I was searching here on Steemit earlier today, and I found a post that I thought was very interesting. I thought it would be cool to share, but the post was several months old so the reSteem option had been deactivated. I was kind of disappointed. Not just because I wasn't able to share a cool story, but more because it felt indicative of what I fear may end up being Steemit's fatal flaw.

Why Are We Here

If you're currently participating on Steemit, there's a good chance that makin' mad skrillaz isn't your sole priority. A lot of people have faded into the ether since that $8 Steem disappeared. Those of us that remain have found something more. Personally, I had been wanting to start an online blog for a few years before discovering this platform. I had a couple of false starts on WordPress, but something was missing that kept me from sticking with it. At the time, I wasn't sure what that something was, but I think I have figured it out...

Community

The thing that was missing on that other platform was a sense of community. Starting a blog from scratch ain't easy! It's hard to drive traffic to your content; especially when you aren't even trying to spend any money on it. On Steemit, I found a fairly large group of people who were actively searching for the type of content that I was interested in creating. Furthermore, many of them were putting out great content of their own that I was interested in seeing.

Over the past 3+ years, the Steem blockchain has become a giant repository for all kinds of information, and every post that has ever been made is permanent. Personally, I think that is one of the strong points of the platform. I'm not going to lie, one of the things that first attracted me to Steemit was the potential to make some money on my blog posts and to wade out into the (at that point) unknown waters of cryptocurrencies. But, while I still value the chance to earn Steem for my content, what keeps me here is the potential to build my blog. I want it to be more than just a daily post that people read and then bury beneath mounds of ones and zeros. I want to provide a cumulative build up of information and experience that grows as I learn. I want people to be able to follow what I attempted and decide which parts work for them and which parts they feel the need to change. Steemit should be perfect for that.

Unfortunately, the way the platform is built seems to be geared more toward people who are looking for a quick buck - the very people who are conspicuously missing from the platform, right now.

Case in point: the fact that I can't reSteem a post that is older than its payout date. It's like the platform believes that a post is only useful if it is able to earn some Steem. Personally, I want people to be able to dig my posts up years from now and share them. Sometimes, inspiration hits you just right, and you end up creating something great; something that should last. But on Steemit, after 7 days, it just becomes another digit in a sea of binary.

Sure, it is possible to find that post if you are looking for it, but even Steemit's search function is super weak! A quick search for the term 'homesteading' returns some 42,200 results just on this platform!

How do you sort through 42,000 posts? Especially when you can only see 10 per page! And, the only way to sort the results are by relevance or by date. It would be nice if there were a few extra fields that you could cross reference or some way to narrow down to a more specific search. Maybe this is difficult using a Google Powered search, but... maybe we shouldn't be using a Google Powered search?

If you've read this far, I want you to know that I don't mean to sound derogatory. I am very appreciative of the opportunities that Steem and Steemit have provided me. I have invested quite a bit of time and effort into this blog, and I want to see it thrive. I do think that we have a bright future ahead of us with the introduction of Steem Engine and its Tribes and the implementation of SMTs. Furthermore, the success of Steem Monsters and other Dapps proves that there is more to the blockchain than just blogging. However, I'm afraid that if we continue to design the ecosystem around features that encourage quick Steem grabs, we will end up sacrificing long term success for quick pops like the one saw back in early 2018.

My suggestion is that we play to the strengths of the blockchain and make it easier to find and circulate older posts. It's just a small change, but it would encourage content creators to spend more time on their posts knowing that they aren't going to become irrelevant after a mere seven days, and as the average content quality level goes up, we will begin to attract more organic traffic from other search engines like Google. That is how we grow Steem and Steemit: We show new people the huge catalog of amazing resources and content and games and future opportunities that exist on our blockchain. And when new people begin to arrive, they should be able to access our best content; not just what's new this week.