RE: The importance of communities in Steem city
This was a really good post with some awfully thought provoking stuff. Isn't it horrible how expensive car repairs can be... Whenever I start to think about the price of Steem, I have to remind myself a lot of it is relative to where I live. In the US yeah, it is 3 Steem for a candy bar, but in another part of the world, that same 3 Steem can go a lot farther. That is one of the awesome things about this platform!
That is also why I think it is so awesome that we can give back to others. Living in the US and having a full time job, this is more of a hobby to me. Some people are using Steemit to support their families though and that just blows my mind.
That is also very interesting the point about needing people to populate the city. It is a very true fact. I just started a challenge called #fosteraminnow because as was mentioned I feel like there are a lot of orcas, dolphins, and higher minnows on Steemit that have fallen into the routine of auto voting and doing their own thing and many of these smaller accounts are getting left behind and ignored. I am hoping my initiative will help more of us grow together.
There is no way I can live off Steem and would need the price to be somewhere around 25 dollars but, there has been literally thousands of people whose lives have been made a little better by the possibilities here.
There are many initiatives out there to help small accounts but it is very much a two way street, especially at these starting phases. People think 2 years is along time, it definitely isn't when it comes to these kinds of developments, this is much more than a simple app and even they take years.
The lack of active accounts is why there is the need for a much larger middle class here as once people get hooked in to communities, they are more likely to stay active. All the little bits of help, help but my tiny piece of experiential advice is, be discerning where and into who you invest your time and resources.
Yeah, I am lucky I have a day job and this is more of a hobby for me. I am with you, I would need Steem to be about that much if not more for me to make a living off of it. I agree with you too on finding the right communities. There was at time that I was a member of a community that ended up going under and I think that being associated with it gave some of us a bad reputation. Now I think I have found a couple good ones that I can call home and work on building my account. You were right too, response so far to my challenge has been pretty disappointing...
I am hoping that in the coming months Hivemind will finally see the light of day and it will give options and tools plus build some new excitement in the community. There is a long way to go here and it is going to be a hard slog still.