The nonsense that are "Goodbye posts" // Why you shouldnt blame it on STEEM
I ran into another "Goodbye post" today by a guy thats been quite an active participant in the community and actually contributed quite a bit. @tcpolymath
He had a minor outburst on my comment but ill still give credit where credit is due. When "shits emotional" its expected... lol
He titled the post: "Its time for the voting system to end".
Well, i disagree.. lol.
Its one of those posts that blame the inherent attributes of Steem for his own burnout. He blames the drama, probably downvotes and the voting system, for people leaving. His trigger was apparently: "Someone not being nice to his friend."
(People can be assholes. lol)
Look, i dont want to attack him. Its his absolute right to think what he wants and assign any reason or meaning to his decisions.... but i have to say that blaming it on the inherent attributes of STEEM is nonsense. The same attributes that attract people here. Were those attributes good enough to keep you here once you arrived? Now they suck??? Has that much changed for the worse? hmmm. I dont think so.
Naming Twitter as a better place to be is nonsense as well. Twitter has assholes, has drama, has conflict, even more so.
So let me try and give my opinion on what has been happening.
There is this community that was quite large at a time called Helpie. They have a witness that had quite a bit support, they had a leader that invested a lot of time in lifting up the group to make it significant in the overall community. The group in question was tied with other big projects and influential Steemians, as well.
You had OpenMic that was well connected with Helpie through a number of people, that was massive at a time. In my opinion it was the single greatest community on the platform with hundreds of weekly participants.
Once upon a time...
So what happened?
The bear market.
A lot of people when they come to Steem come for the social aspect as well as the monetary aspect. Those two things are linked.
Once the price went down the number of participants in Openmic dropped. The rewards went down as well. The project had to run on the generosity of the founders. That is not sustainable. The profitability went down as well as the perceived potential of the project simply due to lack of attention.
All of that is expected.
Once upon a time being a community leader was profitable. It was worth your time. But life happens, you have to pay the bills. You no longer have as much time and communities lose their pillars.
Then you have people getting tired of the bear market, their friends can no longer make $$$ so they leave or spend less time on Steem, after some time their communities become smaller and smaller and they are left being more introduced to the wider steem community with all its complexity and drama. Something they could simply ignore before.
While at one point you could hide in your small part of the community as if on an island, the bear market took that away.
You could ignore what was happening at large. All the drama and Bullshit didnt phase you. You had your motivation and your group of people you spent time with.
So what happens is that you hit a wall. You no longer feel your group of people is "going places", less and less people enter your community and more and more leave it, the potential is diminished, your motivation takes a hit and you look for things to blame.
Your dissapointment boils up to the surface and you cant really be objective in your assessment.
You cant say, well these projects i loved are no more, there is much less people around here, my friends left and i lost faith. All which is simply natural.
So you place blame.
- Its the voting system.
- Its the flags.
- Its the drama.
- Its the EIP. (The author rewards cut are kind of to blame hehe)
- Steem has no potential.
Its actually amazing observing this if you know what youre looking at. How the price eventually has an effect on those that you would not say are here simply to make $$$.
The effect is indirect and comes from the price affecting not the person in question, writing the goodbye post, but rather by the price affecting those around them that made Steem socially valuable to that person.
Lets be honest here. There was much more Bullshit on Steem before the EIP and no one was doing anything about it. You could not take action and all your efforts were in vain.
So you ignored it. Why waste time on things you cannot change?
You had your own part of Steem you focused on, your own group of people but the bear market is in power in the background and its effects are slowly starting to become noticeable. You dont see it right away because the process is gradual but when you look further behind you, you see it as plain as day.
Anyways.... My point is that we shouldnt be surprised by any of this. We should have been aware of this when we started on Steem.
Being on a social media platform doesnt make you immune to the effects of the market.
Just like communities faded away and projects dissapeared with the negative price change, once the price goes up again new projects will pop up, new communities will emerge .
All that a part of the life cycle of STEEM.
Question is:
What was your motivation when you came here? Did you lose too much monetarily and socially? Can you stick to it and not let the bear market beat you?
Those that can will be the foundation STEEMs future will be built upon.
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A well thought out and nicely written post. I enjoyed reading it.
When Steem was doing well, everyone was happy. Now that it is not doing well, people complained and blamed it on a host of things that are not necessary the reason for the poor performance of Steem.
It is understandable if people are disappointed with how things turned out. And if they want to leave, leave. Why would they want to run the place down - the place where they were once full of praise. ?
Steem is unfortunately greatly affected by the price changes. My point is that even though you might say that you remained because you love the community and the people, many of those people are indeed motivated by the monetary aspect to a greater degree then they are willing to admit. Wanting to make money is in no way a negative thing.
So when they leave you start losing parts of that community you claim to love. Indirectly, the price has affected you as well.
Thats whats happening in cases like this imo. And thats fine. My issue is with folks blaming it on the inherent characteristics of Steem, thus spreading fud and negative sentiment.
Hi @lordbutterfly. Thank you for your reply.
Oh yes, I understand what you are saying. 😊 Their leave will impact the platform, no doubt, but that can't be helped. That's why I said, if they want to leave, just leave. No need to bad mouth the platform. 😊
I do hate it when people generalise everyone. I am not having fun becomes nobody has fun etc. The bear hurts everyone. There is still fun to be had and no need to be involved in drama. I think people who get buried in discord make a rod for their own back. I still have fun here! I think you sum up the situation well :0)
Misery loves company. Thats the saying.
Why not simply admit that youre burned out instead of trying to place blame on the platform. You liked it once, what is it exactly that went down hill? I call BS on that simply because it has never been worse then a year ago. No Steemit.inc development, layoffs, price hit, etc.
The improvement is evident but due to price decrease communities fall apart.
Once upon a time you had SP holders that were millionaires, a number of accounts had 500$ upvotes. Its extremely easy to build communities with that kind of firepower.
Once that goes away those that were here simply for that reason will leave and your community will take a hit, with that your own motivation.
Realizing that is the only way to build up immunity against it.
As i said... Those that stay will be foundation of Steems future and will profit greatly once/if the alt market recovers.
Thats simply a fact.
Agreed. Some people love to produce content but when you throw money into the mix people fell the need to produce content daily. Then when the bear comes dancing and the money fades out people can get jaded with the constant need to produce. Even though there isn't really a need except for the money that they feel they can be missing out on.
I get tired of people rage quitting and blaming the platform. I am always of the opinion that if you want to go, just go. If you don't like the drama why make a drama out of going?
I stopped following him what must have been over a year ago. I didn't care for the constant negativity.
He had stuck around this long! How did it take that long for him to write his goodbye post? How long should we expect him to keep away? Oh, well. I won't be paying attention to that.
Spot on. There is much less absolute shit here than there used to be. Whatever shit is left is much more subtle.
I get the impression that this guy thinks the drama that resulted from certain big abuse fighters cleaning the house was the horrible thing that is going to be "the end of Steem."
What this guy used to do was precisely to turn a blind eye to the massive abuse that went on. Now that the house is being cleaned the discomfort caused is too much for him. lol
I know several deserving authors whose work has always been top notch who'd get a pittance before the EIP. Now they're rewarded well. I've been personally involved in removing rewards from several abusers on Trending and on the down low. What this guy is saying is utterly ridiculous. If you don't have the stomach for an immature platform like Steem where all the drama is out in the open, then you should stay out. But, then again, you won't be entitled to any early adopter advantage, either.
These goodbye posts are what you would call venting. When you have built up annoyance with certain aspects of Steem and dont know how to let go and try and make the best of it stuff like this happens.
Its an emotional response. Otherwise they would just stop posting and not care.
I got the same impression. I had a problem with the EIP just like he did but my problem was that i didnt believe that it would happen what has happened. I didnt think whales would fight abuse to this degree.
But i accepted change and liked what i see in the end.
The folks that complain about the flagging, (imo, there is not enough flagging) complain because they can. Because those that downvote (outside a few rotten apples) genuinely care about STEEM and are willing to listen.
You didnt have that before. The bot owners, the circlejerkers, the abusers, those that went around harassing others wouldnt give two shits about what you had to say. Theyd flag you for saying anything.
Now most of those are gone.
Because the guys that are cleaning the platform are willing to listen, you get more convos and it appears that there is more drama, more problems, and that everything is worse.
That is simply not true. People having discussions is not a bad thing.
Agreed.
To be fair, he flagged with SFR for some time when we were much smaller.
You can safely ignore any post that would not exist if the STEEM unit price were $1. You can safely attribute the STEEM unit price to the overall bear market.
Compared to other projects, the amount of development and progress means when things do change, the price will be much more violent to the upside.
Perhaps at that point, all the people who rage quit, will regret not making that extra post for that extra STEEM back when people had to hunt to find stuff worthy of an upvote.
Bear markets are the time for building.
sad you leave, wish you a great life! :)
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I think few of us would be here if it wasn't for the rewards, although the freedom aspect is cool too. That freedom included the ability to be a dick and there are a few of those around, but they are outnumbered by the good people. Most of those who want to screw things up do not bother to invest in enough Steem to be dangerous, but there are notable exceptions. We really cannot afford to be driving away good people even though some may be getting more rewards than we think they should.
Interesting that @paintingangels was making far more than I do on a post even with some flags, but if they were getting grief from people then maybe it is time to step away, even though you can just block people. I don't know what has been going on for @tcpolymath either. I only follow a few people and miss out on some of the drama. It's is generally just a piss-up in a paddling pool in the scheme of things as Steem is tiny in internet terms. Part of the reason I want it to grow is that will reduce the influence on some people. I really don't care about getting less rewards as I want more people to get the benefits. The Steem price is irrelevant apart from allowing me to buy more.
Nobody has to be online really, but we choose to be and that opens us up to attacks. Find the good people and work with them.