Let's do an experiment to see what happens if the whales were to stop voting for ONE day.
You all know robinhoodwhale, curie, minnowsunite and those other 'charities'. Why do they exist? Why are they so popular? Because everything is just fine or because there's a problem?
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I think the base of Steemit is to have a decentralised social network. I think it's not about who is on the trending page. Yes it can help, but the basis is to find people you like to talk to and read articles from, as well as discover new articles, right? And have a decentralised social network were no-one owns your content and is not using your data to sell to advertisers.
So IMHO one could just neglect the 'trending' page and move over to 'new', 'hot' or even their own 'feed' so you see articles by people they follow. I mean yes Twitter has trending pages, but do you look on them, or are you interested in what other people you care about post (e.g. follow a hashtag). Or on Reddit, do you check deep buried communities or read the frontpage? If you are into something you just go to the niche community.
Also you could use search to stumble articles about topics which might interest you and discover it that way and start commenting on articles to build a follower base / social graph and/or follow new people you like.
What i try to say is, embrace the fact of having a decentralised social publishing network, instead of the power of the whales to control the trending page... Or is this Steemit all about the money?
regardless of this, for an experiment, this could actually be great fun and interesting to see.
Everybody just needs to chill out, stop worrying about the inequity, which will solve itself as more accounts reach higher steem power. Good freaking cow, it's not that complicated. Free market. Leave it alone.
I agree with the majority of what you're saying. However, if Coke or Pepsi (on our wishlist) someday wants to buy a lot of STEEM to Power up, so they can post Corporate Announcements on here.. we want those types of whales coming in to promote their own stuff. This will buy up a lot of the liquid steem out there.
It's a difficult problem. If it goes to all minnows and dolphins, it can be bad. If it a goes all to whales, it can be bad. We need a self-adjusting vote regulator that dynamically responds to the daily trends. That requires an artificial intelligence module to learn and watch. That may take some time to make I think..
BTW, sorry I saw the post a day later. :(
Yes, using the slider does help. Even for me. If I feel really good about a post, I upvote it 100%. If I'm a little "meh", it's a good post, just it doesn't have the full force behind it, I go to 30%. If I'm on the fence.. I see the value, and think it should be voted, but I don't want to cheerlead it on, I give it 50%
So my mood greatly affects my slider. Each time I slide my slider, I'm kind of waiting for someone to call me out on my decision, which I could qualify each time if they did... but luckily no one does that.. and I don't have to.. :)
The slider is something that may be key, I agree. good post.
Those who are leaving were contributing jack all to begin with in most cases. Attrition is normal. Those that don't meet the demands of the market fall out. Why is that a problem?
It's worth trying out for a day just to see if it makes a difference. If it doesn't, then back to the drawing board, but this platform should not be afraid of experimenting to see what works.
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luminousvisions I have upvoted and followed . I agree that in order to make steemit a successful platform the voting power needs to be in the hands of the many . It seems that on the trending page you see the same people again and again . Some people say well it's because they are exquisite writers . The real reason is because the whales have concentrated their voting power on certain writers . Then all the little minnows follow along to try to get some scraps from clicking upvote . Also if you don't post what they like well forget any money coming your way because they have to upvote you in order to make anything . If those in charge really want this great idea to really succeed then they have to put more power into more hands than just their own . The more diversified the content on this platform the greater the chance for success . I agree your plan is a good start .
Hello luminousvisions just now got back online and yes you may copy/paste it and put it in the post
This came out really well! Let's hope it gets traction!
It's worth a go, Nothing to loose trying it out. Hope the whales read this too
Great idea, would certainly be interesting to see the result of this. Unfortunately, I suspect it will be difficult to convince all the whales to participate in such a coordinated action. But something definitely needs to be done; Steemit is mirroring real life with all the wealth concentrated in the top 1% and the 99% having to protest and try to make their voices heard. What's the point of it all if not to surmount those types of real life problems? Sad to see such a state of affairs transferred into the digital world when there's really no reason it has to be.
Good article, upvoted!
It's 2 days until the hard fork. After Tuesday whales can only vote 5 times a day with full steem power. I expect them to put their voting slider a lot lower after the HF. Hopefully below 10%.
Yes, I agree. Their impact is far to big. I'm curious how it will work out after the hard fork. If whales would vote more than 5 times a day at 100%, each vote will be worth less. So if they don't lower the voting slider the voting system will do it for them.
But the same is true for all minnows so if this change will have a huge impact remains to be seen...
I'd love to see a more even distribution of Steem. Will be interesting to see how much difference the fork makes. I think you need a lot of SP before you get the slider
Cool. I think you need a few thousand SP. I'm a long way off that
It may be a while before I even get to that :)
Please can help and explain this comment in a bit more detail " Which means that each time a whale votes at 100% they have such a massive impact that everybody else's loses 90% of their voting power". I am new to steemit and don't know the technical details but I don't see how this would work. How can the voting power of one user (doesn't matter if small or big player) impact any other users voting power?
The amount of Steem being distributed is fixed. If the whales don't vote their vesting shares are not used. The votes of the minnows would be worth a lot more.
Let's say you and I were the only 2 voters in the field. You vote with 3 Steem Power for post #A and I do not vote. The author of post #A receives all rewards. If I would vote for post #B with 100.000 SP the author of post #B earns almost all of the reward, but #A almost nothing.
Upvoted! That explains my question "The amount of Steem being distributed is fixed. " Thank you, I understand now.
Yes I agree with that as this is how it suppose to work but that doesn't explain that if a whale votes, you, I or anyone else loses there own voting power? My thinking is, If I have a vote value of 1000SP, than my voting power is based on that 1000SP regardless what happens around me. Please don't see my comment as something negative, I just would be very (unpleasant) surprised if it is like you stated. EDIT: penguinpablo answered my question above.
It's not working out the way you thought. Not to mention, just in general, if there are many fewer posts being put up, then shouldn't the average post become more valuable anyway? That's not what's happening though. There are now almost no large payouts, and the smaller payouts have dropped from the 100s or 10s to 1s.
Thanks for your illustrious insite. Have a great day.
Also, my vote is worth the same 3 cents it was before.