After being on Steemit for a few weeks now, I’ve definitely learned a lot about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that I didn’t know before. Before coming here, my knowledge about cryptocurrencies basically amounted to “Bitcoin seems to be a thing, eh?”. So it’s definitely been a journey. I still don’t have my mind wrapped around everything, as there is so much to learn, but the idea is basically the same as any currency: Whatever we believe has value... has value.
“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a small man can cast a very large shadow.” - Varys, Game of Thrones.
What drew me to the Steemit/DTube platform initially was the decentralization. The (relative, at least) lack of control from some top-down business or authority structure. I suppose witnesses are the closest thing to a position of authority (and I must admit, I’m still not entirely clear on what it is that witnesses do), but even those are voted on. The system of votes (as opposed to “likes”) makes this all much more similar to a democratic society than it is a typical social media “product” from a business like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. I had seen links to Steemit articles from Twitter and at first assumed it was just another website for posting articles and having discussions, like Medium. It wasn’t until TJ Kirk started posting on DTube and made a video informing his viewers that DTube may be a new big competitor for YouTube. This is when I found that Steemit was actually based on a cryptocurrency/blockchain platform and that you could make money just posting and interacting like you usually do on social media... except no ads. And no barriers other than merit. Wow! It almost sounds too good to be true!
And to be honest, it isn’t without its downsides.
Let’s Get The Bad Out of the Way!
One of the first downsides that I had heard Steemit get criticized for when I first started looking into it was that the interaction here didn’t necessarily feel genuine. It feels more like people are “transacting” than interacting. I can see what this critic meant. There’s a certain degree of pressure to be extra friendly and appear accomodating to others that you might typically expect to see from a used car salesman. It’s not overly apparent, but it’s there. You add the profit motive to anything, and it will tend to take at least some of the genuine passion for the activity itself out of the equation. We may be here to share and learn and interact, but we’re also all here to make money. There’s no real getting around that.
However, the silver lining (beyond the money itself) is that this may be exactly what social media needs to mature. Part of the problem with Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/etc is that there’s an inherent lack of responsibility for one’s demeanour. I was actually just discussing the ugliness that social media can bring out in people with some friends the other day. A person can be a totally respectable, polite person in real life, but get them on social media and they can turn into trollish draconic keyboard warriors who will cut you down for your opinion as fast as they will for a damn typo! I know... I’ve been one of those people before.
But on Steemit... the community is set up in a way that I feel a much more significant responsibility to be decent on here. I’ve found myself second-guessing my urge to make emotional responses to political articles... something I would often do without hesitation on YouTube, because YouTube feels more detached. I mean, were I to ever totally stick my foot in my mouth and feel regret over posting an opinion or two... I could just delete those comments, or even resort to deleting my whole account if I wanted to. It’s not that easy on a blockchain. So I have to think more about how I’m interacting with people on here. The record will always be there as long as the blockchain exists, and I am incentivized to contribute valuable material by having a tangible reward, instead of the superficial ego-boost of just getting “likes”.
Humble Beginnings
Another downside that I have noticed myself is one that will hopefully resolve itself over time: The community is still in its infancy, and there’s not a whole lot of variety of content on here yet. I can go to YouTube and find so many different videos to entertain or inform myself. On Steemit/DTube... it’s mostly articles and videos about the community, platform or cryptocurrency itself. I mean... here I am doing exactly that.
My personal goal on the platform is to create content that is more entertainment based. I’m a filmmaker at heart, and would love to one day be able to produce short films or maybe even feature films, be able to finance them and distribute them totally independently of any estbalished studio system or film fund. DTube is a possible avenue through which to do that. Hopefully as I grow my account on here, I’ll be able to dedicate more time to the content I produce... as currently, making a living (as well as getting enough sleep) tends to monopolize my time. And I still don’t feel like I’m achieving the goals I really want to. Such is life.
Using Steemit/DTube to Make a Living
I would love to be able to make a living doing this. Of course, there’s no telling what the future holds... whether this whole cryptocurrency thing really is just a bubble... or even if it isn’t, whether Steem will have the staying power that we all want it to have. The uncertainty is definitely a concern for those like me who want to find a way to establish a stable career. As such, I’m currently in a kind of “wait and see” period. I want to put my foot in the door for now, build my account and see how far it takes me towards that goal of having enough influence to distribute content to a profitable enough degree. I’m hopeful.
However, the concern about having a goal of making a living off this platform, is the whole conundrum of whether it’s respectable or not to be withdrawing money from our accounts, since this takes value out of the platform. It’s helps Steem a lot more if we keep our value here. My plan for my personal solution to this would be to do my best to maintain a balance of accumulating value while withdrawing only what I need, which I’m sure is most people’s solution. There are those “Steem maximalists” who push for maximum accumulation, but I have to wonder... when does that end? And if the only goal is to accumulate value, then at what point does that value actually get USED as being valueable outside of just being valueable within Steemit?
I don’t know the answer. Hopefully, I will.
Flash In The Pan?
This brings me to what is perhaps the biggest barrier that I see, personally, towards establishing a career on DTube: the 7-day limit for monetizing a piece of content.
I completely understand the reason for having this. The goal is not for people to just be able to make one big piece of great content that they can live off for the rest of their lives... the goal is to facilitate and incentivize a social media platform with ongoing activity and interaction. As such, the 7-day limit incentivizes us to keep making content instead of resting on our laurels when we make one piece of successful content. Makes sense.
BUT... it does create quite the barrier for those who may want to create more complicated pieces of content than just articles or talking-to-camera videos. If I want to produce and distribute short films on here, for instance... films take a LOT of time and work to produce. It wouldn’t be worth it for just one week of viable monetization. I know there are other ways to monetize content, ie. sponsorships, merchandising, secondary rewards like comments on the post, etc... But sponsorships are hard to come by, especially if you’re not established yet. Merchandising may bring more profits, but also requires more work and organization, therefore further complicating things when the problem, as mentioned, is that producing more complicated content is... well, more complicated. To put it simply: It would be nice if we could UNcomplicate things as much as possible.
I’m not suggesting eternal monetization of posts... but MAYBE a longer period at least? Or have the reward values diminish over time, like dropping 50% every week, eventually ending up at barely any value. I’m sure there’s some kind of better balance to be struck, because with the current limit, it does tend to increase that feeling of content only having “flash in the pan” value. And in this day and age of 24-hour news cycles and short-attention spans, I really don’t think we need to be making content feel (or in effect, be) more fleetingly relevant than it already does. It works fine right now, when (as pointed out already) most of the content on here is relatively simple and single-purpose. But if we want the platform to grow and attract content creators who produce more complicated content, there’s gotta be more of a long-term incentive for putting that content on here. Nobody wants to spend a month producing a video, just to get only 7 days of monetization and then that’s it for the bulk of it’s profitability. It’s just too big a barrier.
To The Future
Even if I never achieve my filmmaking dreams or even if Steemit/DTube never truly take off (or worse, fizzles out entirely)... I’m still going to enjoy the platform as I would any other social media hub. I do believe it will likely grow, but if it doesn’t... that’s cool too. It’s been fun exploring and has definitely helped me learn more about the technology involved, which I may not have otherwise done. So cheers to everybody who helped make this possible!
Hopefully this has been interesting! I’ve read a lot of articles about the platform from people with far more knowledge and experience than I, I thought it would be interesting to give a newbie’s perspective and share some of my thoughts and concerns. Please respond with feedback! I’d love to know what everybody thinks about the concerns I’ve raised and whether you all think it’s worth it to pursue a filmmaking career on here.
THANKS!