[GERMAN VERSION BELOW]
Game over? That's out of the question. At least not in my case. Over a year ago I created my first account on this platform and probably made every mistake you can make.
This weekend I have some hours of time, so I would like to take a look at my time with Steem/Steemit besides the new Big Data update.
A little world is opening up to me
Maybe it's been a bit like some of you. I dealt with crypto currencies and had the opportunity at the beginning of 2017 to achieve very good returns with a little start-up capital. Besides the Bitcoin and the old-established Altcoins, other participants of the market also attracted attention. I began to expand my portfolio and bought a variety of currencies by the hand.
This is how I gained my first blockchain experience, which went beyond the mere transfer of money. In the middle of these different coins & tokens was also Steem, after I had talked about Steemit and Co. Informed.
I probably thought pretty much:
"You like to write, upload your writing and earn some money to buy other crypto currencies."
That's how I did it in the beginning, until I decided to concentrate my portfolio and throw out the majority of units. In the meantime I got a little warm with the Steem blockchain and understood more and more the concept. So a small world revealed itself to me, which in the end was much bigger than expected. It took some time for me to see the angles of the system and I began to develop more and more interest in the topic of blockchain & cryptocurrency. It turned out that Steemit is an excellent place for this concern.
Overwhelmed by the idea & the ecosystem
What really impressed me was the idea that rewards for "one's own voice" are handled decentrally, without (at least not necessarily) collecting from a central authority. A self-regulating ecosystem, regulated by its users, which opposes its own intellectual property with a direct, democratically assigned reward. While I was exploring the Steem blockchain, linear rewards were finally introduced, which, although I am now critical, sweetened my start on Steemit.
I finally started blogging more regularly and discovered projects like Utopian.io, DTube, Zappl, etc.. Only now did I realize the significance of the Steem ecosystem. Not only blogging, really any content could be rewarded in this way. It is even possible to finance open-source programming. From that moment on, I was blown away and finally, I would say, I was no longer interested in making simple money by writing. Here you can read an article on decentralized reward systems.
I wanted to be part of this emergence, at least as far as my time allows, which in my eyes is wrapped in a revolutionary veil. So my focus finally shifted to writing crypto-specific blog posts and I created a new account with @b-s to be able to offer targeted, qualitative posts here.
In everyone is the villain?
Now I have to go back to the beginnings and admit to myself some mistakes, which in retrospect did not have to be.
- Qualitatively inferior contributions
At least measured against my current requirements, I hardly neglected these at the beginning. In the meantime, it is better to make fewer contributions than to make the right ones.
- Handling of keys - access data
This is probably the most important point, at least from the point of view of reason. Since I wasn't aware at the beginning that I would spend some time on this platform, I was very negligent with my keys. In the end this resulted in the loss of the owner keys of my first account. It is important: In the future I will certainly not make such a mistake again and you should also protect yourself against it. @theaustrianguy offers good information about keys inone of his tutorials.
- Mixed contents
At the beginning I posted all kinds of content on a blog. Perhaps some may find it different, but I find it more than disturbing when the information areas are extremely different. Maybe my focus is just too much on content, not on people, which is why poetry and other things appear on @x888, my private account.
The subject of poetry is such a thing.... The response, despite my extensive doctorate, is very meagre, which is why I am not sure to what extent I will continue to publish my stories. But that brings us to the next point.
- Promotion Bots
I have used voting bots almost since the beginning to increase the visibility of my contributions and to be able to address them specifically to the German community. Lastly, I transferred a little Steem to @x888 by promoting my stories. After much consideration, I have now decided not to use voting bots anymore, with a few exceptions. I believe that the whole bot issue is more likely to harm than benefit the Steem ecosystem. For this reason and because my last goal of finding readers for my stories was not achieved, I will not use these bots in the future.
Certainly one could add something here, but there are still important things to write about.
My problem with the crypto-hype
If you know me or follow my contributions, you know what an enthusiast I can be when it comes to crypto currency. But it is also an exciting water, in which we dive here. Now there were the moments when an optimist, certainly dreamy, faced a merciless realist. And the situation is more than exciting. Despite all the arguments in favour of the emerging market, the reality is sobering.
Existing platforms, such as Ethereum, have oversized market caps. However, the platform is not actively used by 20,000 people. Programmers are confronted with a complicated, error-prone programming environment and "simple" users must find themselves in a "complex" operation. Intuitive understanding of the individual systems is certainly different for the average user.
Even in pure investment or as a means of payment, crypto currencies obviously have problems competing with existing systems. The normal user is exposed to the risk of high price volatility and must make additional efforts to secure himself in this respect.
The question of true values
If you imagine what true values are in this crypto market, then I find an answer in particular. True values are scarce. In the midst of a bubble of euphoria, daydream, vision, greed & promise, one thing above all is missing: tangible values.
Don't misunderstand me. I myself am carried away by the ideas and concepts that are shot into the world every day in visionary veils. However, the real implementation often racks. And one thing is particularly apparent in this day and age: no matter which platform has nothing to offer users, it is unlikely to succeed. What would Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or all other platforms be without their user community? Right, absolutely worthless.
Steem - Maybe an exception?
Looking at the current situation, I arrive at the following view: Steem has a real benefit that hundreds of thousands of users are already exploiting for themselves. On the Steem blockchain you can blog, stream, develop, discuss and much more. An up-and-coming number of (open source) projects attract users and provide them with their services on a daily basis.
Feel free to tell me about your experiences, but ask yourself the following question:
With how many blockchain projects have you had as many interactions as with the Steem blockchain?
What project did you spend most of your time on, not while you were learning or telling others about it, but actually using it? In my case, this is quite clear: Steem.
And I hope that we will be part of the beginning of a glorious future for this platform after the million-user mark has been broken.
A fact on the side: While it was foreseeable that the decline of the crypto market also affected the Steem rate and I dissolved almost my entire portfolio, the Steem stocks were not touched with a finger. This is certainly stupid from an investment point of view, but I simply wouldn't want to miss the interaction with the platform.
I think this supports my view once again that Steem is the underdog among the crypto currencies.
In general, the data show a significant increase in both total users and active users. Steem as a social media platform is constantly growing and this fact also gives me a positive outlook for the future of the platform.
Interested can take a look at an UPDATE OF CURRENT BIG DATA here
Criticism of Steem
Despite all the praise and confidence in Steemit's success, there is still some criticism that I would like to make briefly.
Power accumulation
In my view, the structures in power on the Steem Blockchain are a reflection of capitalism as we experience it in our world. Few mega-whales aggregate more power than a sum of 100,000 individual users combined. This is dangerous, particularly as regards censorship and the democratic distribution of rewards, which brings us to the next point.
Fake democracy
The concept sells itself to the outside world as a "democratic reward for content producers". In reality, however, this is not the case. In view of the above-mentioned accumulation of power, circle voting (also with regard to Witness votes) or even censorship, one cannot really speak of a democratic system, let alone a democratic distribution of the rewards. Stake-based voting in combination with linear rewards have invalidated the individual and favored tighter power relations.
State of development
The concept of the Smart-Media-Tokens has been on everyone's lips for over a year now. The foundation for implementation may have been laid with HF20, but the concept is not much more than just a concept. We will see whether a system that supports account-based voting can be introduced without the system being cheated, for example by the creation of multiple accounts. Whether the envisaged solution will work with oracles also depends on future developments.
What bothers me is that the stage of development in dialogue (e.g. on the part of @steemitblog) is sometimes presented as if the attractive solution concepts were already rthe eality. All in all, it is not clear whether the envisaged solutions really solve current problems, or perhaps only postpone and to what extent these solutions improve the experience with Steem.
Reward Distribution
The idea behind Steem was (as far as I know) to reward content for its quality. Regarding the trending category, the order would be as follows:
At the top is the best contribution, with the best quality and therefore the most payout. Finally, the second best contribution etc.... The whole thing is measured by the quality of the content. Reality, however, paints a completely different picture. The trending and hot categories are mostly shared by the largest stake-holders and the most committed promotion users in the respective divisions.
Especially for new users this leads to an unpleasant experience on the Steem platform, as they are mostly, apart from welcome messages, left out in the rain and have no possibility to be seen. All well-intentioned support initiatives aimed specifically at new users then represent just one drop in the ocean. It would be desirable to change the entire system so that new users have a positive experience interacting with the Steem blockchain.
On-Boarding new user
Steem Inc has also announced improvements in this respect, but I will list it again. For many people I wanted to get excited about the platform, it was simply unthinking to have to wait up to 2 weeks before they could use their account. After these two weeks most of them had already completely lost interest in the matter and did not visit the platform any more. In order to be able to represent a scalable model in the future, this on-boarding process must be immensely improved.
So this was a superficial crack in my criticisms of Steemit. Of course, one could go into detail here and write an intensive post on the points of criticism alone, but for the purpose of this small summary, I will confine myself to the short remarks.
What's next?
The title was, of course, misleading. If you take a closer look at the Steem ecosystem, you will quickly recognize that nothing is over here. I am still happy to have discovered this platform before it will soon inspire millions of users.
At times I will try again to write more and hope that despite falling course, some readers will stay with me here. Those who have followed the last months realize that there are always holes in my posting history, simply because my time does not allow it. If I then write something, it should be a reasonable article and so it comes to breaks. Be that as it may. I am happy about everyone who has paid attention to my blog on this revolutionary social media platform and hope that this is just the beginning.
We'll see about that. For my part, I'll be here a while longer and will probably check it out once a day, at least for reading.
Finally, I would like to say a small thank you.
A little thank you
Since I was also helped at the beginning with starting help, I would like to give something back.
800 Steem-Power delegation. Quite right, the detail is a delegation of a total of 800 SP over four weeks. The total amount will be divided into four equal delegation packages, which will be raffled.
4x 200 SteemPower delegations for four weeks
To receive a delegation, all you have to do is post these articles Upvoten & Resteemen and a link to your best blog post on Steemit in the comments.
Winners are selected manually and will not be decided by chance. We are looking for dedicated Steemians who might need a little help to get started.
Prerequisites for participation
- Upvote & Resteem this post
- Total SteemPower (own + delegations) smaller than 150 (individual decisions in case of minimum deviation)
- Reputation below 45
- At least three blog posts of your own
- Regular activity (subjective assessment - no basis for assessment)
- Comment with a link to your best blog post.
Winners will be announced separately. The closing date for entries is the date of payment of this entry - alternatively as soon as four "suitable winners" have been found. The delegation period begins with or shortly after payment of this contribution and is at least four weeks.
Only participants are considered who write most of their blog posts in German, or at least offer a German version, because this small action is especially addressed to the German community.
Then I am curious what the participation will look like and which blog posts will reach me. I am looking forward to your opinions & comments in the comment column.
Spiel vorbei? Davon kann nicht die Rede sein. Zumindest nicht in meinem Fall. Vor über einem Jahr habe ich meinen ersten Account auf dieser Plattform erstellt und wahrscheinlich so jeden Fehler gemacht, den man machen kann.
Dieses Wochenende habe ich einige Stunden an Zeit, sodass ich mich neben dem neuen Big-Data-Update einmal an ein Resümee über meine Zeit mit Steem/Steemit machen möchte.
Eine kleine Welt erschließt sich mir
Vielleicht ist es einigen von euch ähnlich gegangen. Ich habe mich mit Kryptowährungen beschäftigt und hatte Anfang 2017 die Gelegenheit erwischt, mit ein wenig Startkapital sehr gute Renditen zu erzielen. Neben dem Bitcoin und den alteingesessenen Altcoins erweckten nun auch andere Teilnehmer des Marktes Aufmerksamkeit. Ich begann mein Portfolio zu erweitern und kaufte händeweise die verschiedensten Währungen ein.
So sammelte ich meine ersten Blockchain-Erfahrungen, die über das reine Transferieren von Geld hinausging. In Mitten dieser verschiedenen Coins & Tokens befand sich auch Steem, nachdem ich mich über Steemit und Co. Informiert hatte.
Ich dachte wahrscheinlich so ziemlich genau:
"Du schreibst gerne, lädst dein Geschreibsel hoch und verdienst etwas Geld, mit dem du dann andere Kryptowährungen kaufen kannst."
So habe ich dies zu Beginn auch gehandhabt, bis ich mich dazu entschied, mein Portfolio zu konzentrieren und die Mehrzahl aller Einheiten rauszuwerfen. In der Zwischenzeit bin ich mit der Steem-Blockchain ein wenig warm geworden und verstand mehr und mehr das Konzept. So offenbarte sich mir eine kleine Welt, die letztendlich viel größer war, als erwartet. Es dauerte seine Zeit, bis die Winkel des Systems einigermaßen erblickt waren und ich begann mehr und mehr Interesse an dem Thema Blockchain & Kryptowährung zu entwickeln. Es zeigte sich, dass Steemit ein hervorragender Ort für dieses Anliegen ist.
Überwältigt von der Idee & dem Ecosystem
Was mich wirklich begeistert hat, ist der Gedanke, dass Entlohnungen für "die eigene Stimme" dezentral abgewickelt werden, ohne das (zumindest nicht zwingend) eine zentrale Instanz abkassiert. Ein sich selbst, durch seine Nutzerschaft regulierendes, Ecosystem, welches dem eigenen geistigen Eigentum eine direkte, demokratisch zugewiesene, Entlohnung entgegensetzt. Während ich dabei war, die Steem-Blockchain zu erkunden, wurden schließlich lineare Rewards eingeführt, welche, wenngleich ich dem mittlerweile kritisch gegenüber stehe, mir meinen Start auf Steemit versüßt haben.
Ich begann schließlich regelmäßiger zu bloggen und entdeckte Projekte wie Utopian.io, DTube, Zappl, etc. Erst jetzt erschloss sich mir die Tragweite des Steem-Ecosystems. Nicht nur Bloggen, wirklich jedweder Content konnte auf diese Art und Weiße entlohnt werden. Es ist gar möglich Open-Source Programmierung zu finanzieren. Ab Diesem Moment war ich hin und weg und schließlich, so würde ich sagen, ging es mir nicht mehr darum mit dem Schreiben einfaches Geld zu verdienen. Hier kann ein Beitrag zum Thema dezentrale Belohnungssysteme gelesen werden.
Ich wollte, zumindest insofern es meine Zeit zulässt, Teil dieser Entstehung sein, welche in meinen Augen in einen revolutionären Schleier gehüllt ist. So hat sich mein Fokus schließlich auf das Schreiben von Krypto-spezifischen Blogbeiträgen verschoben und ich habe mit @b-s einen neuen Account erstellt, um hier zielgerichtete, qualitative Beiträge anbieten zu kön