I have been using Facebook for nearly 5 years, and I can say that it is a good place to interact with new people and make some new friends. I know Steemit can not be bigger than Facebook in next 1 or 2 years, but it can surely be better than Facebook in next 5-10 years. Steemit has an excellent concept of rewarding its authors, unlike Facebook.
We all want Steemit to have as many members as Facebook which will signify that we are growing very big. But do we want Steemit to be like Facebook? We will say No. Tt shouldn't be like Facebook even if the concept of reward remains the same.
I joined Steemit only a month ago but I am a facebook year for almost 5 years, and I am still a user of Facebook. It was good to be on a platform with so many features and users. Many peoples earn from Facebook with affiliate and others services, but I was not of that kind. I was spending way too much time doing nothing on Facebook, and I can bet I am not the only one doing that.
After joining Steemit, I hardly spend more than 30 minutes on Facebook. I stay online in Steemit for 2 hours to 3 hours daily because spending time doing something is far better than spending scrolling newsfeed on Facebook. I will not say that Facebook is just a time wasting platform it depends on the user how they want to utilize the platform.
After using both the platform, I've found that there is a difference between the way we interact in Facebook and Steemit. In Facebook, we directly chat with a person or comment in their post, but we don't do the same in the case of steemit. Although we have steem.chat to interact with each other. If you have ever used steem.chat you may know finding a steemian there by his name is very difficult. So most of the time we indirectly interact with a Steemian in the comments of his post which again increase the value of that post and improve our community standard.
We know Steemit is in beta stage, and it still has room to evolve, but we definitely don't want it to be like Facebook. So let's discuss why it should be the next Facebook.
Lack of Quality:
Facebook has millions of members that's why uncountable posts are there. But does every post bears quality? You will say no. Nowadays if you open your news feed you will see a uncountable shitty post, and we definitely don't want to see that in Steemit.
I can disagree that steemit don't have such users and their invaluable post but that is in limit now and we can directly ignore such post and moreover we can flag that post.
But if it becomes like Facebook then we will surely fail to maintain the quality of steemit. Another interesting fact of Facebook that if you want to post a good well-researched post you have to think twice because only a handful people will read it and in return, you will get nothing. Your hours of hard-work will be ignored. But steemit is not like that people will read your post here no matter how long it is and if you provide quality article you will be rewarded.
Spam, Spam, and Spam:
One signature feature of a Facebook user is spamming. I am not saying every user of Facebook is a spammer but there are too many spammers available on Facebook. I think most or every steemian use Facebook and you will know nowadays how many spammers are there on Facebook. Just think for a second what will happen if that amount of spammers come to steemit. I know steemcleaners are there to remove spammers. But will it be possible to handle that many spammers? No, it will not.
If steemit becomes like Facebook many spammers will come to spam our posts, there will uncountable plagiarized and unnecessary contents which will directly affect the one who provides quality content. In a minute more than 100 posts are published in steemit. And if 90 of them turned out to be spam do you think the another 10 will not be ignored?
Social Interaction:
Facebook is a great place to interact with new people and your friends and family but this feature has some disadvantage also. Some unknown people can direct message you and waste your time. In case of girls, they even can't be online for a minute in that one minute there will be 100s of unwanted message will be there for her which she may not like. But these spammers never give up they always do the same.
So if Steemit becomes like Facebook and it enables chat feature I bet you will hardly use that feature. Some people will message you to upvote their post, many single boys will harass girls in chat and many other unwanted things will happen. If you don't believe just open steem.chat and just see the post promotion channel and wallets of some whales. Some steemit member sends little amount of steem or sbd to upvote their post (I am not talking about rando whale or bots like that). Then just think what will they do if they can message you for free.
Unwanted Navigations:
Now the layer steemit is very clean. But if steemit becomes similar to Facebook there will be many navigations too. We already have less good members because steemit pays in the form of crypto currency and if more navigation comes it will make the case much worse.
Final Words:
My intention was not to say that Facebook is unnecessary. Steemit and Facebook both can survive side by side but steemit should be the way it is. We need members but not by compromising its quality. This community is doing very good and it's just the beginning. We can expect many things after steemit's beta stage but we surely don't need another Facebook. If steemit remains like this and increase its quality I hope one-day people will leave Facebook and join steemit. Finally, I want to tell one thing that It is far better to provide a good article to this platform instead of wasting time scrolling news feed on Facebook.