It would seem that clickbait, that ubiquitous marvel of the modern world, has found Steemit! More on that in a moment, first, let me tell you why I care.
I found Steemit directly following its public debut and first payouts. As a professional writer, it seemed like a no-brainer. I spend a lot of time debating on Facebook anyway, why not take a risk on getting paid for some of my stupid opinions? It worked! From the very beginning, I started rising until I was consistently placing in the top 50 authors paid daily!
It was fun. I was writing stuff just because I wanted to, rather than following a client brief to produce one more boring piece of blog content, that paid well, but made me want to claw my eyes out. I felt free for the first time in my writing since I could remember.
Then the debates started happening. People started insisting that the quality of the posts being upvoted was shit. They moved to change it, banded together, all of the rewards began going to conglomerates, that would then parcel out their winnings to expose new writers, or those they felt sorry for. It sucked. The whales stopped voting, because they couldn’t win. If they voted for what was considered crap, people complained, if they voted for stuff they liked, people complained.
Then the downvoting started, with accounts like Yoda getting blasted for taking profits from sharing publicly available data, something that was clearly within the rules. It all turned to muck. So, when I found I could no longer get more than a few bucks from a post, even with a couple of hundred votes, I had to walk away for a while.
I’ve logged back in from time to time, mostly to check on my little nestegg of Steem, and recently, it had grown quite a bit. I’ve been in the process of writing two full length non-fiction books for clients, so I wasn’t looking to write at the moment, just keeping tabs. Finally, it occurred to me I could be making a car payment with the money I could get from powering down, so I initiated the process. To my surprise, instead of the hundred + I’d been expecting, my first powerdown payment was over a thousand dollars. I’d missed something.
Come to find out, the policy has changed and powering down happens in three months now instead of two years. This put a whole new spin on it. With the money I could get fairly quickly, I thought, there’s no need to buy a crappy car on payments, just get something cheap for cash and save your money! So, I started the process again.
It wasn’t until last week I started looking around at the stories being shared, only to find out that payouts were back up to last summer’s levels in many cases. That got me excited, so I added a few pieces. The results were underwhelming to say the least, so I started investigating. Here’s what I see.
Since last summer, fiction has all but died on the platform. Very few authors are producing anything worthwhile, and the payouts are several times lower than in other categories. That’s too bad. The idea of fiction authors getting a chance to develop work without starving is an incredible one! I made most of my living last summer and fall right here, finishing up a novel and some short stories. I had fun, and I could afford to spend the time, because it was being paid for.
Next, I noticed that the crypto-currency “news” component, has gotten even more attention. This could be good, IF someone was actually producing a solid crypto blog, instead of just vomiting back out what they find at Coindesk, in poorly reworded tripe. There’s a dearth of material in this niche and it’s badly needed. New investors are being told daily to find crypto news to base trades on, but it’s almost impossible.
Finally, I found out that a lot of complete garbage is being rewarded over substantive work. Pieces that are totally self-serving, not researched, add nothing, are being upvoted mainly on their titles, it appears to me. Clickbait has found a new home.
Just as the rest of the interwebs is decrying the rise of fake news and clickbait, Steemit says “here hold me beer” and gets to work paying for crap like “Why everyone hates Mondays” wherein the author shares lots of poorly worded stupid opinions, but not one interesting fact. I was hoping for at least a pseudo intellectual “science” basis for the statement, but no, it reads like a seventh grade creative writing piece. That’s too bad.
As I write this, I’m debating, post it, or don’t. I expect it will not get a good response. After all, it’s got a semi-negative tone about content, something that seems unfavorable here. But, I’m not trying to bash anyone. It doesn’t take any more effort to produce good content than bad. In fact, sometimes it’s easier. I know, some of you have already toted up my grammatical errors in this piece alone. So, what? I’m not editing this for publication. Just voicing an opinion.
So, what would it take for Steemit to become the home to the sharpest content online? There are good writers who’d love a platform like this, but not if they’re getting $7, while crap like the ones I’ve mentioned are hauling in a $1k or more reward every time. Good quality content is what could put this site on the map, and whether you like it or not, almost no one knows we’re here. The growth has not been overwhelming, by any means.
As for me, I’ll contribute my share. If you like it, please vote and reblog it. If you don’t let me know.