This article is going to be the start of a multi-part series detailing how some things people are focusing upon are not issues and will be resolved within a couple years all on their own.
There is a major shift taking place on STEEM and I am not sure many are aware of the ramifications. Power is being shifted around which is making some of the areas of discussion mute. Nevertheless, people continue to focus upon the now so I figured I would explain what I see.
Part of being a technologist/futurist is to realize where things will be in 5-10 years. Of course, this is not exact and many factors come into play. That said, we can see general trends along with pace of advancement to begin to estimate what is going to occur. For this reason, a great many of the problems that are debated today will be non-issues in a decade.
On STEEM, we have the same thing. Each month I post a report about the shift in SP that is taking place. We are now seeing something amazing taking place.
I chose @tribesteemup as my example because this really epitomizes what I believe is happening.
What is @tribesteemup you ask?
I will summarize it as such: it is an application of love.
@tribesteemup is a voting block that rewards the spread of love, positive outlook, natural cures, and spiritual matters. It not only upvotes these topics but it also engages in the spreading of love through the curation.
How is this the future of STEEM and what does it have to do with current issues?
Here is the voting chart over the last month for this account.
@tribesteemup has 9300 SP in their account. This makes this account a Dolphin. However, there is a bigger point here. This account votes like a Whale since it was delegated 1M SP. So, even those this is a Dolphin account it is behaving like a Whale.
As the voting chart above shows, @tribesteemup does not self upvote. And what is one of the biggest complaints on STEEM? That the Whales don't vote for anyone but themselves (or circle vote). Here we see an account that is spreading the SP around.
This is why I call it an application of love. It is helping to usher in the Age of Abundance.
Another one that is doing the same thing is @fulltimegeek's bot brigade. For those who are not aware, this was an Orca who took 300K SP and opened up 100 Minnow accounts with 3K apiece. This is an automated upvoting system which votes 10x per day for a total of 1K 100% upvotes. These bots do not post so there are zero self upvotes. Yet we have 1K votes going out per day at roughly 18 cents. This equates to $180.00 in upvotes a day from this one individual that is spread out to hundreds of Steemians.
Neither of these examples are platforms in the sense there is something they do other than spread upvotes for participation.
There are other applications that are doing something similar with the votes although they are platforms. I will use some that I mention recently.
@steemhunt is a Dolphin with 15K SP. This app votes like a Whale with 1.7M SP delegated.
@actifit is a Minnow with 1190 SP; votes like an Orca with 110K SP delegated.
@dlike is a Minnow with 530SP, votes like a Dolphin with 9300 SP delegated.
All of these have very few self upvotes (under 2%).
As for some of the others:
@dtube: Orca 70K SP; votes Whale 2.2M DSP
@dlive: Orca 63K SP: votes Whale 2M+ DSP
@dsound: Dolphin 35K SP: votes Whale 980K DSP
@busy.pay: Orca 51K SP: votes Whale 500K DSP
Once again, these platforms spread the votes around to people using their platform with little self upvoting.
Take @actifit: this account gave out 168 upvotes for those who posted at the 10K movement level. Each vote was worth roughly $.33 apiece. These upvotes went to average Steemians who are not the heavy hitters on the blockchain. A big difference from the $.02 that many smaller accounts mention receiving for their posts.
There are 36 Whales on the STEEM blockchain right now according to @arcange.
https://steemit.com/cn/@arcange/steemit-statistics-20180831-cn
Yet here, off the top of my head, I came up with 6 accounts that have Whale voting power AND are voting content across a broad spectrum of users. This is somewhere around 8.5M SP in voting power. I am sure there are many more accounts that are doing something similar: passing a lot of votes around while voting at a much higher level because of the delegations they received.
There is another application that will be coming online in the next few months called 1UP. This is a project by @flauwy. The sole purpose of this application is to provide communities with a SMT through which they can reward quality content. This is an additional bonus that goes with each upvote. Hence, content creators have a way to make even more money on a post since they will not only receive 1UP tokens but STEEM.
And do not think for a second that this initiative will not seek out delegation to make the upvotes from the account even more powerful. That is one of the primary means to enrich the community.
Which brings up the final point: where do you think a lot of the delegation comes from?
Many initiatives are paying out Smart Media Tokens in exchange for delegated SP. Obviously, the ones who can take advantage of this are the larger accounts with SP. So what do you think happens when larger accounts are tying up SP in projects such as I just mentioned that upvote users on the platform? That voting power gets spread out.
One final question: what do you think will be happening when, instead of 5 applications, there are 150? Or 500? Or 1000?
Over the next couple of days I will be putting up a couple articles with numbers that bear out what I think the answer to these questions might be. Certainly, the trend is established.
Ultimately, SP is shifting via delegation from the larger accounts to applications that are upvoting a broader range of content creators. This will only expand as more applications are released on the STEEM blockchain. As it does, we will see more accounts accumulating SP and people begin to use these new apps.
Once again we see, it is all in the applications.
If you found this article informative, please give it an upvote and resteem.
I really need to get around to learning more about @tribesteemup and maybe delegate a bit to the account.
I think it might be time for another one of your posts about how much SP is required to get into top percentages..I think you did 1%, 5% and 10%.
Another good one, @taskmaster4450. Yes, this is the way we grow by helping each other. @kennyskitchen - the person in charge - does a great job of helping others focus on building Steemit and creating opportunities for others. Thank oyu for sharing this information! Always good to see your posts!
I'm glad you posted about @tribesteemup. I hadn't heard of it. It sounds like a great initiative worth checking out. I'm definitely going to do that.
Sometimes I see some great authors getting upvoted by the fulltime bot brigade and I wonder how I myself can get noticed on occasion.
I have actifit on my phone and I occasionally post from busy.
I've been keeping my eye on 1up as well.
Originally I was just trying to post fiction and make my way as a good author, but honestly that's really not enough here. You need to be community engaged in every aspect possible.
Quality is great, but community makes us thrive.
Do you know if that number is going up or down from a 2 year historic perspective ?
You are stealing my thunder over the next couple days @itstime.
But they are down from when I joined last August.
LOL it is okay. I like your thinking. You are following along obviously.
This also demonstrates the adaptation that takes place with delegation as we can continue to monitor and govern who we delegate to and/or follow and upvote without losing control. I continue to manually curate to ensure that I provide my upvotes to the content I would like to see more of. While I may remain focused in one area, I am trying to broaden the content I curate as I have seen the potential of the creativity of many users globally.
That's one way of looking at it, however I unfollowed all but 2 accounts in the tribesteemup group as I got sick of seeing people getting $10 upvotes for mediocre content.
Posted using Partiko Android
All but two accounts? That seems a quite exaggerated to say that 2 out of 200+ members of TSU are producing quality content. I'm not saying your experience isn't real, but perhaps you only had a small sample of the entire community at large and have thus made a generalization for the rest? Or perhaps your idea of what is and isn't quality content vastly differs from that which the admins of TSU believe?
There's just too much wishy washiness for my liking. I prefer critical stuff with data... along with the positivity, not just the positivity.
It may now be more than 2 if it's expanded in the last few months.
Posted using Partiko Android
There aren't a ton of want to be authors in the world. We should consider upvoting engagement vs. Quality.
Quality is subjective and if we limit ourselves to Quality, we will not have many users.
Frankly I would rather have a million engaged users than 10 "Authors".
Is it not possible that by supporting content of any quality that we may lose the purity of the content to Mainstream Rap and Flat Earth peddling?
How does the preservation of content that allows us to grow in healthy ways and the wide acceptance of content meld. What is the management mechanism for this.
If there is a management mechanism, how does everyone remain happy with that regulatory structure when it imposes upon some.
I have used Steemit on and off for 3 years. Lost accounts and restarted.. Been into it and given up on it. Now I'm feeling very engaged, thanks to... @kennyskitchen for holding True to the community, on and off Steemit.
Now that I am exploring it and learning about it more, I find many content creators of various skills and diverse methods of expression. I find at least a few interesting creations by different people every day. I wonder if the one who thinks there are limited quality creators here is simply shielding their eyes from the great works being provided...
Final thought:
Some will be happy with any decision, while others will not.
Agreed.
I don't think that it is a bad thing to keep our quality at a certain level if we want to but I don't think that should be a requirement. Sometimes I just like seeing what someone is up to even if they only posted a picture and a few words. If I like what I see, I don't feel bad spending an upvote on it even if it is just a little post.
Plus, few here are formally trained to write and we all have our own skill levels so it is a bit unfair to hold amateurs to professional standards.
On that note I must remember to publisice @dustsweeper more - it encourages just that.. I wish there was a way of knowing who uses it so I could spread my voted out a bit more!
Posted using Partiko Android
Let me know if my content is quality please.
also...
@worldistro
Infinite Blessings!
Smart Media Tokens are a thing now? I thought that project was still in development (I guess maybe it still is...? Either way, this is progress/ good news :)
This was interesting.
Earthtribe just started too. It supports the same values as tribesteemup and is connected with them somehow (idk how things work behind the scenes). It is still establishing itself but before long I think it will be up there too.
I agree that this type of stuff has the potental to help solve some of the issues we see here.
Yes earthtribe and tsu are connected.
We are ALLL Connected
All my relations = we the people
Thank you so much for shedding more light on the @tribesteemup community! We have also started a TSU affiliate account, @earthtribe, that we are currently growing for more membership space in our community, and also @freedomtribe, that is an open community that has similar values (whom TSU also supports, and will be supporting even further soon, let me know if you want for info on that). We seek to unite conscious content supporters under one banner, to support deserving content creators across the board, from many different angles simultaneously.
The whole self-voting thing seems to be a heavily debated topic. Reading this makes me never want to self-vote @earthtribe again (only once so far). However, when dealing with your personal account, we have always held the philosophy that if you do not support your own content 100%, then why are you creating it? To me a 100% self-vote on your own account means you 100% support and agree with what you published. But this is all interpretation, I will create an article about this subject to open up some discourse. How do you feel about self-voting personal, non-whale accounts, provided that the self-votes are less than 20% of the total voting activity for that account?
Self-Vote.
If you do not... Why?
I don't understand the no self voting concept...
If you don't help yourself, how can you help others.
Unless its an issue of how the algorithms work to spread the post or valuate currency for the group.
Many poeple on here feel you should only vote on other's articles and not you own, to 100% support the community, however I, and apparently many others as well, feel that using one or two of your daily votes every day on yourself is appropriate, provided you have created something worth your up-vote. The finer points of the "you shouldn't self vote" argument comes from whales exclusively self voting, which actually does hurt the system quite a bit.
The complexities of these things is the number 1 inhibitor to mass adoption.
Facebook basically does everything for you from a to z. That is why our fabulous fluoride-ridden zombie population cannot easily transfer to a platform like this. It needs to be easier to monetize content without control systems that do not actually check and balance the system to not skew in any direction based on the actions of large holders. If we allow a few to have the power to alter the course for the many with the click of a button... what have we succeeded in but creating a less functional system that promotes keeping the small man small and the big man big.
I see potential, but that is all. Steemit, I support your potential.
Also, anarchy means sovereign identity. If I do not wish to identify with the group perception, or if I disagree with it, and my value decreases, where is the evolutionary margin? We are fighting oppression with new systems, right? Well... If we are ignoring the contrast, the minority and the individual, we will get the revolving door and wind up back in a system of (few benefit off the many).
I'd like to know the system works to prevent this... and if it doesn't than it is no better.
Human error will always always always exist. Give power to another, he will potentially abuse it. Give power to a group, some may abuse it. Give power to the entire population, some will abuse it. Only when we do not correct the abuse and redirect our energy does it make any real harm.
regulation vs free market
distributing the capacity to wield currency amongst humans is done by creating containers that will provide a natural ecosystem for some and a unproductive/unconducive environment to others. Some will succeed in climbing Everest and others will succeed in diving the mariana trench. What is the beneficial party of Steemit?
Is it content creators?
Is it thought leaders?
I will agree that something should be done about so few people on this platform holding too much power, especially since many of the whales are not supporting the community effectively, and mostly just themselves instead. I know the Steemit system is far from perfect (as most systems are), however I am proud to be a part of it, since it has many more positive aspects than negative, and we actually have more of a voice for change than other platforms. There is a huge public outcry that has been circling Steemit for several weeks now, calling for @ned to give us an update as to what is occurring with the platform. There is also a major shift taking place in this time of low activity, that is giving certain conscious support sub-groups like @tribesteemup way more power on the platform. If more significant delegations were received from whales to subsidiary groups of TSU like @earthtribe, @freedomtribe, and @teamgood, the Steemit system would work more in the favor of the people who work hard to create a better world and platform.
Aho! Then may it be so!
Indeed my friend. Sorry I got slammed with trimming out of nowhere, I will call you as soon as I get a free moment brother... my bad.
Hi @taskmaster4450!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation! Your UA account score is currently 5.507 which ranks you at #524 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has risen 6 places in the last three days (Your UA has improved by 0.000).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 204 contributions, your post is ranked at #16.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
there are quite a few people around that are spreading the love around and that is very encouraging. I think @streetstyle is one of them as well.
Brother,
I felt it appropriate that I let you know that I'm ill and that I ask that you take back your delegation as my activity here is very limited until my recovery. I don't want your steem to go to waste. I thank you very much for your delegation and support. I'll endevour to check in as frequently as I can. Peace to you.