"I don't know why they've been successful in pushing everyone into these little ghettos. Of these Facebooks, and these Tweets, and these Instagrams, these Instas. This is ghetto, this is corporate. They're taking your energy and you're getting nothing in return. Nothing." -Matt Drudge, October 6, 2015
This was a powerful quote to me because it represents everything Steemit is not. Until I joined steemit a few days ago, I used to spend WAY too much time on Facebook. I agree with Drudge, most social networks are not designed to reward thoughtful and intelligent discussions.
Almost all of the content on people's Facebook profiles comes from somewhere else. There are few original ideas. People simply share links to content they didn't create and let the pages they follow do their thinking for them.
Twitter is even worse, because it prevents users from having long-winded discussions. The truth is that coherent thoughts can not be condensed into 140 characters or 3 sentence memes. In my view, the longer we spend on these websites, the more we lose our ability to think for ourselves.
Steemit is built in such a way that in order to succeed, you have to be able to think about what you post. You can't simply take someone else's idea and get credit for it. If you want to succeed, you have to create quality content. The monetary incentive is the driving force in all of this.
On twitter, Steemit calls itself "The Internet's small town"
But this is a quote that really makes sense to me. This is the equivalent of a rich suburban developer traveling to the inner city and making anyone who will listen an offer.
"I will give you a house for free in a nicer area, I'll even pay you to live there. The only catch is that you'll have to bring something unique to offer to the community or you won't succeed."
This offer sounds too good to be true, and in real life it would never happen. But on the internet, it is free to "move out of the ghetto." More people leaving Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to come here will make our community better. But nobody has heard about us yet.
So we should try and get the word out. Keep talking to folks in your life and in the "social media ghettos." Tell them about Steemit's endless possibility. The monetary incentive is a good place to start. We can increase the value of Steem and maintain the high quality of the posts.
This is just my two cents. If you disagree, let's talk about it in the comments!
Thank you for taking the time to read my third post. I've about finished my mug of coffee.