I have been on Steemit for nearly a year putting a lot of time and effort into growing my blog and my overall post earnings. My longer term vision and intention has always been to have a blog that helps me to stay sharp and allows me to earn some monthly income while having an enjoyable social experience.
While I am not going to complain, it has been quite the challenge also because what I generally post about (Sports Betting) is quite the niche subject not everyone is interested in. My main frustration as a dolphin is that is is very hard to outperform the 10x self upvote amount in a way that makes it actually worth all the time and effort.
Getting the earnings on my daily post to a point where they reach a 10x self upvote amount mainly relies on a Self-upvoting it, Upvotes for Upvotes, Group Initiatives that need delegation and daily upvotes and selling some of my own upvotes to pay for upvotes in return. (I still do quite some selfless upvoting on posts and comments to support the community without asking anything in return. See Monthly Curatuon, ... )
The smaller "Guaranteed" Daily Upvotes have made a world of difference to me and growing those is what I slowly try to do. I am highly grateful for all the projects that are out there (@qurator |@make-a-whale | @steembasicincome | ...) but at the same time also a bit disappointed since they lost a lot of their value compared to when I joined an now even seem to have become a losing proposition.
There are several models for support groups that give daily upvotes. While it is not my intention to criticize them and I do see them all having great aspects, I can't help to see some issues when it comes down to returns, scalability and sustainability.
@Qurator
This project that is run with good intentions aims to support members who bring quality content to steemit with daily upvotes. They have done a great job in that but could use some help and delegation from the devs to better support their members. The registration fee increased over time (they do give higher upvotes the first month which pays back part of it) and added an option for a monthly paid model since many members gave them minimum support. The old way of upvoting their posts 7 times each week while delegating some SP no longer provides any real value, this could be temporarly because they heavily rely on delegation which has taken a hit with the low steem price.Current Upvote Tier 5 = 0.41$ (~0.31$ After Curation)
Price = Upvote qurator Daily Post for 0.038$ (after curation)+ 300SP delegation (0.32$ daily self-upvote worth)Daily Upvote Received = 0.31$
Daily Upvote Cost =0.358$Adding the fact you need to set your auto-vote to at least 0.06$ not to drop below the minimum and the times you miss getting an upvote when not making a daily post, the numbers are even a bit worse without counting the subscription price that was paid. (again I hope this is a temporary thing which will get fixed when the price of Steem increases)
@make-a-whale
This is a closed group of steemians who make quality posts and have at least 500SP. I highly enjoyed being part of their project but the value also seems to have dropped below a 10x self-upvote. Getting a 0.36$ daily upvote (0.27$ after curation) in return of delegating 300SP and upvoting their daily posts also goes below a 10x self-upvote right now.Make-a-whale upvote = 0.36$ (0.27$ after curation) (in return 300SP delegation + upvote the make-a-whale post each day)300SP self upvote alone = 0.32$ ...
@steembasicincome
I absolutely love the social idea behind this project that allows you to sponsor other steemians. I do have a lot of questions when it comes down to the fundamental numbers and returns though. Money that comes in is used to buy delegation that has to support an ever growing amount of members. The fact that many of them don't make a daily post makes it all hold up for now. Purely as an investment this is a terrible deal, as a way to give something away and support someone it's very much suited. The 1 STEEM that is paid for each SBI share (+sponsorship) itself can somewhat be considered lost even though I believe it can be transferred or recovered partially.I now have 21 steembasicincome shares which gives a daily 2% upvote good for a 0.07$ daily upvote.
(Please let me know if I am drastically wrong about the above numbers and I will be happy to apologise and change them !)
The idea behind upvoteshares is to take all the good aspects of the above projects and combine them in a way that is scalable and very transparent.
+ @qurator = Minimum quality requirements
+ @make-a-whale = Minimum SP Requirements + Limited Spots
+ @steembasicincome = Sponsorship & No Post Upvote Requirements
The idea is to have an account that always has at least 10% more SP compared to the STEEM that has been sent to it. (Imagine Steembasicincome where the received Steem get permanently Powered Up instead of used to buy delegation and 10% extra SP is being added for each share.) The system works in levels that always increase in price based on the SP in the account. This makes everyone who steps in get the same minimum return while it always increases for existing shareholders. Once a certain SP level is reached, a limited amount of shares in the program become available. The numbers are all predetermined so what you get can be calculated at any given time. Every share will also come along with the ability to support a minnow without this overly having an influence on the return.
The basic idea is that each level opens up once the account reaches a certain SP amount and makes 50 shares available. There will be multiple mechanics to increase the value of the account and slowly give everyone an ever increasing minimum return. The money to give it value will come from my own investment (I get slightly increased curation in return) and the members that give up on Steemit. Shareholders will remain owner of the STEEM their shares represent and they can always be sold on the market.
(These numbers will be explained in detail in a later post!)
For as far as I can see there is one main vulnerability in the entire setup which is the single point of failure it brings along with the one who holds the private key. I have no intention whatsoever to scam anyone and this project will always stay rather small scale. I will always make this potential problem very clear to everyone who gets involved.
Hi, as a @qurator Team member I want to sincerely wish you the best of luck with this project!
Just a little remark on your analysis over our project though... We didn't "switch to a monthly paid model" as you stated, we just added that option to all the other ones we already had going on. We are proudly one of the most flexible projects around. Here you can see all the options available to our members and future members, in order to achieve any of our Tiers:
About the fee price... We did increase it indeed, but you also forgot to mention that we are offering Tier 2 for the first 30 days (which roughly pays off the initial investment) and right now, after we reach the 1500th member, we will be offering 30 days on Tier 4 to everyone who jumps on board.
And here are our updated Tier values:
About us providing any real value.. I'll leave this here so you, and others, can judge for themselves. This is a mere example and it's what you have gotten from @qurator vs what you have contributed to the project since the 1st of January till today. It can be checked here on this link by anyone interested :
Cheers!
Thanks for the reply and the feedback @brumest , just no make sure I'm not complaining and actually understand the situation better now where the delegation and low steem price has a big negative influence beyond @qurators control. I actually re-wrote the @qurator part and hope it is more representative. (feel free to let me know if you think anything else should be changed!)
@Qurator
This project that is run with good intentions aims to support members who bring quality content to steemit with daily upvotes. They have done a great job in that but could use some help and delegation from the devs to better support their members. The registration fee increased over time (they do give higher upvotes the first month which pays back part of it) and added an option for a monthly paid model since many members gave them minimum support. The old way of upvoting their posts 7 times each week while delegating some SP no longer provides any real value, this could be temporarly because they heavily rely on delegation which has taken a hit with the low steem price.This is actually a comparison that can not be made because because it does not include the 300SP I have leased to @qurator for a long time. Again I'm not complaining, the only thing I say is that right now at current steem price, 0.358$ gives back around 0.31$ on a daily basis for upvoting the daily @qurator post for 0.05$ and leasing 300SP.
You didn't have to change anything on what you wrote.
You brought up the value issue, so those are the raw values right there. There's no way to deny it. Your 300SP is included in it and allowing you to get bigger upvotes, that you wouldn't be getting otherwise.
Besides that, keep in mind that a month ago, or so, our values were at least the double (and were HUGE in the first quarter of the year, and will be again). When Steem price drops we all drop with it. Something you will understand when the right time comes, like we all did.
And with all due respect, your argument and comparison with the 10x selfvote is not really an argument.
(Just to make clear, I'm just trying to learn and understand and don't claim to be right.)
ok, the way I wrote that was a bit confusing (to make a real comparison the 300SP total upvote value also needs to be included in the 27.28$), obviously the 300SP is included in the 86.45$ which is the reason it can't be used as an example.
Why not ? Pure theoretically to me it's one of the comparison that makes the most sense.
(I'm not saying someone should go upvote themselves 10x though.)
Keep in mind that members may post at different frequencies, and decisions you make around that will make it more (or less) attractive for different demographics. The worst possible setup will be for the upvote per post to be exactly the same for everyone, with no limitation on frequency. @qurator limits upvote frequency to once daily, @steembasicincome adjust upvote value based on post frequency and upvotes every post (except for in pool 7). I'm less familiar with @make-a-whale, but it looks like they also rate-limit to once daily.
Of course with once daily, your core demographic is people who post at least once per day. As you pointed at correctly about SBI, the people that don't post help boost the returns for those who do, but we calculate on a weekly frequency. If you calculate on a daily frequency, then it is exacerbated even further, with people who may post only a couple of times a week incidentally passing their benefits to people that post every day. At your price points, you will likely only attract people that post every day. Would be interesting to see how the actual vote compares to a similar level of investment in SBI, but there isn't enough information here to do that.
I do like the solution you came up with for growth dilution, as there are some limitations to the solution we came up with (as seen by the fact that our target multiplier has dropped over time). We considered that, but we wanted to keep SBI accessible to everyone, even in a rising STEEM price regime.
Good luck with your project, and let us know if you want to discuss any of the points, since we do have a little experience here.
Thanks for the reply @steembasicincome, you are right about the upvote value based on average amount of posts you are offering which is really good for people who don't want to post daily. I've thought about offering manual weekly upvotes but I really want to be able to manage it and know something like this can take up a huge amount of time. This is one of the reasons I will keep it rather small scale just as an experiment to test the model.
It is really a problem for Steemit that 10x self upvoting is most of the time is the most profitable thing to do, even a project like qurator now feels like using a bidbot where you take a guaranteed loss at the higher tiers when delegating.
One of the things I want to test is if it is possible to get curation rewards that are actually worth it with a model like this. It is one of the things I might overestimate along with the pace the account can potentually grow.I will soon post a total break down of the numbers which I welcome everyone to scrutinised as much as possible.
If I ever need advice I'll make sure to contact you on discord. I have my own project channel on discord hosted by the SBC where I post some updates and can be contacted (@costanza#2335 )
Isn't very logical that 10* self voting is the most profitable? Just imagine everyone does that......
For bigger accounts it most of the time is the most profitable thing to do at least short term. If you want to beat the 10x daily self upvote you always need even bigger accounts to upvote you. That's the reasons many of the whales turned into upvote bid bots. Steemit just needs a much better distribution. Whales support mainly dolphins, dolphings support minnows and minnows support plankton. To make that happen we need a system where curation does not get punished like it is now which is one of the things I actually try to test out with this model.
Don't forget that it's impossible that everyone wins. I mean if one account grows explosively that means others don't. Someone needs to pay for it.
Actually in theory it is possible, Steemit owns a lot of SP that can be used to reward proper use of Steemit instead of purely selfish use. that way everyone can theoretically win and get more than a 10x self-upvote back. That's just theory though
Is Steemit now using all that SP for self upvotes?
But even then if you win some, someone else will lose some. There is no concept where money is for free.
Sounds interesting and inviting. I admit it's too early for me to understand all the numbers. It's also obvious that that you've put a lot of time and thinking in the concept.
The question is - how do I participate as a sponsor?
Thanks ervin-lemark, the numbers will be broken down in a later post and I hope to find a way to explain it so everyone can understand. (or debunk them for all I know)
I've also set you up with a test share for the next couple weeks before the project starts off.
To participate, 50 shares will become available soon and once they are distributed the registration closes again to the point where the next level in account SP is reached where 50 more shares become available. There will always be at least 2 week in between levels. The way I will likely do it is to make a post where a request to get shares can be done. There will be some minimum requirements and I will mainly be looking for people whith the good steemit mindset. Maybe in time let existing sharholders have a vote on who can get in and who not.
Hello and thanks for your reply and explanation and for the test share :)
I will follow your posts and the development.
Your approach and initiative can bring fresh and powerful wind in the sails of Steem members and communities. Bravo!
hi @constanza I saw your post due to @fullcoverbetting resteeming it.
I find all the numbers in these types of things difficult to get my head around but will be following along with interest.
I'm impressed that @steembasicincome and @qurator have commented with their point of view on it.
Is 10 times self voting the most profitable thing for everyone or do you need an account of a certain value for that to be the case?
Looking forward to hearing more about your project. 😊
Thanks @gillianpearce, I will make a post soon on the numbers and will try to make it as easy and clear as possible.
The 10x self upvote in theory being the most profitable thing to do on Steemit increases as your SP grows. To give an extreme example. someone whith 15SP has a ~0.002$ upvote who 10x self-upvotes will actually decrease their earnings since it very much goes against the social aspect of steemit which will get them less upvotes from others (same goes for most accounts). If @steemit want to purely theoretical get more out of their steem power (44Million+) compared to a x10 self vote they would need to receive nearly 10.000$ worth of daily upvotes. So for them a 10x self-upvote would by far be the most profitable thing to do looking at it from a short term profit perspective. Again all purely theoretica, I would never advise anyone to do a 10x self upvote just to be clear.
So the bigger you are the more upvotes you need from even bigger accounts in order to do better than a 10x self upvote. The way I see it, this self-voting is one of the issues this platform really has to fix somehow. Bigger accounts also should have bigger responsibility and care less about their relative return. (I once wrote a post on that. (Relative ve Absolute Steemit Earnings)
The middle class also really needs to grow. These are the number of accounts at each SP level. (picture taken from this post from @beat-the-bookies )
https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmSQTmoweUcS18jkmekekLhH4VJJpfStzJYJyPnQwDbNJ9
The thing that jumps out to me on that table is that 1-5 is bigger than 100-500 @constanza. I wonder why that is?
thanks for the information about the 10x self-voting. It's not something I'm planning to do I'm just trying to get my head around the numbers. But I've been trying to do that for the last 6 months and still struggle with it so I just keep plodding on learning bits here and there! 😊
I assume it is because the range 1k-5k is a lot bigger (4000SP) compares to the 500-1K range (500SP).
Steemit can be quite complicated when it comes down to the number, I'm still learning new things each day after being here for nearly a year.
The long awaited announcement! You do have my support!
Resteemed to give it more attention!
Cheers,
Peter
Tell me once this is open to registration, I would love to join in.
thanks, I will ! I aslo added you with 1 test share in the mean time that will give you a daily upvote from @upvoteshares
Ah, thanks so much. I really appreciate it and I love these kinds of services. Lets see how it goes and lets see how we all can improve it.
Lusterdoom is my alt, posted that from the wrong account.
I'm in the same boat, I really appreciate these kind of services that provide guaranteed upvotes on Steemit which is the reason I came up with this in the first place. I will make a post on the numbers soon and hope it will really get scrutinised as much as possible.
Interesting idea-I might join in when you are ready :)
I expect the project to start in a couple weeks. Still have to make a couple posts to explain everything and make it all clear while sorting out some delegation. I did put you on the list for a test share in the mean time, so you should start getting a daily upvote from @upvoteshares
cool
You should @sames
I had a lot of discussion with @costanza about this project. It is well thought and for sure he is genuine!
interesting, i'll be looking forward to more details and possibly join :)
Thanks for the reply jznsamuel, I plan on doing the post where I break down the numbers today and post it tomorrow. I've also added you to the list for a test share until the point everything is ready to go. Won't make that much of a difference to your post payouts but every bit counts I guess.
This is an interesting project and will surely look out for. I am both fans of qurator and Steem Basic Income and to be honest first time I have heard of a make a whale but then its a limited group so that might be why.
I really think there is potentially a huge demand for these kind of groups and I love them myself, it can be a real chanllenge to get some consistent upvotes when you don't just blog about steemit, crypto or anything else that has a big audience on this platform.
Thanks for the reply, I've also set you up with a test share that will give a daily upvote from the @upvoteshares account until the moment the project really starts off.
We thank you for bringing excellent projects to support our fellow STEEMIANS. Kudos!. Let's increase the power of Steemit together! I hope you follow me. I'm always glad to have a new community with good people! ;)
Thanks jhunferrer, I added you to the @minnowshares account that is on a test run to give out daily upvotes.
The main project will likely have some minimum SP requirements beforeyou can get in while the minnowshares will be used as a way for minnows to be sponsored by the ones who get upvoteshares as a way for them to get daily upvotes and possibly a free upvoteshare over time...
Thank you. Have a great weekend!
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