Sometimes setting an unrealistic goal can be like the carrot on the stick in front of the donkey. They may not ever reach it but, it keeps them going.
I personally would like to see steemit/steem have a 100% user retention goal. This is totally unrealistic as I do not believe there is any place that has 100% retention. Yet, it states we can continue to strive to keep people that come here interested in staying here.
There are a couple of aspects to that which I thought made it worth writing this post.
I'll hear people say "If you don't like it leave". I'll see people that are happy when a prominent person in a certain ideology is targeted and taken down. They will say "Good and take all those people that think like you with you.".
These are both bad things. There are a couple (yes, it is a small number) of people on steemit that I don't like. I don't go out of my way to decide I dislike someone. I actually do not like disliking people. Yet, I do not want them to leave the platform.
I do not want anyone to leave the platform. Eventually they will hopefully have communities, or tag based subscriptions, or something of that nature and it will be easier for each ideological, philosophical, religious, political, and irrational view point to have their own community they can hang out in. I think of it kind of like subscribing to sub-reddits.
Right now we do not yet have this. This means that you have all of these people that are used to operating in a walled garden that must instead attempt to coexist. Well some ideologies are diametrically opposed. This can make them very difficult to coexist. It is possible, but it requires using critical thinking to reign in our own personal biases. It is not easy. Yet it can be done. We will fail from time to time, but with our failures we hopefully learn and do better next time.
My key take away here is that you should want even the people you HATE to remain on steemit. The more people here, the closer to representing the actual world community we will be. This also translates to more potential to increase the value of steem. This benefits anyone who has steem power. This is the idea.
There are some historical parallels happening on steemit and from a purely social experiment it is quite interesting. However, if you are in the middle of it and you truly want the experiment to succeed rather than simply be a footnote on failure in the future history books, then it does require change and effort in each of us.
When a person achieves power it can be difficult to not use that power to force your will and desires upon others. This is another way of saying power corrupts. It does not have to. What really happens (my opinion) is that when power is sufficient that no one can challenge you then you really no longer have to consider opinions you disagree with. In fact you can squash dissenting opinions. At one point when you didn't have enough power you might look up and see people with more power you disagreed with say things you disagreed with and you'd keep trudging along. Then one day you get enough power to where you can silence such opinions, or at least push them into the dust where you believe they should be.
This is a historical cycle.
Steemit does not have to devolve to fiefdoms, and tyranny unless that is where you choose to take it. Sure having an echo chamber where you have wiped away the colors you don't like, and made the music and ambient sounds be the only ones you like, and have your harems, and hashish might seem appealing. If you have assumed we ever stop learning. If you believe there is a level cap to life.
Yet, you really are missing an opportunity at potential greatness by choosing to follow such simplistic modes of thinking. It is like K-12 school in the U.S. being levels. So after graduation you might be 12th level. Then you go on to college maybe and you get 2 - 8 more levels depending upon the college. Then you stop. "I've learned it, I know things, I am the one people should listen to because I am now an expert".
This is actually a common way many people actually view reality. Perhaps not with my gaming analogy, but the intentions within that analogy hopefully make sense.
Something interesting happens when you stop looking at learning, and self improvement as levels with level caps. You never stop learning. You never think I am the guy everyone should listen to. I am right and everyone else is wrong. There is an endless adventure. Those level caps were actually artificial gateways. "When I graduate from high school I'm going to write a novel." could be similar to "When I am 12th level I'm going to write a novel". My question when I first realized this was "Why wait?"
I realize that I went off on a tangent and discussed two different things. I apologize for that and it may be hard to follow. My main reason for this as follows:
User retention of all types of people should be our goal.
Trying to make the entire project over into your own ideal kingdom is a simplistic and restricting view.
Never stop learning.
EDIT: Correct me if I am wrong... but, doesn't 100% User retention as a goal sound like something a responsible stake holder would advocate for?
Steem On!
