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<center>[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/2himG3LIRAo)</center>

I guess, to explain how I arrived on STEEM... I would have to back up a few years to before the Great Crypto Bull Run of 2017. I had been following the idea of cryptocurrencies for a little while after I was introduced to it via a friend and a Ars Technica article. However, in typical new father fashion (trust me... when you are a new father, you have time for absolutely NOTHING!)... I dawdled on investigating further. 

However, during 2017 (or was it before... fatherhood also comes with a great deal of sleep-deprived memory loss...) I caught wind of a social network built on a blockchain called STEEM which was about to launch. Social Network?... Bleah, I can't imagine anything worse! So, I passed... 

... until December of 2017, when I made my account here. Enticed like many newcomers by the concept of writing making HUGE amounts of money! After all, look at all the trending posts that were earning hundreds of dollars for pretty horrifically poor content!.... I starting writing, and promptly bounced off... due to lack of interest and the typical noob low payout. 

Several months later, I would return and became more interested in just writing (thanks in part to some early communities like @ifc)... and screw the payout numbers. I was starting to find that I enjoyed writing about things that interested me, a skill that I hadn't really done seriously since I was in high school!

So, that was my genesis on the STEEM blockchain and network... my tagline still holds true... 

> Musician with a Science background, I write about many things, causing collateral damage to a wide variety of topics!

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQgdKBYt2WqqK4iNvDmFsZHUJfu9t62Hz1JxHAwJ7SyoB/thealliance_pagebreak.png

# <center>STEEM in My Life</center>

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<center>[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/dOhJtfXJZfw)</center>

By far and away the biggest change in my life on a daily level due to STEEM has been #splinterlands (@steemmonsters)... I used to read the news and long-form articles from places like Neurologica and Ars Technica on the toilet... these days, I'm spinning out a couple of games of Splinterlands in the hopes of getting a couple of my Daily Quests done before I hit the shower! That said, it has been my resolution to stop doing that... I think I should start leaving the phone outside the toilet, so that I don't spend quite so much time in there!

A second huge impact in my life has been my interest in coins and precious metals due to the influence of the #steemsilvergold (@ssg-community)... I have really taken to learning about numismatics and the collecting of coins and silver... there is just something undefinably alluring about a beautiful design on a shiny shiny lustrous silver background! Plus, with the coins, it is so interesting that these things have passed through so many hands on the way to my collection over the last century or so! Those old coins really have a certain charm... plus, the silver content doesn't hurt either!

Finally, and most importantly... I've rediscovered my love of writing. I love that with a daily post on a different topic (be it something from my life... or interest, gaming, music... or anything really that catches my fancy for a fleeing moment...), I have the chance to focus my mind and thoughts for an hour or so.... and just let the words and ideas flow! It is really quite theraputic... my wife calls this my "Dear Diary"!

During my time here, I have used my daily writing to help just hone my writing skills... there is a good deal to rediscover for me... after all, as a musician, you don't tend to write very much! This has turned into an interesting hobby which has also resulted in a number of accepted submissions for [Binance](https://www.binance.com/?ref=18699956)! Before honing my writing skills on STEEM, I would never have dared to make a writing submission for ANYTHING!

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQgdKBYt2WqqK4iNvDmFsZHUJfu9t62Hz1JxHAwJ7SyoB/thealliance_pagebreak.png

# <center>What Keeps Me Around?</center>

<center>![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1489674267075-cee793167910?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1267&q=80)</center>

<center>[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/xtIYGB0KEqc)</center>


STEEM has an ecosystem that has developed through good and bad times over the past few years. An evolved system that has reacted, learnt and survived the good and the bad is a network that is significantly more robust than something that launches with the best intent at creating the perfect balance of incentives in place from the beginning. Over time maybe the other system will reach a good equilibrium... but that is really something that takes both time and user use and abuse. Is STEEM perfect?... no, but it works and generally pretty decently!

With #newsteem, I think we have seen the latest iteration of this slow evolution. As far as I can see in my little narrow silo of accounts that I follow... it does seem to have resulted in a better distribution of rewards. Of course, there will be posts that "deserve" much higher payouts... but does anyone ever complain about their less "deserving" posts getting an abnormally high payout?

STEEM has many groups and communities which help to keep accounts alive and running... we all remember the tough days of starting out. Now, we have established communities that support each other on-chain and via Discord... groups like @steemitbloggers, @thealliance and @qurator. There are also other groups that are exclusively dedicated to helping smaller accounts like @pifc and @steemterminal.

Personally, I do my little part to help out the very niche #classical-music community (started ages back by @remlaps) with a curation account, @classical-radio. It is my way to help encourage other Classical (and Jazz and Folk) musicians on the STEEM chain.

Conversely, I like that STEEM has a set of downvoting guardians with high SP like @steemcleaners and @themarkymark (and more recently, the accounts (like @ocdb)that combatted bid-botting...). Like it or not, plagiarism and anti-social posting is going to happen... and this sort of thing needs to be faced down or else the whole network will fail to be anything more than a place to scam a bit of money. Like the curation and support networks, these anti-curation projects take a long time to settle into place and to gain the trust and support of the community as a whole... 


https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQgdKBYt2WqqK4iNvDmFsZHUJfu9t62Hz1JxHAwJ7SyoB/thealliance_pagebreak.png

# <center>Comparisons</center>


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<center>[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/YF8cn3GDDC0)</center>

To be perfectly honest, my experience of other blockchain based social or blogging platforms is incredibly limited. In 2018-19, there were quite a number of alternative "solutions" to the ills that STEEM was suffering under... however, for my part, I didn't think that they would succeed due to a number of a factors and so I continued to concentrate my efforts on STEEM.

For a cryptocurrency to succeed... people seemed to have forgotten that an common asset was valued only by the buyer and never the seller. For this to happen, you need both demand and a marketplace.... the alternatives had no large marketplaces, STEEM was listed on both [Binance](https://www.binance.com/?ref=18699956) and Bittrex, huge marketplaces with large volumes. It is hard to get these listings, and to start without one is a huge disadvantage for a newcomer. 

As for the social side of things... I have also very little comparison. I have both a Facebook and a Twitter account.... I would use my Twitter account only for competitions and verification... and my Facebook would only be used to post various shared silly or funny things and to keep up with family via the Messenger app... after all, musicians on Facebook (or anywhere...) are a horrific band of humble-braggers!

Something that attracted me a lot to the STEEM platform over Facebook was the semi-anonymous nature of the platform. I like that I can write for an audience who just don't know who I am... and I will never likely meet. To me, the interactions are much more genuine than on Facebook, where everyone is putting on a social network mask to present themselves in the best possible light to their friends and peers. 

Here, I just write... I don't feel the judgement or interest from friends and family and colleagues... I can write about my nerdy pursuits... I can write a cranky rant about politics... I can just blog about my day and what went wrong... and I will never have to meet the people who read it and comment in real life, with an awkward feeling of having revealed too much!


https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQgdKBYt2WqqK4iNvDmFsZHUJfu9t62Hz1JxHAwJ7SyoB/thealliance_pagebreak.png

# <center>Wrapping Up</center>

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<center>[Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/SNLfVYmL8os)</center>

Support comes in many ways here on STEEM... first and foremost, it can be the support on rewards. However, as you stay around longer... it becomes clear that the real support that actually causes to people to stay and build is the support via interactions, comments and off-chain on Discord... the real network building which isn't based upon immediate financial gain... but is what drives and builds a social network. 

This sort of community building doesn't happen overnight... financial airdrops only create a community of people who are there for the cash and will disappear once the faucet stops (or a bigger faucet comes...). 

STEEM has had the advantage of time... time to grow and evolve and time to build the networks and community, and with it the strong loyalty that forms the backbone of a decentralised social network.

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https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQgdKBYt2WqqK4iNvDmFsZHUJfu9t62Hz1JxHAwJ7SyoB/thealliance_pagebreak.png


<center><a href="https://steemit.com/@bengy"><img src=https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmS3NNz4S6PTtVURiQEDZ38qSCJuwQt6qEYe8pLbyyKm9c/upgoats-bengy.png><br/></a></center>


<center><sub>Upgoats by ryivhnn
Account banner by jimramones</sub></center>






<center><a href="https://steemit.com/@classical-radio"><img src=https://steemitimages.com/DQmeoERDzqJXs2uwJ3BQjuKvTEQf4jjhCxuAr6pt87qkGr5/Classical_Music_smaller.png><br/></a></center>

<center><sub>The classical music community at #classical-music and [Discord](https://discord.gg/ppVmmgt). Follow our community accounts @classical-music and @classical-radio. Community Logo by ivan.atman</sub></center>




<center>https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVUP55ddtuNUR9Yf5d4GkNHQREtrd4wTAh36FnRzUepkA/bengy.gif</center>