RE: Whales Having Power is Good: Power is an Incentive to Buy and Hold on to STEEM Power + What Incentives Would YOU Like to See - An Open Discussion
Upvoted for visibility. I am unsure though that the complaints you're referring to are actually about whales having too much power. I more often see, and would be guilty of compaining about what they do with that power. Obviously it is their power to do what they want with. That's what being a whale is. That doesn't mean that nobody should be complaining or whining as many here like to call it. The fact is when your answer to a complaint is to stop complaining what you are saying is they have a choice.
Either
- Stop complaining and power up
or - Stop complaining and power down
Now those whales with power who choose how to use their power can take some of these complaints as constructive criticism and realise that as more and more orcas and dolphins power down their investment becomes worth less. Or they can pretend that they aren't at least a little bit responsible for users being dissatisfied and leaving them in the dark with a coin that is hoarded by the few and therefore not worth very much.
If you consider those 2 choices - power up or down - and how much a user would be required to power up if they wanted to make a positive influence (in opposition to the negative) well taking your money while it's still worth something makes a lot of sense. In the end it's those who refuse to listen to the whining who are shooting themselves and their investment in the foot.
If you think the complaints are only coming from a few you should take note of how many users didn't bother complaining and just left instead by checking the stats on alexa.com.
Whiners like myself have legitimate concerns. When power is being abused we lose confidence. It's up to the power holders whether they care or not.
Edit : I realise abuse is a strong word. What I mean is to use it in ways that will continue to disatisfy so many people that steem and steemit are stunted from growth.
Well, I don't remember ever personally attacking you. I disagree with a lot of what you say, but correct me if I'm wrong in saying that I haven't insulted you, etc.
So, I'll say this in the nicest way possible: a lot of people probably have a problem with the same thing I'm kinda having a problem right now, which is the "victim" tone of your posts. That could be the reason why people call it "whining". It's the tone of you carrying around the weight of the world on your shoulders. Just relax a little. It's okay.
That said, this is an open forum.
A lot of users have left Steemit, this is something that has been acknowledged. And it could be true that the reasons you outlined are the reasons for these people leaving.
However, we can't really know that without interviewing the people who have left the platform. We can only assume and speculate.
Since we don't know the exact reason for the user retention, everybody can fill the void with whatever they want; if someone doesn't like bots, it's easy for that person to say that bots are the reason people left.
Who's to say that it wasn't a GUI issue? Perhaps there wasn't enough good content for the user, or perhaps the user just couldn't find any due to the noise to signal ratio?
All speculation.
Also, it should be said that Steemit will never be for everyone. Even if it hits mainstream, it will never be for everyone. With or without the bots it will take work to find success in Steemit as a new user. I think we should work on making Steemit a good, nice community for people even without the monetary incentives, but that's another story. I'm all for it, though. That's why I created this post/discussion.
Do you have something that shows that these users left because of the bots, by the way?
Also, I'm currently not getting notifications for replies for some reason.
I don't either and never said anything in my comment to entice that statement.
I'm not playing the victim here. I'm quite satisfied with the rewards I get for my posts. My concerns are with onboarding and user retention because if those issues are being overlooked then they will only escalate and I would have wasted my time here because my concerns are not about my rewards for my posts. My concerns are about the future of this blockchain, steem as a currency and the social media aspect for onboarding the masses. If I'm losing confidence frankly I think it's better for me to say so rather than leave without filling out the survey you're currently asking for. This is that interview.
Please don't read this in the whiney tone from your imagination. I'm stating facts now. You complain that I compain. Then you say it's an open forum, meaning I should complain if I want to. Do you see your contradiction?
You have a tendency to read things that are not written. I said that the power holders should probably take a little bit of responsibility for the satisfaction of the users. I did not outline multiple reasons users are leaving, though I do know there are lots of reasons. I never claimed any one reason to be the reason.
Again, I never said "users are leaving because of the bots". Please read posts and comments twice before replying.
A wonderful display of WYSIWYG - thank you @beanz for the rational and straight forward logic you present - the people who point out flaws are not necessarily whiners - it seems that any hint of non-conformity to the 'I love steemit' mantra is met with passive aggression. I can see that you love steemit, as do I; though it is in beta, it could be better, as I have said a few times now.
I have been critical of Steemit in the past, even made an entire review post, and only received positive feedback.
But it's obviously important that voicing critical opinions of Steemit won't be shunned by the community.
Are you suggesting a diminishing return? Or may I feel that you have some empathy with my expression? The latter I hope - it would be nice to feel one can have a voice in "social" media
Sorry, I was unclear. First, I talked about the stuff I've read from you in general. Then I said this is an open forum, so you're allowed to say whatever you want. That was my point. It was actually designed as the opposite of an attack.
What is it that you would like to see? Right now. Can you give a concise "beanz's roadmap"?
Sure :)
But obviously the road map would have nothing to do with the whales and how they use their power. - as said I have no control of that and would only hope they take user retention more seriously.
Beanz over enthusiastic roadmap lol
...I won't be too disappointed if most of this is not on the map though lol.
Some sort of "gamification" of new user rewarding could be a good thing. Any ideas? Maybe there could be an additional reward for upvoting a new low rep user, whose post becomes successful. But it should be designed in such a way that it wouldn't be abused.
If all new users just get upvoted, it again goes against the idea of what a lot of people view Steemit as.
But I do agree that some sort of encouragement for new users could be a good thing. It just can't bee "free rewards just because you're new".
I've interviewed 4 of my friends who joined then left Steemit for good. Here were their reasons:
The answer to 1, 3, and 4 is don't play the comparison game. The trending list is usually a good way to find new accounts to follow. With enough good posters you can then look at the personal feed more and more.
This is a problem that can be somewhat addressed in user interface but it's also going to be a perpetual filter on types of people that play the comparison game and get overly upset at the perception of unfairness.