There's something I've noticed quite a bit about people posting with their ideas about how to improve Steemit. As seen HERE, being one such article, there's one group of people who use Steemit that are entirely ignored in every single discussion by everyone with the exception of the Steemit developers themselves, the guys working hard on the backend of things. It's true that Steemit, like any business, company, platform, cryptocurrency, etc has monied interests that invest in the system by buying the digital currency or shares of the company, etc. It's often posited that the monied investors should be made happy because they're contributing money into the system and they deserve the Steem Power blah blah blah. Yeah, I get it, and I understand. Those that spend their own hard earned money into the platform should be rewarded. I completely agree. However I do end up having to draw a line in the sand with some of these people's suggestions because they either

Don't know that we exist
Know we exist and choose to ignore us
Know we exist but think we're involved directly with the company

Do you want to know how your pictures and videos get "uploaded to the blockchain"? Take a gander at any post on Steemit that's a dTube post. Take my video on Saying "Do you speak ASL?". Now scroll to the bottom and pay attention to the following.

▶ DTube ▶ IPFS

You'll notice those two sets there. You already know what DTube is, most likely at least being on Steemit, but do you not realize what IPFS is? Well, take a peek at IPFS for yourself. From the IPFS website.

IPFS is the Distributed Web A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol to make the web faster, safer, and more open.

Does this mean that Steemit alone is using IPFS? Ha, not by a long shot, there's other video hosting platforms that already use IPFS, one of which you're already likely all to familiar with (and I'm not referring to DTube this time). BitChute (soon to be SpkOut) also utilizes the IPFS decentralized network. Hell it's likely even Vid.me would likely still be around if they utilized it instead of trying to host centrally with a singular cloud. Those of us running IPFS nodes are overall at a net negative, we do it out of selflessness. I even have 150 gigs of space donated towards Freenet Project of all things. Maybe people that write articles don't realize that the IPFS network is a collection of nodes run by volunteers, or perhaps they think the nodes are owned by Steemit. I can say, I certainly don't get any benefit on Steemit by donating hardware and bandwidth towards IPFS. I even run into the Steemit newbie's dreaded "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" issue while dolphins and whales seem more than capable of just breezing along like nothing's happened during the busier time periods. Running an IPFS node overall is a thankless task for sure, and honestly I think the majority of Steemians don't even realize we actually exist, but I assure you, we do exist, and our nodes are being piggy backed on by Steemit, DTube and many other websites. And that's fine.

If you're so selfless, then why are you complaining?

Not really complaining, just wanting to spread the awareness behind the backbone, and possibly also twist your arm into installing IPFS on your system as well to donate space towards the decentralized network. Why do I want to spread awareness about those of us hosting IPFS nodes? Primarily to make you aware that those running nodes are on Steemit, I actually started a node for IPFS solely because of Steemit in order to contribute my way of supporting the platform. It's my contribution, my investment. It's a way of letting you know "Monied investors are NOT the only investors on Steemit". Just like monied investors aren't the only investors involved in the Bitcoin blockchain, likewise to Steemit. Seriously, hit up IPFS.io Why and see further why, and consider spinning up your own IPFS node to help make the web a better place! Sure you don't get any rewards on Steemit for donating your hardware and bandwidth, nor any benefit directly from SpkOut and all the other various websites that utilize the IPFS system as it's backbone other than being in the knowledge that you are personally taking a personal step in the future of the internet! DO IT!

Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://cryptodeaf.cloudaccess.host/2018/02/steemit-investors-and-who/