Whaling on the Steemit Cartels

I've been having a look at steemit as it is an intriguing idea and investment opportunity given the massive market it has the potential to grow into and potential niches it could foster.

There are potential issues that I can see coming to the fore inhibiting the growth of the platform in the longer term. What really jumped out was the inequality currently in the system between new users and the whales and the potential for those who possess a large amount of steem power to form cartels for their advantage.

When I say cartels I don't mean like this guy...

For example as to what I am getting at this removal of reward raises some questions.

https://steemit.com/steem/@tuck-fheman/steemit-101-timing-is-everything

A high value user, one of the so called whales, has used their contacts within the upper echelons of the steemit community to deprive another user of the potential rewards that their post had generated. To give credit to @tuck-fheman he has done his research and has certainly acted with decent intentions in terms of denying scammers money and trying to uphold the integrity of content posted to the steemit community. Yet whilst these actions may be noble it does raise a perhaps alarming flaw in the system, if a group of whales get together they can bring down a highly upvoted post. It is fair to assume that this will happen again at some point and raises the question of the impact whale brigading could have on the steem ecosystem. At the moment most of the whales are likely true believers in steem and their intentions and actions will be largely positive for the community as in the aforementioned case.

Alternativey and much more disconcerting is that there is scope in the future for a group of whales acting in bad faith to take down a posts just to see how far they can use their power to influence the system. Since brigading can be used quite effectively by high value users to block rewards this leads one to the permutation that it could also be used as a mechanism to suppress the visibility of content which effectively means censorship by the back door and "free" speech essentially being vulernable to the whims of a steemit elite. Solutions to such a scenario should be proactive rather reactive as by that point the platform's credibility would already have taken a substantial hit in a space like this. This could particularly be an issue in the future where there are disputes over which way the platforms goes. This is crypto so I'll await the inevitable shitstorm :)

The distibution of Steem reinforces how vulnerable the platfrom could be to this since 216 or 0.43% of accounts control 88% of the value. Talk about the 1%...this isn't even the half a percent!

https://steemd.com/distribution

As the user base grows it is inevitable that the platform will become more commercialised. This should not be seen as solely a bad thing as many positives can arise from this too. However to focus on the negative we are already seeing formal cartels of users such as this where higher value users piggyback off each others steem power for profit.

https://steemit.com/craigrant/@craig-grant/grow-your-steem-power-with-the-steem-power-mining-pool-by-craig-grant

This behaviour will only be further incentivised as the market capitalisation of the platform grows and the profits available become larger. These cartels are well positioned to suppress competition and manipulate the system for their own advantage.

One of the more amusing aspects of this particular cartel is that one user has made sums of over $10 dollars by doing Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V jobs on celebrity articles...on one level fair play I suppose but it really is taking the piss.

https://steemit.com/sex/@yuliana/i-m-a-sex-addict
http://www.tmz.com/2016/08/03/ozzy-osbourne-sex-addiction-michelle-pugh-affair/

https://steemit.com/news/@yuliana/dna-test-proves-that-prince-did-have-a-secret-bi-racial-son-and-his-entire-fortune-goes-to-this-one-man
http://mtonews.com/mto-shocker-dna-test-proves-prince-secret-bi-racial-son-entire-fortune-goes-one-man/

Granted this is not much money but it is a lot more than the vast majority of posts recieve and shows the value of a couple of upvotes from cartel members. It's not unforeseeable these cartels will increase in size and influence as the potential reward increases. The long term effects this could have after the initial growth of the platform remains to be seen and could see users end up leaving the platform as quickly as they joined it.

Either way I'll stick around and see which way this ship goes... I might even invest...