RE: Programming Diary #28: Thoughts on the problem of overvaluation
My first inclination is to wonder why nobody is downvoting this content?
There's no incentive to look for it, most people don't have a big enough stake to have an impact anyway, and voters that can overvalue garbage posts also have the power to downvote a small account (there's little upside in making a powerful enemy).
Web site operators should find ways to lower the prominence of this sort of content.
I disagree. I think systematically hiding the problem will perpetuate it. Garbage is trending because that's what the chain (currently) values. The sites should be transparent about that, not obfuscate it.
So, what do we do about this?
I am skeptical it would do much good, but I think we should be doing more to discuss the philosophy of how things are valued, e.g. seeing "Garbage post is worth X Steem" is a signal that 1 Steem is worth what that post is really worth divided by X. That DeFi that provides bank-like "interest" returns without doing bank-like economic activity on the other side (e.g. making money from loaning out the deposits) is a signal that however much Steem is earned in interest is worth 0 real value. Maybe explore what it means to "invest" in a cryptocurrency, and consider whether passive-income-extracting speculators create a barrier to entry to genuine investors by not only risking the long term value but creating a short-term bubble that limits the possible return on a real investment. I also think it would be beneficial for the community to have statistics about how much of the reward pool is flowing through particular categories, e.g. self-votes, paid-for votes, etc.
True. I even thought carefully about whether to post this, relatively gentle, critique. If there's going to be any downvoting, it almost definitely has to start at the top of the investment chain. Though, downvote insurance might be an interesting concept for players on the other side of the debate, too😉. Still, I'd prefer to avoid that whole cycle of retaliation. That drives people away, too.
Two points here. This general desire for awareness was part of my motivation for putting this sort of information into the overlay in the first place. It's also part of the reason why I posted about it here. Maybe talking about it won't fix the problem, but it's got a better chance than ignoring it.
The second point is interesting, too, that STEEM's value is pegged to the quality of the content that gets rewarded. It was a buried assumption in my claim that this content is devaluing the investor's stake, but you're right that it should be stated explicitly and understood better.
Edited to add:
I forgot to respond to this point:
This might be true, but maybe the web site operator could devise a way to hide it from the casual visitor while also providing a mechanism for visibility to investor-class stakeholders who could decide how to respond to it.