You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Be Careful, Steem!

in #steem7 years ago

Cheeky question: Does that implicate 'No money, no talking?'

Of course not.

One thing people rarely talk about wrt the Steem ecosystem is that the very nature of the long tail means that most people posting content will not earn much money. It's our job as curators and voters to make sure that that long tail is as fat as possible, but we'll never repeal basic human nature. Catering to the lowest common denominator will always yield the most profit.

It really seems that the original vision of Steem has made room for a completely new one.

Do we agree on that direction? Are we fine with a two-tiered community? Do we want a community that is clearly divided into rich and poor? Is that our vision of Steem?

I think you've totally misunderstood what is going on here. It's not reasonable to conflate stake-weighted voting, which was indeed part of the initial design, with a two-tiered system. No guarantees were ever built into the protocol that anyone would earn money for their content. In terms of payouts, the golden rule still applies - s/he who has the gold makes the rules. This has been codified in the Steem platform since it launched. If anything, the switch to linear rewards to fatten the long tail further advances an egalitarian angle, yet you're spinning a narrative here that the platform has "moved away" from some diverse vision, when in fact steps have been taken explicitly to address the tyranny of the majority.

The best thing about Steem is not the rewards. It's that with little or no stake, you or anyone can post something that will be preserved for all time, available for all who are interested to read. It has fuck-all to do with rewards or money. Don't be distracted by the money, or the tagline, or the payouts. This is a platform that gives everyone a voice.

Sort:  

That's your recommendation, seriously? 'Don't be distracted by the money.'
Money talks - but don't be distracted by the money
Ehm....

I didn't conflate stake-weighted voting and a two-tiered system, I rather identified a direct correlation between both. Less than 1% of the Steem users decide on more than 90% of the voting power which definitely leads to a two-tiered system deviding the community into those who have influence and those who don't.

Linear rewards have considerably contributed to a better distribution of rewards (end of the value added chain), that's undoubted. Still that didn't address the source of the problem (starting point of the chain): ensuring the equality of opportunity for everybody who joins the platform and is willing to contribute.

What's your take on the sweat equity principle defined in the Steem white paper? Shouldn't we take that too seriously either - like the money?

Exactly. Some of the gentlemen in this thread are forgetting that Steem obtains value from proof-of-brain. No proof-of-brain, no value. No value, no archiving in the long run. No archiving in the long run, no voice in the long run.

The issue is that to have a visible voice here, you need content and stake, or content and have somebody with stake curate. That would work if the history of the platform was a bit different.

(For those talking about voice, ignoring rewards, etc . . . take note that even the founder, Ned, thinks the trending quality is lacking.)

Another important adding, thank you @tibra!
I'm glad this statement is at the top of the thread now :)

This it what the Steem white paper says:

All forms of capital are equally valuable. This means that those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash. This is the sweat equity principle and is a concept that prior cryptocurrencies have often had trouble providing to more than a few dozen individuals.

We're not seeing much of that in reality. But there are lots of new projects in the pipeline that might bring the needed solutions, just thinking about SMT Oracles for instance.

I didn't conflate stake-weighted voting and a two-tiered system, I rather identified a direct correlation between both. Less than 1% of the Steem users decide on more than 90% of the voting power which definitely leads to a two-tiered system deviding the community into those who have influence and those who don't.

You're drawing an arbitrary line at 90% to define your "haves" and "have nots" of influence. Turns out that you can make a post and actually exert influence (not rewards - influence) with your ideas with almost no SP at all.

The partition you describe is nonexistent.

Turns out that you can make a post and actually exert influence (not rewards - influence) with your ideas with almost no SP at all.

Who is 'you' in this case? Me? I have been here for 18 months, have almost 7K followers and rep 72, I don't believe you're comparing my account with the majority?

Influence requires visibility, and the design of Steem absorbes low-rated content like a sponge and makes it disappear. I often have trouble in finding my own content. If you don't remember the title or at least parts of it, it's impossible to find it - unless you wanna scroll down your feed a couple of hours.

What do you think why the user retention is at 12% right now? Do people need to lower their expectations? Is that the whole secret?

Influence requires visibility, and the design of Steem absorbes low-rated content like a sponge and makes it disappear.

Quite the opposite; the design of Steem makes all posts persist forever, regardless of editing, votes, or flags. It is explicitly designed so that nothing can disappear. This is a blatantly false statement.

What do you think why the user retention is at 12% right now?

Where did you get that figure? It's not accurate. Spreading misinformation helps no one.

You're addressing the wrong person. If you scrolled down this thread you'd see that it wasn't me who came up with these numbers.

hi @sneak - I tend not to spread inaccurate information, and I am not the only one that has reported on retention figures. Lol at times 12% seem generous. Sure from those that registered last feb the retention is only 6%
https://steemit.com/steemit/@paulag/if-you-joined-steemit-in-february-2017-then

And now... silence...:-)

Thanks for providing the detailed numbers @paulag!

You were pretty right, @sneak! My numbers were not accurate. The retention is even worse: https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@paulag/retention-rates-on-steemit-steemit-business-intelligence

The next time you decide to critize people, better do your homework.

Have you seen the latest EOS performance by the way?

Good luck!

@sneak I think the bigger problem is that some whales aren't actually using their curation power to fatten this tail.
When you have a voting weight of over 2M SP you'd expect the voting power to be much lower on a regular basis.
dtube.JPG

But instead, you just see fat votes on some content creators, rather than more votes across the whole cross-section of users. The rich are getting richer.

As far as the long tail goes, we are very long tail as very few posts even have enough quality to reach the Top 10 in Google Search results anyway - https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@just2random/steemit-vs-medium-vs-quora-competitive-analysis

@surfermarly Maybe the remuneration is just a reflection of the quality of writing. And the most used tag on Steemit is photography, so maybe they don't like writing anyway.

Everyone has the freedom to say as they please, but only the community can deem it's worth. And those whale graphs are misleading, not all whales in those graphs are active curators anyway. Maybe I need do some meaningful analysis on this.

The lacking delegation policies have been criticized already a couple of times, and you perfecly showed the reason why.

Asher @abh12345 has pulished an interesting article about that recently, analyzing the voting behaviour of @curie, @dtube and @utopian-io: https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@abh12345/voting-analysis-is-curie-still-the-best-community-support-account

As long as the voting power is in hands of few we need them to curate more towards that long tail.

A more detailed analysis on that would be definitely appreciated. I'd love to read it!

Thanks @surfermarly for the mention!

If you can rustle up some high level details (accounts, comparisons, data types), I'd be happy to take a look. :D

@just2random was the one who proposed providing more data :-)
The more information I have about this blockchain the less I enjoy participating.

There was a case a few days ago, a brand-new user got 4 videos in a row, including the #introduceyourself one, upvoted by Dtube.

But in this case, she is no insta or YT superstar. Just a normal gal. Then, many whales upvoted, not sure if because of the huge possible reward, or some other shady reasons. New to steem, knew already how to format properly and even use some advanced html tools, claimed she was a crypto enthusiast since long, but when asked to show her previous social media work on the subject, she replied, that there is none and that Steem will be her place to share on cryptos.

We need a clear picture on what is going on, looks like whales are bating on crews to bring "new faces" to the platform, look organic on the outside, but are rotten on the inside. I lost a 10% of my upcoming rewards, not due to flags, but to the re-distribution of the reward pool. I guess the new apps having 2M SP are making a difference.

Same as always, rich people gets richer at our expense. At the end blockchain or not, crypto so far is not proving to be any new financial revolution or access for the poorer to wealth. Just take a look at Forbes new crypto billionaires, none of them was poor before.

We still can make a difference, we have people working to make it more equal, truly giving tools to minnows to improve themselves, and much more. There is still hope.

@ned if EOS can have an eternal ICO creating billions out of thin air, what stops us from implementing SMTs and expand the reward pool? Is it not that the main concern for many users?

Prime example. @dtube hits full votes on the big guns who are migrating over from Youtube, bu the new user posting their first ever video gets sweet FA. Just look at the trending feed...all bigshot 'social media influencers' (yawn) bragging about their followers and getting hundreds of dollars in upvotes from assorted whales. It stinks.

Just as I said! Money or NONE ....I have a silent Or loud Voice and everything I write about is meant to be for the future generations, for the children of my children’s children......They will know what I feel, think and what music I listened to, what makes me sad or happy and where I ate my favourite food.
Those thoughts kept me going without complaining much.
The rewards in SBD/Steem a wonderful bonus I also enjoy!
Follow4follow people? Not with me because I don’t care!
I am HERE on my “Mammasitta” mission, telling MY Story.......
Making HIStory!

If the attention was completely irrelevant for you, why would you pay voting bots then to get more of it? Just saw your post on the trending page and then had a quick look at your wallet :-)

For us it was much easier since we joined early. New users have very few chances to ever reach the reputation we have. It's rather about being heard and seen than being paid here.

She doesn't say it's irrelevant. Her main motive seems to be the fact that her voice and words are stored but there also is the part:

The rewards in SBD/Steem a wonderful bonus I also enjoy!

You're great at repeating other people's statements, what's your take though?

You asked why she uses upvote bots if the money is irrelevant to her. I cited where she says it's not irrelevant.

I thought that citation would answer you question why she does use them ;)

No, it doesn't answer my question, but thanks.

Marly!
You sound very “snappy”!
It’s a wellknown human reaction to be “judge-mental” without knowing the whole story. At least you could give me the chance, before you jump and scratching eyes!
You do sound like an idealist but I think you are not.
You enjoy the money as much as we all do. It’s an investment for me for my pension if I am lucky.

“Use Steemit as you wish!
I do the same!”
That’s a part of Dan’s vision.

BTW, I am really glad to end up with such huge mistake sending my SBD to a bot.

It opened my eyes!

I'm sorry to hear that you felt personally attacked by my question.

I am actually amazed what can happen, when you would like to try out bots, to see how others end up in the trending page, I have never seen anyways.
I planned to send 5 SBD, to see what happens but simply made a huuuuge mistake (while in bed with strepthroat) forwarded my entire funds at once.
I asked @appreciator to return my funds and was told this >>>>

C5C2E0A7-AE99-4C67-AC95-C3B016C28EC5.jpeg

You can go back on my wallet and will see that I rarley boost my posts. My minnow followers are the most loyal ones and I am “proud” of their votes and 15 USD payout otherwise dear @surfermarly
Guess what, I never ever powered down and rarly had one day, without posting.
I started to move SBD to bittrex a little while ago, when it was up at 7-10. Usually I powered up and up and more up.

You just judged me by 1 ! only one article Mar Ly! I don’t think you do know me enough

I didn't judge, just asked :-) I only want to learn, that's all.

I know that you made a mistake sending your whole amount of SBD, I read the article and comments. I hope they'll send it back to you!!!

Is it complacent to know that new users may not reach your success story? I hope the answer is not, otherwise your whole posts makes no sense to me.

@mammasita read this post on why bid-bots make no sense if you expect to make a profit on them. link

Pls kindly upvote me @kemkem. Thanks

Just took a look on your account @sneak. I would be satisfied with your earnings. Since money isn't that important to you, I am sure we can swap accounts? :-)

Haha! Don't be distracted by the money @brainnipper!!! :-D