are related to the world of cryptocurrencies. We are seeing how to resolve that point. But so far we have not been able to sponsor any posts in the @rutablockchain instagram

If there is any way to solve that, we are willing to take the first steps with that idea

Now this is what I’d call a RANT!!

Posted using Partiko iOS

Still enjoying that $6 shwarma ?