"There are relatively trivially simple mechanisms that can prevent profiteering that can be written in the code. They are not because profiteering is intentionally the foundation of Steem."
That's deep, something I won't try to argue. It seems the simple fix as far as bid bots go is to radically change trending. You'd still have people stake weighting to try and make a profit, but they'll have one less reason to do it. Here is one idea I had for changing trending, it's not a fix, but it breaks it in a different way that's less vote value-oriented.
It's possible it might not fix the problem at all, it might make it worse in different ways.. but have a look. I thought I was onto something at the time, but it could probably be just as easily thwarted with bot armies. Ultimately, it might not get fixed until you can have some kind of AI automated curation judging content. By the time we're capable of doing that successfully, we'll also have authors writing content with AI so... there is that.
As far as markets are concerned, I see them as self-organizing entities that evolve naturally as the basis of the sum of total human behavior. This behavior I'm speaking of is self-interest. So for example, I don't know if you've ever seen ipencil? It shows the market complexity for a super simple product. However, this super simple product is very complex.
In the end, we could judge the morality of the market. We could point and say that the people who harvest the rubber for the pencil are not getting fairly compensated. On the other hand, we could realize that a living wage in South America is far different from one in America. I think almost any business who does business with a country overseas might be seen as profiteers in your mind? Maybe this is true, but you've got to ask yourself how much are you willing to pay for a pencil?
The market comes off as a complex system (or organism) which builds itself from the ground up. It does this on a deal-by-deal basis that market theorists cannot comprehend on a whole. That said, if we get some Bernie Sanders type telling us that south Americans ought to be paid 15 dollars an hour to harvest rubber, then a pencil might be something only his ass can afford. Soon enough, nobody will buy it because it wouldn't be prudent.
To tinker with this system is like genetic editing and often results in unforeseen consequences. However, steem is an unnatural organism from the start. Not only that, but it has rules that conflict with human morality.
(1.) It says you can move rewards from the reward pool based on steem power.
(2.) It says you can punish people from removing rewards from the reward pool based on steem power.
(3.) It says you can reward posts based on steem power.
(4.) It says you can punish posts based on steem power.
Steem tries to emulate a market with an unnatural rule set that unnecessarily puts people in Garrett Hardin's lifeboat metaphor. Seeing as how Steem says all these rules are legitimate functions of the blockchain, it means we can't call stake weighting or downvoting theft. This means by using the system, no matter how we view it, we have to either abandon our morality or choose to create our own.
I recognize what they're doing here, and it's an interesting experiment, but if libra copies this model and rolls it out on facebook, it'll be the most divisive and destructive thing this planet has ever seen. It's hard to imagine Facebook will copy this model exactly because right now they're allegedly trying to get rid of upvotes for "user health." But honestly, if they wanted to fuck up the entire population of the world, they'd roll out steem's model as it is now, makes some popcorn and watch it burn to the ground. Only then will the majority of steemians come to realize that these contradicting rule sets are a terrible idea for social interaction.
Couple thoughts: Do we respect the right of the individual based on their investment in the currency, or the rights of the individual based on the quality of their content?
I think I can respect both by not downvoting, but in order to do this. I cannot look at the reward pool and feel entitled to steem that my SP isn't heavy enough to move.
Or do we flip from individual mode into collective mode and think in terms of collective rights? That's where things start to get really spooky if you ask me. That's where shit like eminent domain comes into play and people start to get crushed because "collective".
