Remember #HF20 ?
Surely, anyone who was here when the hard fork dropped remembers that week when no one could post and the long wait to power up the new "resource credits."
A few patches later, it seemed the Steem ecosystem had found equilibrium. Spam was markedly reduced, yet a plankton account like my main @wholeself-in with 100-200 SP could resume normal activity without much thought to resource credit austerity.
Problem solved, as far as I was concerned.
Or, maybe not.
I am not yet in the Steemit middle class, though I am working towards it through an initiative called @themesopotamians. My main account was, until yesterday, at least half built through interactions on Steem. So, while I am able to invest some of my own income from other sources, I appreciate the importance of being able to build from scratch.
This account, @steemitblackbelt, was created with a $10 starter pack purchase from @steemmonsters. Their 10% Steem Power promotion gave me $1 worth of SP, currently 2.7 SP. I resisted the urge to make it easy by powering up Steem from my other account. My first post set me back almost 50% Resource Credits. The next day, two (2)! comments and a few upvotes brought me down to the 10% depicted above.
I am not averse to investing my own money, but I'd like to know what building from scratch is like today. I transferred 5 STEEM to this account, just in case I need to power up more just to post.
If you have plans to attract and build up new members of the Steem community, take steps to ensure they can build or invest enough SP!
UPDATE: With my RC's recharged to 18.77% it's not enough for this post. Gonna power up that 5 STEEM.
PS: Don't know if Steemit or Steem Peak is responsible for that error message, but "a few moments" is a bit disingenuous!