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"You know how much this is costing me?!?"

I remember hearing that someone who was quite prominent angrily said this when the blockchain was down for about 12 hours, two years ago when it got "DDoS" attacked. Of course at that time, Steem was a little higher than now and was hovering more around the 2 dollar levels, but it reeks of entitlement. 

We don't hear this much now because the price drops have removed a lot of the *expectation* of earnings and, this might be a pretty good thing as people can focus on building their experience and relationships, rather than just their immediate financial outcomes. Having said that, payoff of*some form or another* is always going to be part of the experience.

https://i.imgur.com/O1cUVWk.jpg

There are of course many forms of payment that can happen and what I have noticed is that experiences like @Steemmonsters and @nextcolony have become core parts of the user experience for many.  

![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmPRJWAgQtB1FuJgQDJi7UMjzz26VYVkFQq1PMZtWTbfSq)

And as you can see from the [State of the Dapps site](https://www.stateofthedapps.com/rankings), even after the issues that have plagued after the last week of getting hardforked, Steem *still* has 3 of the top 10 platforms by ranking and funnily, @Steemmonsters is still sitting in the top20 of users over the last 24 hours. This is because while Steemit.com was down and even though most of the frontends were unusable, Steemmonsters was one of the first back up and running.

However, while most people are talking about how deserted Steem has become, I think that the results are quite indicative of crypto in general. Steem is by far the most used blockchain and most likely, has the most real people interacting upon it each day doing*real things.* While EOS is full of gambling application transactions, Steem is full of posts and comments - that is pretty cool and what I consider a good sign for the future of the platform. 

This was also noted by blocktrades in the announcement that their wallet is again up and running:

>However, due to the sheer amount of data in the Steem blockchain (it's one of the busiest blockchains out there), it has taken a while for the API nodes like our wallet node to replay the data.

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There really is a lot of data on the blockchain and one of the things that I heard a few times over the last few days was how people were reading the posts that were still accessible on the blockchain, even though they couldn't post, comment or vote at all. I am hoping that during this time people found a few interesting contributors to support. 

I am looking forward to seeing how the data mass grows and changes across timelines, not just in volume but in content type and "temperature" of content. With all of the data being transparent and timestamped, the network of *feelings* is going to be accessible to view. 

It would definitely be interesting to have a personalized view of our Steem blockchain journey from signup to whatever point we choose to view. Through this we would be able to see how we have learned, changed, been affected and perhaps grown - *for better or for worse.

For me, I believe that I am a better person for having committed (immutable) so much content to the Steem blockchain and even though the value to the audience may vary greatly, the intrinsic value for me is steady as what I write on are things that are personally important to me at that time. Some people might hate Steem content, for me it is what aids my learning and continued connection and if I didn't write it, I wouldn't know what I do nor be as positive as I am about the future. 

While not necessarily about Steem, I believe this is what everyone should do when developing their content for Steem and that is, to *write* about what they want to *learn* about. If the content isn't valuable to you, why create it?

Well, this comes back to the value of the Steem and with the total pool only being worth 190K, it isn't much to write home about with a few hundred thousand accounts drawing on it in some way. Having intrinsic value in what one creates outside of the payout value means that no matter the voting outcomes, personal wealth is generated. 

I think the hardest path for a creative on Steem and likely in life, is chasing currency, as one will continually compromise oneself for a result and then even when "winning", may still have very little of personal value. Over the last 2.5+ years, I can say that I am *content with my content* and am a better person for having spent the time and invested the effort into its creation. It is hard to be negative on the platform when it has enabled me to improve myself.

Maybe that it is this that drives negativity as while some people put a lot of effort into the earning aspect, the spend too little time on the self-development payoffs. If it doesn't improve you, why do it at all?

For me Steem is work, but I see a clear line between what is work - *and what is a job.*

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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