Apparently Steemit hit the magical milestone of 1 million users (maybe @crypto-econom1st is interested in fact-checking this), and this is quite an achievement considering the amount of time it has been in existence and the nature of what it is:
https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/1-000-000-steem-accounts
If you have ever wondered what you would say to a million people, you probably have not heard of or won the Listserve lottery before. This is a brief video that is on their website (http://thelistserve.com/):
I first joined The Listserve on the 1st of May 2012 (so just over six years ago), at a time when I was still quite unsure of my place in the world but already at a crossroad where I had to make some important decisions.
Since then I have welcomed strangers into my inbox everyday into my life, in the same way that I have opened my arms to the wonderful people of the Steemit community to share their thoughts, fears, achievements and hope for a better place for everyone to belong to. It gave me some comfort and solace in the fact that many people out there faced the same type of struggle and are still fighting to keep their dreams alive. It made me feel like I was part of something bigger, and that one day I would also get to share my message to the rest of the community.
After a few weeks, I also started writing back, sometimes waiting for days, weeks or months before getting a reply, and sometimes it is just another one way email to someone's inbox without anything coming back.
To be honest I don't think I've ever made friends with any of these strangers online, I've never met any of them in person and I have certainly not even known any of these people in the real world. When I first joined Steemit I had the same thoughts about what this community was about, and because I did not really see all the positive things that social media can offer I was a bit skeptical like many of us. Slowly as I spent more time on Steemit I started replying less to the people on Listserve.
But even then I was feeling a touch of sadness when I saw this morning that this great big social experiment was coming to an end...
The full text is here:
Hi Listserve community,
After five years, we've decided to shut down the Listserve.
This project started at a drastically different point in our lives. We were all graduate students at NYU, enrolled in Clay Shirky's class, "Designing Conversational Spaces." And we wanted our conversational space to encourage quiet, spontaneous, personal connections — on the internet.
We started the project by saying we wouldn't send the first email until 10,000 people signed up for the list. It seemed like an impossible goal. But within a week, we were sending out an email by Emil from Stockholm; he told us our lives probably won't be fantastic. Then it was Adrienne from Brooklyn, telling us about the Diva Cup. And later, Nicole, who invited the list to a picnic at the location (40.667602, -73.970831) — and got dozens of strangers to enjoy a sunny afternoon together.
We've heard about relationships forming via this projects — friends, lovers, travel partners. And we've had some incredible opportunities of our own — being featured in dozens of publications, speaking at TEDx Foggy Bottom, and, of course, overhearing strangers talking about the most recent Listserve email.
We often wondered if the Listserve could be something bigger — if we could find a way to make money, hire staff, that whole thing. But we kept coming back to this idea that it was an important endeavor to maintain this delightful corner of the internet. So even though we're calling it quits, we hope this project has inspired other quiet, spontaneous corners of the internet. (Maybe you could even start a mini-Listserve for you and a few dozen friends!)
Some parting notes:
Clay: Thank you for supporting us.
Fellow Listserve team: You're just the best.
Listserve winners: Thank you for allowing yourselves to be vulnerable. We know it's scary, but we really hope the experience was worth it.
And to the Listserve community: Thank you for sticking with us for so long. A huge portion of the list has been here for many years. And when we would miss a day or a week, so many of you would reach out to ask whether we were okay.
This email feels like saying goodbye to many old, new, and potential friends, which is probably why we put it off for so long. But it is time.
Thank you.
The Listserve
I certainly hope that the words Listserve won't be replaced with Steemit in another 4 years' time. In my short time here I have been able to connect with the people on this platform in a way that Listserve couldn't. But I wonder what the difference would be if I had won the lottery and was able to send my message to those one million readers? Would they have written back to me and might I have been able to meet some of them in person?
I even had a draft letter in my Gmail inbox hoping for the day when this would happen:
So I would urge you to seize the moment and get your message out there to all the people on Steemit because who know what tomorrow brings and where life will take you.
You can die of illness, broken heart, old age or some inexplicable act of god, but please don't die with regret in your heart and a pile of money in your bank account or crypto-wallet!
Are there any Listservians out there in the Steemit community? I'd love to hear from you!