RE: Time To Wake Up and Fix Steem's Voting Problem
My point is to have those with good amounts of SP spend more time curating than creating posts to vote themselves
This is a great point Kevin. Users on Steem are all doing a little bit of everything right now. With stronger incentives it seems way better for whales to have the incentive of truly good curation, which simply doesnt exist now outside of the truest believers.
I refuse to buy votes and I know that I'm in the minority by doing so. I even left Sndbox because I felt like their votes were making up too high a percentage of my earnings. As a small fish who posts 3-4 times per day I'm giving up at least 50% of potential earnings, "against my own interest," kinda like what you describe.
Something has to change because I know most people will simply buy votes if they can do so.
You have my support on this, I will resteem to spread awareness.
I fully support your stance on not buying votes. I give less vote to those who do
Are you against Google Adsense, Facebook Marketing, Instagram Marketing and Traditional Marketing as well?
I'm not crazy about them. What I liked about steemit was the lack of ads
Well yes me too. But we still have to be realistic that money needs to be made somehow and that advertising is not going away. Advertising creates jobs. People need jobs. Coca-cola spend 3 billion dollars per year on advertising.
I don’t think vote trading markets are anything wrong, and it’s impossible for it to go away. It’s just that by acknowledging and removing the trolley problem in voting, things may hopefully get better. I think it’s a very real problem, and those with a good amount of skin in the game know it, instead of brushing it aside. The Vsauce video is quite revealing about what people aspire to be and what they actually do in the end. The problem shouldn’t even be there to begin with, and it’s avoidable in designing Steem.
I think we agree.
To be clear any form of vote "trading" where people can directly purchase votes which give them more money than they spend, seems indisinguishable from a scam to me. Perhaps my economics are not strong enough to see how it isn't a scam, but, then again, when it smells like a duck... IDK how steem can survive if people can "buy money" in such a direct way.
If you mean that there are other forms of vote trading / organization, which are inevitable and ok, and may generate substantial profits for some, I agree that would be fine and good.
You and me both, brother! It is tempting and I believe I do feel the same tension as does @kevinwong to not be the "sucker".
Our type sacrifices to make this platform better yet we are the ones whose relative voting influence will dimish to the likes of rampant self-voters or vote sellers.
It seems a bit hopeless at times which is why my optimism for Steem's sustainability has been on a downward trend. Let's get some Elliot waves on that. I know a guy. ;)
But in all seriousness...
I hope something drastic changes so hope in this platform is rekindled and economic incentives are modified where being the biggest asshole doesn't equal the biggest payout.
Vote selling is fine as long as the votes goes towards quality content.
That, my friend, is the problem. It very often doesn't and a lot of bot owners are either too greedy or lazy to unvote. Prime example. Guy earned 57 posting single screenshots from coinmarketcap.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jrbuenavista/bitcoin-btc-usd8-144-98-usd#@postpromoter/re-jrbuenavista-bitcoin-btc-usd8-144-98-usd-20180518t094900696z
The above is one I coordinated to get zeroed.
But for every one I am successful in flagging away rewards, there are scores that make it through to payout.
Their payouts have been going to the exchange too. They don't care about Steem. They care about making an easy lick and bot owners hook it up.
I can run a script against this guy's blog and tell you exactly what the ROI was before we shut em down. We've managed this for a few.
Vote selling is too easy to abuse; therefore, I will not participate as a matter of principle.
The way I see it. If the author or contributor is adding value to Steem, we ought to upvote them based on that merit not because they paid us Steem/SBD.
Good curation requires effort but has so much potential. If it is possible, that is where I believe the economic incentive should be aligned.
Vote selling can be abused for sure. But it won't if you develop good role models of many selfless people. Advertising is not going away. Since there are many that wants to get in front of peoples eyes so they will find a way to do it. It's great that people take action when something seem unfair. We will be seeing a lot of that in the future since everything is now more transparent and we can see what is going on.
@phoninf
If vote selling were simply advertising, I would have no problem with it but it's a bit more nuanced than that.
I like @freebornangel's idea for people declining rewards if it is just promotion or advertising (it was on Discord). He also mentioned a burn bot which I think would be an interesting idea.
We know it won't happen though. People aren't merely interested in advertising but also maximizing SP accumulation as stated in the OP.
Never understood the point with decline rewards. An ecosystem need people both being able to give and receive. Vote selling is clearly advertising. What else would it be? I like to hear nuanced ideas more in depth.
Reward pool rape.
The reward pool was created to reward content creation, any rewards taken from it in any way except getting voted to you for content you created is abuse, imo.
What are you talking about? It's still is getting put on content?
Good call!