You say it used to be 30 minutes? I seem to recall that until end of lasst year, when we made a post, we had the choice of setting a self-upvote instantly and I remember being told by those with higher reps that I should not set for a self-upvote, as it means I get the lions share of the curation pool and no whale will ever vote for me if they see I self-upvoted first. Are you telling me that many of the old-timers lied to me?
Also, if that is the excuse, it is a stupid one, since the time rule is known, so all owners of bots only have to adjust them to start at 15 minutes. No, this is just to make it more difficult for human beings, so that the bots of the whales can get the rewards.
How often do people go searching to find out what new posts were made? Do not most of us only look when we have submitted our own post and the page then automatically shows us the latest posts? So, we then see a post we like and want to reward. Our choices are three: either forget about it, or wait 15 minutes or just click an upvote even if it is within the first minute or two?
Till now, I just upvoted and moved on, more interested in helping the poster than getting a tiny share of his reward.
That was fine for as long as I did not think about it. Once I realised this was deliberately done without a real reason, just to ensure I do not wait, as the bots of the whales do, I stopped upvoting all and sundry - excellent, good or bad posts, they are all ignored now.
Multip[ly my reaction by thousands and I am certain it works to the advantage of Steemit and the new posters - who mostly get ignored by the whales, anyway (that was sarcasm, just in case you did not pick it up).
I have asked others and they all say they skip the feed of new posts and only check, now and then, the feed of their followers....so I am right, we have condemned the new posters who have a low sp, since no whale wants to waste many upvotes on non-profitable upvoting of newbies.
I would love to learn that I am wrong - but sadly, logic does support my arguments. A pity, as I genuinely enjoyed the thought that I am helping a number of new posters...
yes previously the 30 minute reverse auction would benefit the author. the benefit would decrease until the 30 minute mark where the curator then gained.
With the 15 minute reverse auction the rewards are burned in decrease amount until the 15 minute mark.
Same auction, just where the rewards were directed changed.
I wanted to be certain that I am not being pigheaded, so I asked all my friendly posters (all are writers or artists or musicians or poets - in other words, they are not crypto experts).
They have told me that as soon as the reward changes to 50 / 50, they are moving elsewhere. It seems I am the only one of them who will keep posting - though all my posts will refuse payments....