This is circular logic. The post must have been good, because it earned a lot of money. And it deserved to earn a lot of money, because it was good. A simple look at the average quality of the top earning posts discredits such an arugment. There have been some good quality posts. But mostly its been spam, catfish, empty CL, and plagarism.
Outsized rewards to a small, select exclusive group of people, who are guaranteed them regardless of post quiality do not inspire higher quality. They inspire lower quality because they encouraged the authors guaranteed the rewards to post regardless of if they have any meaningful content. This phenomenon is called a liquidity trap. The same thing happened with american manufacturers in the 1970s.
Also, i don't think most people object to the outsized rewards. They object to the fact that those rewards are decided by a very few people with a disporportioniate level of influence and franly, what seems like terrible taste and judgement. ANd who gained that influence through a closed premine.
Now you can say its all a matter of taste, but the falling price of steem shows that most people don't share yours and the other whales. The only reason that price is above $1 right now is chinese investment. Judging by their conversation in their tag, theyre pretty disgusted by it too.
This post is a great example. You like the reward system, so your post will get pinned to the front page by those who benefit from it. Those who disagree with you will keep quiet, since youve already threatened reprisals against anyone who posts an alternative view.. Which is all well and clever, but its also exceptionally hamfisted. Its obvious to pretty much everyone.
The ironic thing is that, youre hurting yourself more than anyone else. I gotta wonder how far the currency has to fall before the "elite" on this site start to scratch their head and wonder if they might be doing something wrong.
Mostly their winning was a function of "luck"--the right idea sprang into their mind unconjured, the right whale happened to stumble upon their post and upvote it at a convenient moment, causing others to see it and upvote it also.
Yeah right. and it doesnt strike you as a bit at odds with you theory that it always happens to the same people.
I see you chose to focus only on the Steemit-related portion of my comments. They actually flowed as an afterthought. My post was actually about much bigger societal issues, not Steemit.
But I also see that you have a rather large chip on your shoulder about Steemit. So let me see if I can help you with that.
First, who said anything about a post being "good"? The whole point of my post was that rewards are not based on merit or the quality of the content but rather largely on luck. So there was no "circular logic". Did you even read my post? Try reading it again.
The purpose of Steemit is not to "inspire higher quality". That will be a likely beneficial side effect in some cases, but that's not its reason to be. Stop thinking of it a that way and you'll spare yourself a lot of angst.
"Influence" on Steemit is for sale, just like in the "real world". Anyone with money can have it. As for me, most of my "influence" was acquired with cash, and a fair amount of it. I had no "premine" (and actually, nobody else did either). I believe in the platform, I wanted to have a say in how it develops, so I bought Steem Power. You or anyone can do the same, and by doing so you can also have an outsized voice in the system.
Instead, many came here expecting something for nothing. Or at least for little. They thought they could show up at the party like a "wild and crazy guy", start throwing up a few posts, and reap tons of reward. Well, it doesn't work that way. Steemit is a SOCIAL network. People who know and like each other support each other. Just like in the "real world" it takes a while to make new friends and admirers, but those who make the consistent effort get rewarded. Those who don't, and who wish to rely only on "merit" or "quality" to make their way in the world...well...they have a little tougher time of it. This is no different from the "real world".
So, like in the real world, friendship and familiarity are at least as important as "quality". Remember that and, once again, you'll save yourself a ton of angst.
If the influential people here do in fact have "terrible taste and judgement", as you so smugly suggest, then...you know what? THEY WILL BE THE ONES TO PAY THE HIGHEST PRICE FOR IT. And, that's the beauty of Steemit. The people with "chips in the game" make decisions in proportion to their amount at risk, unlike in the "real world" where it's "heads they win, and tails you lose."
I've never threatened anyone with reprisal for simply disagreeing with me or the rewards system or for offering up a helpful, constructive suggestion. I have threatened people with downvotes who are obviously just trolling--meaning that they are intentionally spreading factually incorrect information (and not just opinions) and/or they are engaging in ad hominem rather than constructive and issue specific related debate.
The currency is doing just fine. It's gone from 20 cents to $2 in a month. The whole thing is still in beta (closer to alpha in some ways). But you're right--if I'm wrong, I will pay a steep price. As it should be.
But...I'm not wrong. Just wait and see.
The "same people" who get consistently upvoted do indeed benefit from "luck". The most extreme type of it. They were fortunate enough to find Steemit early. They invested tons of time into building a strong reputation here. They made friends. They contributed to the various debates. They hung out on Slack.
They took risk and believed in the system at its earliest stages. And as LUCK would have it, the system has taken off. And the contacts and network they built over the last 60 days is paying off for them. There's a ton of luck in that.
... and then you don't look into trending page. You find valueble posts in different categories. And good writers or just decent common sens or sharp mind in the comments.
And then you enjoy the system disregard the money race, the whales, the obvious tricks.
But you already knew that.
This is one of my favorite comments on any Steemit article. The Liquidity Trap is something that I think @dantheman and others involved with the Steemit Project should research. The flip side to whales posting "just to post" is "curating just to curate". I do this all the time. I see a model with nice breasts in the first 30 minutes on active or trending with $12 and 25 votes, and it gets my upvote (and I'm not even straight). I think there are a class or category of post types that have made it to "must-curate" status. (That might be a great tag!)
"Circular logic" is a great way of describing this.
A lot of users are realizing this and are discouraged from sharing their content. It could be argued that we shouldn't focus on the reward, rather, focus on the effort... but simultaneously, isn't one of Steemit's main objectives to reward people for their efforts?
Please read my reply to his comment. There is no "circular logic".
Even if your reply tracked logically, which is does not, its still circular logic. The justification for the payment is the payment itself.
I give you credit for not trying to pretend its based on the quality of your posts, but all youre doing is making the same arugment without the skill part.
Of COURSE the justification for the payment is the payment. That's how "price" is determined in free markets. In a free market, where nobody is compelled to buy or sell, the economic value of something is determined by what people are willing to voluntarily pay for it, or in this case what they are willing to up vote.
You, like many central planners, hypothesize that "value" and "price" are two different things--that something can have a very high price in the market but be of little to no "value", or vice versa.
Respectfully (and I'm not trying to engage in ad hominem here), what you are labeling as "value" or "quality" is just a matter of your subjective preference rather than objective price. And, you're cocksure enough to presume that you're estimation of value or quality is superior to mine or the market's. Such is the arrogance of all central planners.
But, what I don't get about you is that, even if you are right, you're so obviously wrong. By that I mean, even if its true that Steemit whales are currently rewarding crappy content that nobody is interested in and therefore that the platform will fail to attract users in the short term, this does not mean that it will fail in the medium term. (And by the way, there's no shortage of new users in the short term).
For it to fail, several things must be true. First, whales must be both stupid and unwilling to learn from their stupidity (that is, unwilling to change their voting strategy). I see evidence for neither. In fact, whales have take steps to remediate problems like bots, trolls and spam, and the recent reputation system implementation has gone a long way in that regard. Additionally, there's a concerted effort under way among whales to alter their voting strategy to avoid circle jerking and reward a large diversity of content. We are already starting to see the results.
Second, for it to fail, whales must insist on keeping control (and avoid dumping) despite that the platform is failing. In actuality, were the platform failing whales would dump and the coins would move into the hands of, presumably, people with better taste. Different content would be upvoted and new users wold therefore be attracted. Ultimately, the coins will end up in the hands of people who best understand what the public wants.
The only thing that would prevent this would be something superior coming along very soon and establishing a network effect advantage over Steemit. But, even if something like that comes along, it's most likely to be a fork of Steem (meaning that Steem holders would have coins on all such platforms).
Steem and Steemit are both essentially open source. Consequently, they will evolve quickly to meet the public's demand, whatever that may be. Given that, the odds of Steemit failing for the reasons you suggest (stupid whales upvoting crappy content in one giant circle jerk) are extremely unlikely.
Thank you for reiterating, that makes much more sense to me. It's much better to be optimistic. I was just throwing in my two cents (literally, haha).