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RE: Assume a can opener -- A critique of the snowflake plan
Yes, this is what I've been trying to point out to snowflake and timcliff. The proposal is based on unproven assumptions about curating habits. They're looking at the effects of a tiny user base and massively disproportionate distribution and extrapolating that curation rewards are harming voting and engagement. It's a non sequitur.
I think your critique is quite accurate. "Assume a can opener" is almost spot-on.
Its kind of something ive noticed about improvement proposals for voting/curation. Its pretty easy to come up with a well-intentioned plan, make a few perfect world, can opener type assumptions, and come to the conclusion that it will fix everything.
Because any system for voting or whatever that happens in a perfect world will end up being way better then the one we have here in reality, because there are so many things that, at the moment, are non-optimal.
Exactly. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but i'll give it another shot.
The biggest problem we have right now is a lack of active users. Nothing is going to appear to work right with such a tiny user base and a huge disparity in stake.
Now, the one thing that has not really been explained in the proposal in question is why any particular user would buy into a system so that they can read and vote on content? Is the content on Steemit going to be exclusive for registered members and that much more superior to most other blogging sites? The proposal not only assumes that voting habits are/will be different from what they are, but it also assumes that people will spend their money to do things that they can do for free right now - and not even earn any ROI.
It all looks like magical thinking to me.
Because they would get more influence, they will be able to give more $ to their friend's post if they do.
Of course voting habits will be different, why do you think nobody is voting for comments ? Why do you think people will still cast all their vote 30 min after a post was published? Why do you think people would still subscribe to bot if curation rewards are removed? It's clear that voting behavior will change a lot.
They won't really spend their money as in " not free". The steem power that they bought can be sold back for fiat and will likely be worth more than what they initially paid for ( so their you have your ROI) . This is the dynamic that is needed to create steady demand
So in this perfect world where we're implementing your system, steem price is constantly going up. And the fact that its constantly going up is what causes the demand (not the other way around)
While in the real world, we're flirting with ATLs on what amounts to a 7 month slide... you see how these assumptions are more than a little biased? ANy system is going to sound like it works better than what we have if you take it as a given that the price of steem will constantly go up.
You are misunderstanding, the price will also go down and some users might lose some influence, but it won't matter because they bought it already and that increased the price. Some new users will want more influence which will increase the price again, then the price might go down,etc..but the idea is that more people will buy steem power to get influence than people will sell the steem power that they already bought.
Steem price will have to increase to handle new users, so yeah that should definetely be the goal. I often hear people say that an increase in number of users will lead to an increase in price, this is completely false in the current form, users have no incentives to buy steem power right now and curation rewards is only an incentives for a minority of users, most people who uses steemit have no idea about them.
Who cares about giving more money to their friends' posts if there's nothing in it for them? Do you go out and buy a bunch of stuff for your friends so that they can have more things for themselves? Who actually does this?
Umm...they don't. Have you been watching vote times?
They wouldn't...because they simply wouldn't bother curating at all.
Yes, it will change because there won't be any users.
This is an assumption not rooted in any real-world observation. How can your investment appreciate when nobody will be using the platform because there's no incentive except for bloggers? Where will the investment come from for bloggers to earn? Who will buy into the platform just to vote for other people to earn money? And who will buy any meaningful amount in order to make such blogging worth the time or at least more than any other site that pays for content?
I will say this again - the market for bloggers is vastly smaller than the market that consumes blogging content. The proposal is based on bad assumptions about behavior and incentives. The problems we see on Steemit are not a result of the existence of curation rewards.
this is a great point. Ive never come up with a precise number, but i suspect more than half of all curation rewards are forfeited in the reverse auction.
This is one of the things like bandwagoning and list voting. If what SF thought was casuing current behavior was really causing it, most people wouldn't vote for most things before the 30 minute mark.
Part of this is a game theory decision.... sometimes voting early and forfeiting some percent of curation rewards is a better outocme than voting later (and therefore with more people in front of you). But often, its just a decision made without any rational basis whatsoever.
That's not a good comparison. Like I said in my post steem power is similar to upgrades and power ups in games. People buy it because they like the game and want to gain influence/power in it.
Are you trying argue that bots will still vote at 30 min if curation rewards are removed?
The main reason user retention rate is bad is because people don't have fun on this site. What do you propose to make it fun?
You are not seeing the bigger picture. Steemit is just one site among many other sites that will use the steem blockchain. Many of these other sites will have very different models. Some site will be similar to facebook, where people will just document their lives to friends and family, these people should be able to send a few cents to each other. Do you think these people will want to go through the posts of people they don't know to curate content? The curation reward model is a flawed one for mainstream adoption and isn't going to create significant demand.
The only system that will attract a large audience is one where people buy steem power in order to have more influence in the system.
Curation rewards encourages bot voting and discourage people from commenting/participating in the platform because no one votes for comments.
I don't know exactly what problems you are refering to, but curation rewards are indeed not the main issue, the biggest problem is that 99.8% don't have fun because they have no influence on the platform.
"Who cares about giving more money to their friends' posts if there's nothing in it for them? Do you go out and buy a bunch of stuff for your friends so that they can have more things for themselves? Who actually does this?"
I sent a complete stranger, granted we were part of the same facebook group but I was never "friendly" or a "friend" to the person $1000 cash, through the mail (fuck legality), for nothing in return to do as he wished, simply because I knew that the person he was infatuated with/in love with was traveling across the country to meet with him (not a cupid move or a cupid fb group). People do all kinds of things when it comes with sharing and giving and there is no "real world" who does this in that sense.
Foundation. You have a theory about what causes this voting behavior that you consider undesirable. But you haven't proven it. Just saying "of course im right. Why do you think im wrong? its clear that im right" Isn't proof. its entrenchment.
So lets say you want to build up your power. You decide to buy some steem. In order for you to buy that steem, someone has to sell it to you.
That is your transaction. 1 buyer. 1 seller. Not more buyers than sellers. The same number of buyers and sellers.
Less sellers than buyers = price going up
The number of buyers and sellers is never the same, that's what creates the market price !
According to your theory the price would be flat.
No, i completely understand what youre saying is going to happen (Even the impossible part about there being more buyers than sellers). In your perfect world, the price will fluctuate, but generally trend upwards. In our real world, the price fluctuates, but generally trends downwards.
The problem is, you have no rational foundation for your claim that these changes you want to make will actually change create a higher demand for steem. There were people saying in july and august, about the current rewards system, the exact same thing you are saying now.
Your logic is basically circular. Getting rid of cuation rewards is a good idea because it will increase the price of steem. How do you know it will increase the price of steem? Because its a good idea. How do you know its a good idea. Duh, because it will increase the price of steem.
How is that impossible? Most users will want to build up their power especially if they see significant gain in their influence.
The price is falling right now because there are a bunch of whales that just want to get out. If you look at active users on this forum most are not powering down.
I suggest you look at the cryptocurrency chart since 2012
This is ridiculous, the july price spike was a bubble.
So people buying steem power to gain more influence is irational to you?
What value do you find in a system run by bots ?
Why would giving influence to 99.8% of steemians not be a good idea?