At first I was a bit sceptical over the platform steemit and how it works, and I was even sceptical whether or not it actually makes money. I've been a user of steemit for a few weeks now. So far I've made around $6 from just my comments alone on steemit. I don't expect the platform to be making me big money any time soon. I also plan on hodling as much of the money I make on steemit as possible. Remember that payouts from comments ,posts etc take 7 days to happen, so I havn't had any payouts yet. 
Please see my profile here:
https://steemit.com/@netscape101 (At the time of writing the wallet section won't show much, I'm still waiting payouts)
http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=netscape101 
https://steemblockexplorer.com/@netscape101
https://steemd.com/@netscape101

![profile-steemd.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTrMng2qyK3Z6VP1fGHq9wQuwRTLm5qqDYZw1JDidBKYN/profile-steemd.png)

How much do I know about this powerful platform/new technology that I am playing around with? I often feel when people play around with a new technology, that at that first moment of playing with it, the user does not realize the power of the new tool that he or she has in their hand. I feel steemit is enormously powerful, and how can I bring up this topic without quoting spiderman? (Click on the link to see where the pic is from)

https://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/f/40/4dcad9cd244f3/background.jpg

So let's try think of some dangerous things that could happen with the options presented by the steemit platform. Well on the internet it is almost impossible to delete something once it is on the internet and once it has grabbed attention. This effect is amplified with something like steemit which logs your posts to a blockchain.
Some ideas I got from this thought:
1. How would stackoverflow benefit from using a business model similar that of steemit. Programmers volunteer their time to answer questions and thus get internet points. What if the internet points were a cryptocurrency instead of just internet points?
2. How would something like the pirate bay benefit from a steemit like architecture? Would governments be able to shut it down?
3. How would something like wikileaks benefit from using a platform that cannot be shut down instead of for example using mediawiki?
Do you think it would be realistic to try any of the above mentioned options?

One question I have as a new user that I would like to ask more experienced users is: Can anyone run their own frontend for steemit? For example could I just setup: https://github.com/steemit/condenser on my own server and use my own domain name and SSL certificate if I didn't want to make use of steemit.com? If this is possible then that would make steemit completely decentralized , or at least it would be from what I understand.

I am yet to write an introductory post for my profile. Just one thing to take note of as a steemit user and this might be a bit of a disturbing thought to you: Your profile has a link to your wallet showing your account's value.  If anyone
were to tie your profile to your real identity, then they could easily put a gun to your head and ask you withdraw a large amount of your funds. This thought makes me feel a bit reluctant to write an introductory post. That being said I can write a nice introductory post with a "verified" profile photo of someone else, helping me to establish a fake identity. That is still just security by obscurity.

What do you think?