Are we back to the chain?
Jesus fucking Christ...
Steem never really worked for me much as a blog. I did incredibly well with writing stories on here at various times, and a few times with science and technology content, but I never really thought it worked that well in the way I thought it was intended. I know quite a few people on here and talk to them occasionally, but then occasionally I'd make a post and it really felt like crickets.
Except now.
VERY oddly enough, now it feels like Steem is actually the way it should be. At least for me. Everyone left for that certain other fork, so there are far less posts. Now I see upvotes from people I haven't talked to much in over a year. It's so weird.
It feels like the people left has really shrunk, back into the core community.
I don't think that I deserve some great upvote amount on Steem. Steem has actually taught me how entitled I feel sometimes. I'm actually ecstatic when I receive a bit more than a dollar on something like a short story. But I actually really do appreciate manual upvotes.
From the second I got here and actually understood how things worked, I didn't want auto-votes. I thought it was a horrible concept. Here you are pouring your life into the blockchain hoping for recognition, and all you got is a few auto-votes. It makes me wanna cry just thinking about it.
But then I toiled on the chain for months, and years, and often times it felt like I was just shouting into the void...or typing rather. Then I started to kinda want those auto-votes, because I had poured so much in.
I guess I probably stumbled a bit. Probably will again if I feel like it. While there is a lot of greed on the chain, there are also very legitimate reasons to want that money. And who's to say whether or not someone deserves it who toils out biblical proportions of literature on our digital domain of blockchain. I judge less on it these days.
For quite a while there it felt like a large portion of the chain probably had to commit questionable acts to ensure income from their efforts. But now...now oddly enough we're getting manual votes. 5, 10, 20 cents sometimes. God damn that's digital gold.
It's a hell of a lot for me anyway.
There were times when I felt like no one was even reading my posts. I'd occasionally get a few small upvotes, but often limited interaction, and mostly just automation. I'd ask questions of the chain and they'd go unanswered. Now, it feels like it's back to normal.
Now here's a question that may just draw ire from the chain: Was Justin Sun just what we needed?
Now we suddenly got a fork of the chain promising actual open source development, and people on both chains manually voting and interacting again. Not just on a few whales posts, but all over. It feels like it's almost back to Steem again. We just happen to have a massive dick-tator at the head that we have to work around. But could this bring us back?
(source)
Image used under Creative Commons Zero - CC0 License
Well, it seems like it proved the right choice. The decision was inimitable to the individual, though. All at once, I felt a strong concern about something I invested some time into - in my own way, I did what I could to see a certain outcome. I think there was some personal justice driving Sun, but in the interest of brevity, I think the community adapted to just another, larger obstacle en route to actualization. I'm happy what happened did, because now I have a more succinct backstory with which to write tomes, sing songs, and share images of with others. Things are looking up.
I see you continue to cross post from Steem to Hive. I'm pretty much just staying on Hive personally.
I'm curious though as to whether you get more upvotes or rewards on Steem than Hive. I suppose I could just look for myself, what with the public ledger, but it seems more fun and engaging to leave a comment.
I also saw you mention digital gold. Not going to lie, my first thought was that's not bitcoin. At risk of prying further into your personal affairs, I wonder whether you've ever actually cashed-out your blogging crypto so to speak. Like have you ever traded it for bitcoin or used it to buy anything not Steem related?
I haven't earned enough to cash-out myself, but there are tons of reasons one might not. Whether it be for market reasons with price swings or just because one plans to stay fully invested into Steem/Hive I don't think one necessarily must translate rewards here into wider usage. Still it seems to me that it kind of doesn't really count as wealth per se until one does do so.
Feel free not to respond to the finer points I make if you think I've overstepped. Either way it ought to be some food for thought and provide a modicum of engagement for you.
As far as your titular question, I'd humbly submit a resounding maybe.
Stay safe out there.
I can't believe to read this sh.. from you geek. The reason for forking Steem in first place was Sunny boi taking over governance, taking the funds that were meant for development. You realize that Steem chain now is centralized entity, that censors people talking about things that Steemit does not like? They did it now to a level where those posts does not even show up on Steempeak. It is what blockchain revolution is all about - anti censorship, decentralization. What's next? They just gonna delete the people they dislike? Take their funds. You talk about receiving upvotes from people you haven't even talked to, they are just milking whatever they can.
I am sorry if this comes out too emotional, but I've been fed up by Sunny boi and his shit for weeks now. Guess you posted this post on Hive out of mistake, but I still read it. Heh.
P.S. the core Steemians are now on Hive, I don't even know what you could possibly call core from the leftovers that are on Steem.
And if this is your April Fools joke, which I hope it is, I will flag your ass too.