"And Justice For All" - Steemit and a New Deal in Social Media

The last two months have been massive for me. This is due to my discovery of a few developments which I believe will bring about significant changes for all of us in the world - Blockchain technoloy, Cryptocurrencies, and... Steemit and dtube.

But first, since this is my very first click of the "Submit a Story" menu to Steemit, it's only proper to provide a brief introduction of myself. I'm Ahmad, 57, in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. I was formerly a teacher and then journalist before my present job as a technical writer and editor for an engineering consultancy company.

I have been using computers ever since the days of the Apple IIe and DOS. But I'm no expert when it comes to hardware and software; knowing just enough to use them for various purposes and to undertake basic diagnosis and tweaking things. So, I'm more of a "slightly above average user" than "a techie", although I'm extremely interested in computers (smartphones included) and the internet and had been following the developments.

Since three months ago, I started to use my free time to learn more. Admittedly, it was mainly profit-driven at first: I was trying to jump onto the cryptocurrency bandwagon and make a few bucks from speculating. However, I also started to look deeper into the various projects. Including in watching those very informative videos at YouTube.

Among the many projects, Steemit is definitely among the most relevant, for me at least. I'm especially heartened to know that, unlike with many of the other projects that are still in development, Steemit - beta that it may be - is something that is already up and running.

Ever since having internet access in 1998, I had been quite active in various discussion groups and their derivatives. Beginning with Usenet/nntp-based Newsgroups, blogs and now Facebook. I have to acknowledge that these had indeed been beneficial to me in various ways. Including social media being the medium in helping me to rebuild my life that was previously totally destroyed http://bitly.com/cendana287

But there was also some dissatisfaction at times. During a long period in the early 2000s to 2010 when I was unemployed or grossly under-employed, this thought struck my mind: "Wouldn't it be great if I could somehow obtain some sort of remuneration for my posts and lengthy comments... especially if readers find these useful or if they enjoy reading these."

These could be tens of dollars from benefactors, or micropayments of just a few cents from other readers. To my mind, these payments - regardless of the total - would have gone some way in helping freelance writers living in poverty. Unfortunately, there wasn't any mechanism to make payments easy. The closest was perhaps PayPal. Or maybe local bank transfers. But these involved some effort on the giver's part. And small amounts aren't quite worth making the effort in the first place.

Thank God for Steemit! It may not be near perfect yet, but it's a massive development. Based on what I see here, there is finally a viable platform for content providers and benefactors. And Steemit is innovative enough whereby a person could be both a content provider AND benefactor. This is indeed a game-changer and something which social media should evolve into (Facebook, Google, Instagram etc. please take note).

This "first post" has become rather lengthy so I'll stop here. This is indeed a great time for all content providers, and I'm hopeful for Steemit to be a success.