Today, I was chatting with @abh12345 from @steemcommunity about what I see is of supreme importance, building a middle class of Stake holders. There are several reasons I see this as important but the main ones are that they will have the ability to demand and support much smaller niches and spiral their distribution out accordingly. People talk a lot about the importance of distribution and it is very important for stability and decentralized governance.
Previously, I had the feeling that the middle class we need is a large group of accounts that hold between 30-60,000 SP. I said to someone yesterday, that with just 100 community-oriented middle-class, this place would look completely different.
I don't know where this post is going to go now and I am a little annoyed so, there is potential for offence and blunt words....
@abh12345 pulled a number for the accounts that held between 50-60,000 SP. Take a guess at the number.
58
Yes, 58. 1 million accounts and that is the number. A few moments ago I asked him kindly(ish) to pull a more comprehensive list. Ready?
< 100 - = 980776
100-500 = 13026
500-1k = 3442
1-5 = 4275
5-10 = 776
10-20 = 511
20-30 = 191
30-40 = 88
40-50 = 57
50-60 = 58
60-70 = 35
70-80 = 20
80-90 = 19
90-100 = 18
100k+ = 147
Do you know what that means? There are 9637 accounts with more than 500 SP in their wallet and THEY ARE ALL 1 percenters in regards to total Steemit accounts. Yes, you there with that 10 cent vote, you are a 1 percenter too.
Now of course, not all of the 1M+ accounts is active (or human) but, many of those accounts in the 1 percent are held by the same people. Many of them are alts.
This post was originally going to be about the small accounts that claim to be community focused and powering up. Community is about a future position and if you aren't consistently powering up, your current position isn't one of community. That sounds harsh and I understand that there are various life situations but just look at those numbers.
I have been here since January 2017 and sit at the lower end of the 20,000 SP range. I have worked very hard but, with prices of Steem what they once were, the levels of earnings people were getting and the recent SBD Spikes, there could be a great deal more in the 1000-10,000 range, but there isn't. Perhaps if there were, this place would look a lot healthier than relying on 1000 accounts to cater for every other.
Once upon a time it used to be that networking well with the smallest accounts would be monetarily valuable as they would eventually grow into larger accounts but, that is no longer true as we can see from the numbers. So few of those accounts powered up. There was something like 20,000 active accounts when I started here. That covers everyone from 100 SP up. What happened? Why did So few power up?
I mean fuck. Really?
Take out the alts, the circlejerks, the self-maximizers from 5000 SP and up and what the hell is left? Are you one of the community talkers who could have powered up and balanced the books a little? Pulled some of the weight of the community that has supported you? Harsh? I don't think so anymore. There could be several more thousand in the 5 - 10,000 SP range but, they powered out however, there is still a great deal of entitlement and outspokenness on how this place should be more community focused. I am here, where are you?
We look to the top as they are the ones with stake but just seriously look at those numbers, if you have been here a year or more and haven't been able to earn 500 SP considering SBD had a ratio as high as 11:1 in December, you are seriously doing something wrong. But, there is less than 10,000 accounts above 500 SP....
How many accounts have had @curie knock on their post, @ocd, @utopian-io or @blocktrades tap on their shoulder? How many have had @steemstem support them, or random votes from @acidyo, @kpine, @thejohalfiles or @glitterfart types over the last 2 years yet... so few powered up and kept it there, so few thought that being part of the future of Steemit meant being able to support others to be part of Steemit.
Perhaps there should be another two indicator next to rep:
- Percentage of earnings Powered up
- Currently powering down
Why if I am a community orientated person would I support people who are not community orientated people at this early stage of the platform when I think that a healthy middle class is what is needed? Why would I continue to care for the thousands of others and struggle to grow myself if so few are willing to do similar? If I had taken advantage fully I would be in the 35-50,000 SP range, not the 20. Played for a fool...
I had an idea once upon a time about Steemit Loans where Steemit would give loans to community nodes who will in turn use it to build themselves and distribute to others and when at a resonable size, the loan would be cutoff and delegated to another. For example on a 100,000 SP delegation:
- 3 x 100% self-votes per day
- 7 x 100% value to the community
- 50% of liquids earned must be powered up (there must be some available to use)
- No voting on alt accounts
- A board to investigate actions (stop circlejerks etc)
This could also include safety net things like, identification for loan recipients and of course, any abuse of the delegation means immediate cut.
@abh12345 said that monitoring this could be largely automatized and done similarly to his engagement leagues.
Ready to build a middle class @ned? 10,000,000 SP gets 100 delegates and if chosen well, will become the most transformational force the community aspect of this site will ever have seen or is likely to see. With SMTs coming, this would build a foundation of very strong internal support. I can name 10 people off the top of my head who I can near guarantee would use that delegation well without abusing it. @ned? Still there?
With an extra 200 dollars to distribute each day, each of the 100 could effectively put 4 new 500+ every month. That is 400 new ones per month. They could support the community leaders and projects that are struggling to help the lower reaches again. They become serious nodes that distribute their 7 million of the vests each day to the community and grow with the other 3 so that soon, they can support unaided.
You wanted distribution? There it is. Oh, with 10 million SP being distributed into the community for free, the bidbots are going to have to adjust their numbers a little too. Not many commuity orientated people would need to buy votes to survive as the 100 will find and help them soon enough.
If there is ever a way to use the ninja-mined stake, it is to develop the community. Not going to happen though is it?
This place needs an engaged middle-class that can support the others higher and lower but, it just isn't happening fast enough. I have seen some numbers from @taskmaster4450 about distribution and the platform working as it should but, with the numbers of accounts in the middle reaches so low, 1-2 percent growth is relatively insignificant. It would be different if there were 5000 accounts over 10,000 but there are not, there are barely 1000 and 147 of them are whales who could also have alts that are orcas and dolphins.
I don't know what this all means and I don't expect anything to suddenly change or any significant number of people to actually care but, I do still. So, I am now going to have to rethink my rethink of my strategy to develop a healthier community. I know that if people aren't powering up something though, they aren't thinking about the community at all. That is fine, that is their path to walk and we must all live with the consequences.
There is a positive to all of this though. Ready?
There are a lot more 1 percenters here than people believed and pretty much anyone over 100 SP is a 10 percenter. Steem wealthy! Congratulations. But really, what it also indicates is if this place does go mainstream and onboarding happens at the level expected, everyone here right now has the potential to be in the 1 percent of wealth on the platform. Sure, not everyone is going to be a Steem Billionaire equivalent but, there can be many, many thousands of millionaires.
But, they have to power up and pull their weight.
Looking at these numbers makes me feel pretty useless here...
Rant over.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I am not sure how to comment on this post without coming across as a hypocrite. The post is absolutely fine but the problem lies with me.
Whatever little Steem and SBD is there in my Wallet has been generated here on the platform. Now the question of pwering up comes in play - the thing is that I have waiting for the whole month to power up but ratio of exchange for SBD and Steem is not coming back to 1:1. In fact its moving farther away. It looks like I missed the boat in early April and it might come back ever again.
I want to power up desperately but even 1 steem matter's a lot and maybe I'll wait another month to get a better ratio and if not, then I have no idea where do I go from here. My original plane was to get 500SP mark in 2018 itself (thus bringing myself closer to 1 percentile)
The ratio is all part of the game and it may never get back to one or, it could go back to 11:1 and you will be really happy. Hard to say and Haejin doesn't know either... ;)
There are many different positions held here and it is up to each but, there are people complaining about community who have been here longer than I, earned more than I, yet hold under 500 SP in their accounts. Everyone has their path and challenges they face, me included.
Isn't a bit misleading to use all 1 million accounts? Surely 80% must be bots haha. We would need a real human calculation to check the real rankings. I agree with you that a strong middle class is exactly what is needed. They should have the most influence on the platform. And many people love to be middle class. Since it's safe and has a large audience.
there are something like 200k unique people estimated you are right. which means everyone from 500 SP is in the top 5% and the 1 percent is from about ~3000 SP up. However, those bot/alt accounts hold SP and vote too and the blockchain doesn't differentiate them.
Whatever way you loook at it, there shouldn't be more whales and orcas than middle class and it isn't because there are too many whales or orcas.
That sounds better. Yes you are right. How do you bridge the gap that is an interesting question. Clearly you can see that the big accounts can feel threatened and they decide to not work on the middle class. Also know some others that get paranoid when you start to talk about building a middle class. Clearly people with 100s of troll accounts that provides 0 value in building up a community but just wants to cash out.
But I think that the larger accounts if they see a middle class truly being developed that they would help out a lot. Since that is in their best interest. But I'm sure we can see a solid middle class in maybe a year because I can see that the whales relax back a bit and doesn't take up too much room. I think they just want to see something that is really inspiring. That means the smaller accounts will have to sacrifice a bit for some time.
200k unique users?
How does this match the 127k from arcange post?
just an estimate. both are.
I doubt it that it will come back to the ratio 1:1.
Yes there is lot less SBD than Steem, 50 mil SBD compared to 273 mil Steem. But when the SMTs comes out, they need the Steem for their bandwith and will not care about the SBD. So my guess is that SBD will drop to its orginal plan and go back to $1!
I hope it does go back to one (after a massive spike :D). Yes, there is going to be pressures coming and the people who think it is hard to earn now haven't really understood what is expected to arrive.
They indeed have no clue.
If I take a look at the cryptomarket I can already predict that there will come a decline in the number of posts!
And like you write they couldn’t be more wring!
These days people want everything instantly and want what everybody else have, without knowing how much effort or investment was needed to achieve this.
I could envy your wallet and want it also but than it is up to me to do something!
While I don envy it, it encourages me that it is possible. It is more like a motivation than jealousy!
I am in the same boat . However I will wait and hold. I will not take anything out so I don't think there is anything wrong with that . when the ratio hits 1-1 then power up and with all the saved SBD hopefully will be a nice power up
I used to be a waiter, but then I was kind of schooled/educated by a bigger steemian, he did not care about the ratio, he got SBD, he powered it up. I do the same now, and view it as the, (I guess) old school method of dollar cost averaging. The more SP, the more curation reward, the more vote power, the more potential earnings. But then again, I do not know very much at all about cryptocurrencies, and how they really work.
The only way to grow and have an impact here is to power up or have money to buy in . As ones SP grows so does the earning potential and help others to make this a great platform .
I have only been involved in this for a couple months so I spend a lot of time catching up on knowledge . I missed the boat years ago when I could not get any help in investing with the little I had . That little would have changed my life . lesson learned .
Like taraskp said, there are a few times that SBD bought a lot of steem, and thee are times like now when it does not. And like everitt told me, if you want to make money on steem, you need to have SP to vote, the more the better. Right now you SBD might only buy you say 2 steem, in a month it might still only buy you two steem, or it might buy you 5 steem, not even god knows how much it will buy then. But during that month that 2 steem is working for you, not sitting idle earning nothing, growing nothing. If you are going to hold it, I don't know how often they pay interest in the saving account part but maybe look into that, Of course if you need funds right away, I think it takes 3 days to with draw from your savings account.
I'll wait for another month and hope that maybe we'll see a better exchange rate before that.
(Sorry for an incredible amount of typos and grammatical errors in my original comment. Forgot to edit them before posting)
I am sitting here hoping too .
I can see you have never seen any of my post ROFL your good !
I was hesitant to vote you to the top without Taraz' permission but since they've already done it you can have one from me too. I looked at your account a while back and thought it was quite good; I hope you will stick around.
Thanks man! I plan to stick around here for a good long while (hopefully not a like parasite).
Glad for your support and apologies for so many typos in the original comment.
This is one of the reasons why I talk to the helpienauts weekly, attempting to preach the importance of powering up, of thinking long term and not so much of the now.
As you say, so many get a curie... make a post or two after that with little success and then, they power down sell it all and call it done.
This little experiment of ours is not for everyone, I get that, but I tend to think that its also a lack of culture, meaning the right culture. The community culture, the "we are in this together" ethos that "real life" seems to have lost.
But... this is good, good message to put out there and if it offends someone, then that someone needs to get off the internet. I hear its full of opinions.
That's it right there and something I know has been discussed on the Curie discord:
As someone who has been Curied twice so far it is great. It's a rewarding jolt and certainly does motivate you to continue writing great content. But after the Curie you have to use bots to get more eyes on your posts.
People are more focused on creating content and few actually go out and support other writers. I think we need more Curie like groups backed by some whales or middle class accounts that continually curate the content, reward great posts and inspire more writers to step up the quality of their posts.
That's my uneducated opinion anyway.
This is a social platform, it isn't good enough to just write great content. I know, that is what I tried for the first 8 months (not saying my content is great but it isn't the worst at least). What helped me was learning about the system and building/joining a network of people looking long. I am not the biggest or fastest growing but, I have been consistent.
I have always wondered why more people don't post in a social way on Steemit like they do on facebook as it would be a lot easier to develop a following of friends and family who would certainly upvote your postings on a consistent basis. I have found that it is difficult to develop a "following" unless you have an area of expertise that people who you don't know find of value. It seems as though the blogs/vlogs/comments on Steemit are either very good or totally useless. Your rant today was a very good one as I have enjoyed reading all of the comments/discussions that it has generated.
The reason is that unless ypur friends and family buy in, they have very little value and the content on Facebook isn't seen as hlding a high value so attracting voters willing to consistently support it is hard.
Everyone has unique perspectives on things, use yours.
re: friends and family
I can see your point in that it would probably be fairly hard to get family and friends to buy in as the crypto exchanges can be somewhat intimidating as well as doing transactions in something other than dollars can be confusing at best. Then you would have to convince them to buy at least 100-200 sp just to have a 2-4 cent upvote, yeah I can see why it's not likely to happen. Most of them already think that I'm not very smart for investing in the crypto's as it is (clearly I don't have that same opinion, I like to think of it as being an early mover for once in my life).
re: unique perspectives on things, use yours.
Thanks. I currently have settled in on posting about things going on in my life and if people find some of my postings interesting/entertaining/of value and upvote occasionally, hey great. At first I got discouraged as you would put a lot of work into a posting and no one would upvote it or you would only get a penny or two. I've since then learned not to worry about it. I was having a discussion yesterday with @glenalbrethsen in regards to his post "RE: Want To Grow? Make Meaningful Comments And More Of Them" and he made a very pertinent comment to this... "The bottom line is, the more you get out there, the more people see you interacting, the more people you will get to know and the more likely some of them will follow, autovote, or consistently engage with you." Seems like pretty sound advise to me.
On a separate note, how do you copy and paste in other people's comments the way you do. I like it.
I take the same view. I have 'waited to see' too many times.
You mean the quotes like this?
(>)arrow right + text
just remove the ( ) brackets and it looks like this:
Yep, if they aren't powering some up, they aren't thinking long. everyone who earns here can power up a little...
I am going to change my approach to it all and start really thinking long and doing what I can to grow and support other long thinkers.
I power up not by selling SBD in the market but by recycling the SBD in bots - from say 100SBD of bot voting I get maybe 60 SBD back and 20 SP. With the 60 SBD I can promote a subsequent post
Sob! Never got a @curie. I wrote so many posts and all they found to say was that "I'm not properly sourcing my images" ... :(
I would not sweat it my friend, you've done very good for yourself anyways. I think i got it once or twice... its like finding a $20 in an old pair of jeans, but its not a salary!!
:)
It's not about the money. It's about the pride and recognition. I'm a vain person, I long for public displays of respect and admiration!
:-)
OOOhhh!! I get it now!! In that case... I will raise the pitchfork with you my friend... lets go!!!
;)
Hi Taraz. That is not the figures I expected. I am a little red fish at the bottom of the pile but by being involved in the community I know I will be a one percenter sooner than later. it makes sense why people re using bots now as they have no idea how to grow otherwise. There is a total inbalance and basically the middle class is non existent. The platform needs a strong middle class desperately to support the smaller accounts and help them grow. You cannot rely on a system that has literally less than a few hundred to help a few 100 000 grow. The imbalance is suffocating the platform and is the reason why people give up. This is bloody hard work. Enjoyable but hard.
Yep, it has to happen but it isn't happening fast enough and with so few engaged there now, it isn't going to speed up.
The pre-mine situation with STEEM was less than ideal. I do like your idea of the 10 community leaders though. That could really work if you picked the correct people. Or maybe just air drop all mr delegation SP to all active users!
99% will power it down and sell it for 50c
lol - no faith. Still might actually help the distribution. Realistically that is a pipe dream. Steemit inc has a death grip on that account.
there is an unwritten law that it isn't to be used or something like that.
@tarazkp Well I have to honest I did not expect these numbers. I am active on the Steem blockchain and have been converting all my SBD into steem and powering up. I am doing all within my power to get to the Minow level.
My current Steem power is around 238. It could have been more but like written earlier I am running a World Cup Contest, where I do pay out in SBD. So I am putting 50% of my earned SBD to my savings and powering up the other 50%.
I am also active in a community, okay it is sport betting related which is not everybodies cup of tea (@sbcbot). We are trying to unite sports bettor, give them Steem tips and supporting them with upvotes of our bot. Our members do buy upvotes from the bots, but once they are whitelisted by us, we will give them a daily push in the back. This all wouldn't have been possible without the support of a Dolphin! This support is incredibly important for a community. Not only by the power they could spread but also because they know how things work around here!
While I could write that I cam for the money but I am staying for the community is partly true. I really enjoy building our community, thinking about ideas how we can support our members even further and so on. The only problem we are facing right now is that all the members do interact with the founders but not so much with each other! We are still trying to find ways to improve this. Any ideas?
To bad we can't force them :) we can only offer them the platform and encourage them, the rest is up to them.
The World Cup Contest I am hosting also has two purposes, 1. trying to give our community as much exposure as possible and 2. doing something big to put my account on the map (a price pool of 100 SBD really helps :) But also here this wouldn't have been possible without all the sponsors!
Because the more power I will get, the more power I can spread. I am still acting like a dolphin, but I am still a small red fish!
Sorry for the rant from my side, but it appears that you touched a nerve!
I also don't understand why most starters not are powering up in full force!
Cheers,
Peter
There is no issue with it al but if you look at all of the contests run on this platform over the last 2 years and then have a look at those numbers again, it will show that even those who win don't power up. I ma not discouraging you of course and I think what you are doing is really good but, this platform has paid out something like 50 million worth in the last 2 years yet not many seemed to have held.
These numbers are very disappointing considering I know many of the people in each group. I shouldn't, there should be way more.
There should be indeed much more. I am number 501xxx something on the steem ecosystem and if I do look at the stats you are presenting to us, I should not be this high in the rankings. For sure, if you know that I do consider myself a bad writer, so if even I can make something of my Steem account, why can't others?
Well there are several reasons for this. On one side you do have the people who don't trust the system and on the other hand you do have to people who still do believe that it is a quick rich scheme! Expecting a daily of weekly upvote from a whale.
Well I did got my first one a week ago and this stupid Steemian did donate a big part of it to the prize pool.
You are not discouraging me. I do know that there are a lot of contest going on, most participants and there for the quick bucks and probably most of the participants in our contest will be the same. But I already had some friendly banter with some people I did not know before, which is worth all the effort!
What does discourage me the most, is to see how some people vote, following a curation trail blindly, while I do see people around me, trying to make the best out of it, without getting noticed. People are just trowing money out of the window!
I really think that the Steem blockchain is a great idea, they just did underestimate the greed of people.
Besides great articles like yours and some other, interaction is what this eco system really needs! The comment/post ratio is ridiculous low. It is that low we should not be allowed to call steem a social media platform!
@tarazkp
You're right. There's a lot of contest chasers just looking to earn some sbd/steem, but there's a few that use the winnings to power up.
@fullcoverbetting and I, are in the same boat (and the same community 😃). Our accounts are not growing as fast as they used to because we are financing different contests, but I have nothing to complain about. I believe that in general, the good outweighs the bad.
We have success with our community, most members are powering up. We are operating at a loss supporting the promising members and most are responding well. Their engagement is up, the quality of content they produce is up,... They believe in the platform.
You'd be surprised how little investment it takes to encourage someone to take this platform seriously and starts investing effort and time into the community engagement and improving the quality of content. A few kind words, some advice, and a regular upvote is all it takes.
When writing our bot, I left us open to abuse on purpose. A member can tag 10 of his/her posts with the sbc tag in a day and the bot will upvote it all. But we have a rule that you can use the tag just once a day on a sports/betting content only. Do you know how many times the bot got abused?
Not once!
Two times the bot upvoted two posts by the same member in a day because they've made an honest mistake (that they apologized for), but there's not been a single abuse of the bot done on purpose.
Show people that you trust them, support them without asking them to return the favor, and your trust in humanity will get restored 😃
I have an idea :D
This is what I am hoping would happen with the delegation idea but, the ones that receive the delegation need to be above board. That way, they will find how to distribute it well to people who deserve/earn etc.
i am glad you guys are doing this though as I think there is going to be a lot of future in it that will pay off for you.
If you have the ear of the powers to be, this is the guy you can't go wrong with: @costanza
The Sports Betting Community is his brainchild. Take a look at the post he wrote 5 months ago. His support for the promising steemians has just increased since that time.
It already does. Having a vibrant community of like-minded people is worth a lot.
It is pretty amazing how important a community is and how few people treat it with respect. Engagement is nearly all down to the people, not the money.
As told before, I am blessed with some free delegation. But I do know that the people who did delegate the power are taking a close look on my actions! I am doing my utmost best to prove to them that I am worth it :)
The problem we as a community are facing is that our niche really detracts some people. Betting and gambling are still placed in some dark corner, lost of people do it, but few dare to admit it! Being afraid that people will change their mind about them!
But for the more serious ones, there is a lot of comparision between betting, investing and maybe even steem.
For all three counts that don't put more money into then you can loose!
I do think that in the past year more people got into trouble by investing into cryptos than placing bets on sports!
If we would have been a sewing club, it would have been much easier to get some support :)
We do feel that it is important to educate our member to become great Steemians, regardless of the content about which they are writing!
The more niches are available on the platform, the more people would feel at home!
For us it not about making a profit from the community! Otherwise we would have already stopped! Also all power the bots earns is invested back into it! We do like creating and supporting the community. It is great to see something grow!
It is our little baby :)
I think this will change with communities. You guys will be able to have your own and the 'walls' will mean a little more feeling of privacy if tat makes sense.
It does 😁
For once I do want to try to be a front runner in stead of feeling sorry that we didn’t go for it!
And like @beat-the-bookies wrote: if it fails we had a blast and ae gained some friends, which is more valuable than all the steem in the world!
Well @tarazkp still happy with your delegation of SP a while ago. Brought me to a new level and enthusiasm while writing my last posts. 🎉
@fullcoverbetting can you explain what you think why it is wrong following a curation trail?
@guchtere
Remy, well my 2 cents. It is not about good or wrong.
But most people following a curation trail don’t know what they will be voting on. The leader of the trail picks the posts and gets the most curation rewards from it.
Also most members within a curation trail are in there because, probably the curation trail could also upvote their posts, what for some would be like hitting the jackpot!
I know that the idea behind it is genuine, just like the idea behind steem is, they just did underestimate the greed of people.
Just like using an autovoter, it decreases the level of interaction, which for me is utmost important!
I would always prefer a genuine comment above an upvote, but getting both is the max!
I still do all my upvotes manually because I don’t want to upvote every post from an author!
Still I would be trilled and happy if an influencer, like for instance @tarazkp would auto vote me 😁, just like I would do a happy dance when @curie would upvote a post of mine!
I do like my freedom of casting my votes.
Like I wrote in the beginning I don’t judge people who are taking part in a curation trail, it is just not my cup of tea! We all are trying to make the best out of it, here on Steem!
What’s your opinion on it! Do you follow one, which and why if I may ask!
@tarazkp what is your opinion about it?
@fullcoverbetting Thanks for your quick and long reply! Need to get in a daily standup now. Will reply later today.
It happens since majority of humans aren't really content creators. That will say that eventually majority of the Steem will end up in real content creators hands. The passionate ones. Since they see the value more in a community and not just the investor side to it. Clearly the market with Bid Bots will balance itself out eventually especially when it comes to people that has a short term strategy to make some quick cash and then leave to some other place.
Only issue is that below 15 SP it really feels pointless to try to get up to 50 SP haha. If you can make the process more fun and engaging that will surely help. More cool stats for example and cool stuff that people can collect that doesn't have to be real Tokens. Surely the blogging system is not what will drive long term value but it's just here to verify that humans are legit and can create real value. The ones that should have most value is people with a long term Steem strategy that will stay for a longer period.
For me I would have no issue with a price crash since it would probably drive out a lot of the greedy and the ones who are the most passionate can then stay and truly build up a middle class. Would be a bit like building up a city after World War 2. Currently right now it can be a bit problematic to delegate out power since it takes 7 days to get the value back. So there is less incentive to do it. But in the future we will probably have better wealth trickle down systems that will work more effective.
But @tarazkp is right. The should be a broader middle class. Just like in the real world the middle class keeps it going.
If we take a look of the number he did present us, there just below 10K accounts, which do have enough power to support others, projects or communities. Probably at least 10 to 15% are bot related. So that leaves around 8K accounts who can support the rest! All of the other 50K daily active accounts are fighting for their attention, just neglecting each other, which is real pity!
We did see it during mid feb, when the steem price was dropping incredible! Lots of people didn't think that it was worthwhile to continue being active. Well I kept on going, which for me was easier, because the value part is merely a nice side effect! Most of the power I own at the moment did came from those days! People forgot that it was back then much easier to get noticed and to het a share of the reward pool!
Regardless of the price, each day a less than 800K steem is generated!
A price crash is a 2 side cutting knife. Yes a lot of less serious money hungry wolves will leave but also this will hurt some of the investors who really believe in the platform, and the question is how they will react on this!
I also don't understand all the account, which barely have 50 SP, but around 100 SBD. Why did they not convert them into Steem? Those days that SBD had more value then Steem are passed and will probably never come again!
Edited: I did read most of the comments. And I did see lately a lot of post of the quality of posts! The quality of a post can't be determined based on the value of the post but based on the interaction which is going on under the post! The more interaction and the more interaction between the commenters, the better the post is in my opinion!
So based on this, this a one hell of a post! Keep them coming!
Great comment. Yes this is all very accurate. Geeks usually forget how complicated all this is for the average human to get in their head. That is why most people don't power up. It's scary and complicated and there is no help if something goes wrong. And go from 15 SP to 50 SP feels kind of pointless for a beginner.
Also what will massively drive the price of Steem won't be the content but as you say the quality communication between the users of the Steem currency. That will say the more connections you can do the better. The network effect. Every comment is a form of advertising between the users but targeted advertising that is so smooth that it's invincible. It's information that people want. The content is just there to form more connections.
Thx @phoneinf
I do still remember those days. Only been around since the beginning of January. Just like you it appears. I was always trying to take small steps, for to get rid of the delegation from the platform, then getting it up to 50 and so on!
I do hope that at the end of the year I can reach minnow status. That's the goal, we will see how it will end up!
You are right that it is some kind of advertising but it only works if you are genuine. If you are not, you could do more harm then good. We all only have one chance to make a first impression!
So, let me do some advertising :) Feel free to join the world cup contest I am hosting!
It is free and like it should there are no upvote, resteem or follow requirements :)
Well, I never thought I would be ever included in a 1% club... interesting. I have been trying to figure out how to make the biggest impact on the platform, help lift the good content to drowned out the bad, and I’ve realized that one can not do it alone. Imagine what the middle class could do if we pulled together, I never really thought of it that way.... thanks for this.
if you want to make a difference here, you have o be part of a coommunity of people who want to be part of the community.
I agree 100%, I’ve been lucky to find a few.
You need to find people that are truly dedicated for the long term and that has an excellent ability to build up trust, quality relationships and quality communication. The value needs to be streamed to them in a very optimised way. Not too much and not too little. Also we would need a place to see where real discussions are currently going on so you can quickly jump into that place and add real value.
The content will be limitless in the future. The real value will be genuine real care. Because that is very scarce. And something that also will be scarce is our Time and Attention. And building up a quality community will take lots of selflessness and sacrifice and also that we practice to give more value than we are used to give out.
Hopefully Smart Media Tokens will increase the incentive to truly engage in a deeper way. We also have lots of simple content that lack depth where you really can't add anything to it. So it's important that people really take some time and consideration and create something that is of high quality.
i think people really dont understand the importance of SP
if i only knew the things i know now in last december... i would have like 1200 SP hahaha :( but these exchange ratio wont come back so easy...
Steem power is that important that it could even help you to make a live from steemit in long term... if that doesnt makes you wanna power up then what?
People don't think there is a future.
I admit that I've been cashing out. Probably more than I should have done. Some of the times have been due to certain life situations meanwhile other times have been just to have some extra bucks in my pockets when I'm out shopping or whatever. I also had the idea of keeping the SP rewards on Steemit and to cash out the SBD. That way, I'd be able to build my account, even though it would be built slowly.
That being said, I'm currently powering down, and I will do it for 3 weeks in total. Because I need to repay a loan, and it's literally the only option I have. However, if I wouldn't have powered down as much as I did in the past, things would've been different today. Sure, I would probably have been more or less forced to power down either way, but one weeks power down might have been enough. I don't know. And there's no reason to be looking back in the past. What I have done in the past is done and cannot be undone.
Due to the recent power down, I had to pause my @asapers project and that's something I regret and hate, but it cannot be helped. It was something I had to do... But, as soon as my power downs are finished and I've paid back what I owe, I'll reinstate my project once again and I'll also continue to delegate all my Steem Power to others, in an attempt to improve the overall experience on Steemit.
If that makes me a bad minnow, a terrible leader or an awful Steemian is for others to decide. I usually don't take sides, but I stand for my actions.
Sure, I might be able to grow my account in a faster pace if I focused my Steem Power on myself instead of others, but I'd rather pay-it-forward, so others can grow. I truly believe that Steemit will benefit out of actions like that.
Although you had to put the @asapers on hold the @asapers continue to grow stronger everyday. Delegations help but its not what the @asapers are about. And while we aren't in the 1% yet, we will be.
Wait what? Let's not do that. What do you need?
Well, the project in itself is not paused. The awesome individuals I have manually picked are still working and putting in hours of effort to help others to grow and to grow themselves simultaneously. However, I had to cancel my delegations due to my power down, and even though my delegations weren't that much, it definitely reduce the rewards and earnings for everyone. At first the individuals that had the delegations but also the featured authors, as our combined SP doesn't reach the same levels as before.
I delegated a total of 300 SP to the official @asapers account, 200 SP to @lynncoyle1, 100 SP to @mirrors, 200 SP to @insideoutlet, 100 SP to @yogajill, @frankabelle and @shai-hulud. So it was a total delegation of 1100 Steem Power I had to cancel.
We're far from being @ocd or @curie, but we strive to do our part and to do something for others, and we've been doing that successfully for a few months now. We have a discord channel with well-more than 100 users and we've been sharing the rewards with 162 featured authors so far. It's basically just a few cents here and there, but it's more than nothing, and we aim to do more in the future.
OK I kind of looked at this and I'm not going to try to figure out the complicated bits. I can't cover 1100 but I've delegated 500 to @asapers until you can get back to doing it yourself.
Thank you very much @tcpolymath, we appreciate it! :)
That is awesome thank you so much we really appreciate it. I promise to put it to good use. Excited!!!!
We are still going strong @tcpolymath, we are just doing it with less SP, so any delegations would be greatly appreciated.
Holy wall of text :P
As said, everyone has their positions and we all live with them but it can't possibly be that out of the 200,000 estimated real accounts here only 1 % were able to power up.
Even with you powering down... you did power something up too. You have helped others earn and you have helped others actually grow.
My point is that if so many really can't power up because they need it, we are lost globally anyway considering steem is 2 years old and unstable. What happens if it collapses, where do they go then?
Man, I hate debts and I have many so I hope you get yours sorted out. So many times I have struggled through and have been so close to taking some crypto but haven't. Debt sucks and I am getting tired of continually being chased so, this is my attempt to end their hunt and help others stop the debt collectors too.
GL mate.
Honestly, I think people cash out everything because they don't see good enough reasons to power up. Sure, this is a long-shot because this was most likely a problem even before the bid-bots and the vote-sellers, but ever since they arrived, their is basically no need of Steem Power in your own accounts anymore.
Whenever you want to earn, just buy a load of votes and you're fine.
I mean, even manual curation have stopped to some extent, because you'll earn more by publishing content and buying votes.
In the early days, people tried to build their accounts to grow. So they eventually could earn more. Nowadays, all you need is some Steem or SBD to buy votes.
It can't last that way and they will get crushed in various ways as prices fluctuate. The buyin will be high and the returns sketchy. SP will still be gold.
There is a lot of risk here but, what is the ceiling?
Like some others have been saying. Steem is likely to see prices of $50+ in the future, so now is definitely the time to stack up on Steem. Some have said that prices of $100+ is more accurate. And some people believe we will see these figures in the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019 already.
It's a bargain deal right now to buy Steem. And if you don't want to buy, you should save the Steem you earn.
I know all of that and it's a pain to power down, but it's something I have to do. Hopefully, we will be able to build the asapers even larger with time, especially as it grows for each day already, so hopefully, I'll be able to earn back the SP I've been cashing out until the prices rise.
That being said, newcomers doesn't see the real potential and value of Steem. They see Steem and SBD, they think dollars and they cashout everything they can because it's awesome to buy a new cellphone per month.
And that's one of the things the asapers is trying to fix. We are trying to get people to see the real potential and the true value. People who would've left Steemit stays because of us. And we're just a tiny curation group with a few cents worth of upvotes. With time, we'll be able to do even greater things...
And hopefully, we'll see more initiatives and changes to help newcomers to get their acts together at that point. Because I truly believe that newcomers are the ones we need to support. Not only by large upvotes, but with education.
We did that in the past... We can do it today as well.
It is going to help to train the newcomers and, it is going to help for the mid range community builders to build because if there aren't enough large commuinity operators in that high price future, the small accounts are essentially non-earners as the circlejerks will continue. So from now, I ma going to focus a little ore on building the middle and doing what I can low.
Btw, it isn't much but I gave 200 dele to @asapers just before.
Building the middle sounds like a very good thing to do. We're definitely in need of a middle-class on Steemit. You build the middle and I go for the newcomers with the asapers. ;)
Thank you very much for your delegation, we appreciate it! :)
This - and because it's on the level where I feel I can be effective right now - is why @doctorworm is focusing on boosting accounts to 500 SP. You're right that we need more people in the dolphin/orca tier, but we need to get them started first. Hopefully once I start graduating accounts from that either I'll be big enough to give them another boost or some helpful orca will come along and pick them up.
Since I don't have 100k SP from Ned to do it - just 1500 from myself right now - it's a much slower process than the one you're outlining. But at least it's going, and there are several other projects out there with similar goals.
It has to happen at all levels and this is why the middleclass is important but missing as they would support the next tiers and so on downward.
.. oh, if they are community middleclass.
This post made me care, and I'm grateful for this @tarazkp. I came to your profile after a suggestion made by @celestal, and I wanted to share my thoughts—as a middle-class 10cent per vote Steemian.
I try not to get too caught up in the politics surrounding Steemit these days, but you make a strong case of the unbalanced distribution of stake on the platform. I had stopped my own power-down I recently started to cover moving fees, after I learned that plans have changed... But after reading your article I feel that it is genuinely in my best interest to power up the majority of my future posts.
I don't dive deep into any of the many specialty communities on Steemit, as I often find misalignment with a message I can't all-in my efforts on or personal availability at times, but as far as Steemit as a whole community is concerned, I feel that I am learning what it really means to care on the fundamental level.
There does need to be a middle class, not just the wealthy and marginalized in this eco-system. It would be cheeky at best to plug myself here, but I gotta have courage and stand up for myself.
If you @tarazkp, or anyone else wants to lend me a delegation, I would be willing to help curate high-quality content over various categories and bring up more good authors and new users from across the platform. I believe that I'm a unique content creator, who can help lift others up if given an opportunity to do so.
I won't lie, I feel that my votes currently are completely powerless, so I try to write engaging comments to make up for the missing value. I also feel that I lack purpose here, but your idea is something I would want to be a part of because I can believe in this. No biases, and caring for Steemit is different than pushing a group's agenda.
I am shello#1548 on Discord if you want to chat c: Thank you again for this lovely post, rants are the best because it shows how much you care!~
With love,
@shello
It is interesting how engaging this place can become with a little personal time invested into being part of the community.
i am not delegating at the moment but I will keep you in mind for the future. :)
Overcoming personal fears and trusting your peers, I feel is a huge part of being in a community.
Thank you for your consideration in the possible future. I just realized, that I don't need to receive a delegation to start making a difference. Imma start now, in ways that I can!
A bit harsh... in that it doesn't take into account people's offline realities. Also that SBD spike was relatively short lived.
I've been here since August 2017 was incapable of blogging due to work commitments Sept to just recently but have powered up 100% of my earnings, and bought steem offline and traded it in and look where I am.
Steem's also now about 60-70% of my crypto investment.
I think the reason there aren't too many people with 10K steem power is because there aren't that many people prepared to risk $30K on crypto.
In the real world that's a fuck of a lot of money even to me - and I earn more than 90% of the UK population, with no kids to worry about!
Then of course there aren't really that many people into crypto... there are 2 of us at work with any (<1%) and the other guy's the college database manager.
The skew just reflects the extent of relative poverty and risk aversion offline.
I like yr delegation solution tho'
Also i did just power up $500 of steem today but that's so much more than my recent earnings which recently have been 0.01% of the reward pool - once you faactor in how much the abusers take that's a MASSIVE % of what's left - and even that's a pittance.
Anyway.. on my phone loosing the thread - but I think making on here is harder than you make out and not powering up is just rational.
And that's without taking into account the banfield-repulsion factor. I mean he's enough to make anyone want to power down.
I did say everyone has their challenges and, the people I am mostly talking about have been here since 2016... I came start of 2017. There could definitely be a much healthier middle class here without them ever having to use fiat to buy in. I put a couple hundred € in in Novemeber last year. Other than that, I have earned it here, traded it up on exchanges etc.
Again, many of the people that could have been in that middle class have earned on the platform more SP than I have and in some cases, much, much more.
Real world is different and I even understand that people take some to make their life easier but, if they really, really need it, what happens if Steem fails?
The delegation would be awesome to see in action if the right people held it.
:)
Hope you aren't driving ;)
If only I'd been fre during that spike!
You've done well here. I'll be buying in more shortly - worth the risk for me.
Not driving just putting off going to sleep. !
Communities really could be the game changer in this regard. There isn't the incentive to support others outside of a community, which is, I think, why people don't made the effort. Why should they when they feel they gain nothing from it? As selfish as it is, communities help each other because they benefit from one another.
Back when there were only a few thousand accounts the whole site would have been a community. Now it's grown and like the big world around us we are less connected, so the cracks are appearing. We can't support everyone and good content writers are getting lost in the masses and giving up. Powering up shows no immediate gain in a world where we're used to instant gratification...
...I think you've inspired me to write down some thoughts...
Yes, I was going to write a post about communities a little later. At the moment it is a catch all with too many people in the glove.
I was about to complete a single paragraph then I realized that I didn't care about this community as much as you do. Fairer wealth distribution discussed several times here and there, I didn't observe any changes so far. It seems like it's up to individuals, individual developers who can code and market at the same time. If someone going to save steem/sbd I believe it will happen by a developer who will find a way to attract investors with little to middle tools. Not with a twitch or youtube competitor.
yeah, most don't care so much and perhaps I shouldn't either. It would save me a lot of time at least.
The problem with the distribution is that they entrust it to poor code and people game it. they delegate to non-community but popular people and it gets abused again. lots of bad choices .
I really don't mind.
Think of it like this; we're bribing people with no long term vision, to transfer their influence to people who understand the real potential of this place.
You've lost me here Matt. Please explain for those of small brain (me). How are you bribing people with no long term vision?
The steem price is a bribe/inducement to give up the influence you've earned here.
If you have a long term mindset, an understanding of the possibilities and a bit of imagination, you're going to keep those influence tokens (STEEM).
If you just want that shiny new product you saw on the TV, then you're not someone who should have influence here anyway.
I see. Thank you for simplifying! 😊 Makes sense now!
Yeah, but the problem is that there aren't enough in this mid-range for the future to support I think. I at least need to start thinking about my abilities here later. At the moment there is a tap open still with trickles but as price and competition increase, that will close.
Change is good right?
@abh12345 said that monitoring this could be largely automatized and done similarly to his engagement leagues.
maybe incorporate it somehow incorporate it into the league
I had two people ask me about powering down last week . My response was " I don't know I never did it " broke my heart !!! Now I have to work that much harder . we are losing to many people per month
don't worry too much about the losses, worry abut who is here and who is to come and how to support them. Support those who are looking long. I know.. sounds bad :(
I will keep pushing on and deal with what what I have control of . Not going to let what I can't control influence me :)
I am not that elevated in matters blockchain so I usually keep my mouth shut after such a read but I have something to say this time. Let me apologize first in advance if this comes across as anything else than pure thoughts.
I am about to turn one year as a Steemian in a month and I feel like this post talks about my well being in a way. I lie on the one percenter lane and I am among those who didn't work hard enough in December :D
My SP is at 200s and to make matters worse, I withdraw my SBDs and that doesn't help much with progressing here, I guess. But... I honestly stopped itching to rise among Steemit ranks after realizing it takes more than hard work most of the times.
Don't get me wrong, I am in for the community but those in positions to boost my kind up won't so I'd rather boost those who boost me up. It consists of a cycle of cents and stagnation or slow growth but it is better than questioning those who can flag me down.
Thank you for using your anger to speak on my behalf!
It is a hard process and it ha changed a lot because people used to power up, now they don't see the point. This makes it hard for everyone else to grow and it gives increased amounts to the bidbots each day, making it harder again.
i hope that you (and others) can put some percentage away and a year or three from now, you will be very, very glad you did. This is a revenue stream that didn't exist earlier but it is unstable at the moment and always will be for people without SP as they will always be forced to chase. I am trying to make people's future a lot more comfortable but, it means being a little less comfortable now.
What do you mean 'put some percentage away'? Please elaborate a bit.
Just from a basic savings perspective but it is a bit different here.
Let's say there is a 10 dollar payout after curation:
5 SBD /and 5 SBD in Steem (2 STEEM) (both at a market rate of 2.50[to make it easy])
5 SBD has a value 12.50 US /the Steem has 5 dollars.
2 years from now the hope is that Steem is ~50-100 dollar value each.
so, you have 2 steem but, with the SBD you can buy (in this scenario) 5 more.
That means that if you exchange all to steam you will have 7. That is a future price of (at 50 dollars) 350 US.
But, you need some money now to live.
Instead of living off all of the 5 SBD, live of for example, 4 and buy 1 more steem.
That means you will have 3 steem with a future value of 150 dollars and 10 dollars to spend now.
It also means that your account is growing faster and in 2 years when there is that 50 dollar steem, your vote will be quite valuable and you won't need to worry as much and can support others. It is a risk of course but, the payoff could be enormous for you. people are selling their SBDs for 2.50 when they could invest into steem and potentially have it worth 20 times that amount in the future. So, if I was in this position that I needed it, I would try my hardest to not need all of it and I would power some up for the future.
In that future, your vote would be able to sustain others on the platform todo the same, without SP, you are always going to have to work for every dollar and can't support others. This is a big part of the issue. Support is low because people aren't powering up enough to be able to support others. Currently, 100 Steem is a 2 cent vote but that is a 40 cent vote at about 50 dollar Steem. Does 4 dollars a day make a difference in your life? What about your community? Does powering one steem down for 50 dollars help? Most people only have the delegation Steemit gave them, as prices increase, that will decrease further.
People who want better futures for themselves need to start building it now and there is always risk since the future is not yet written.
I am not sure what to say because you have clarified so much in your breakdown. I have never invested in steem because... I assumed that is done in large sums and since I didn't have those then investing in steem wasn't my path. This is even as I have watched @erodedthoughts grow in ways I can't explain. He suggested it but never did I disclose my 'assumptions about large sums' to him. I wish we resteem comments because many people here don't understand this especially those looking at this site as a source of a small income. Thank you so much Taraz. Really. I appreciate this :)
No worries. Perhaps I will do a quick little post about it.
That would be awesome! Thanks :)
in 5 months we are at 1800 sp and we plan to keep powering up to reach dolphin status.
i want to be this. i would love to be a community member with this delegation. i've been tapped many times by curie, a couple by blocktrades, recently many by dtube and graced with an amazing #welcometosteemit win thanks to abh12345 and we are SO IN! your words are firing me up @tarazkp... i want to be a part of this distribution you're talking about. this will empower steemit to keep going and thrive in the way THAT IT COULD if the way top accounts were really listening. i'm glad you stepped within and got these words in your little crisis that you were undergoing in the past week... this is a powerful callout and i hope people are listening. if @ned is listening. i would like to be one delegated to to help strengthen steemit through you goals outlined above. i think that's a great plan and one i would abide by:
3 x 100% self-votes per day
7 x 100% value to the community
50% of liquids earned must be powered up (there must be some available to use)
No voting on alt accounts
A board to investigate actions (stop circlejerks etc)
let's automate it. now we just need delegations. let's do it!
If only.
It’s even less than that.
Brace yourself.
In terms of owned SP (i.e. not counting delegation), to be in the top 10% of all accounts takes a bit less than 12 SP. Not a typo.
crazy isn't it? where did all of my votes on people go?
Hopefully I make the 1% this year. :)
I think the problem is that for some reason the @steemit account has more Steem Power than me. How do we fix this??? lol
well apparently I am defo a 1%er with my close to 2k SP but I have indeed been powering up my SP every chance I got
but check the middle of this post. I have said exactly the same this afternoon. we need a bigger middle class.
https://steemit.com/witness/@felander/it-feels-like-politics-getting-support-for-my-witness
my apologies for flagging an answer on your post
I have been trying for 9 months or more to drive for a middle class now and i thought I was helping :/
Flag away, i normally check them but most people don't flag for no reason.
well I can say you have helped me up a bit, so it wasnt a total loss :-) and I would say you are doing the same thing for more then me alone
I do try to do the same thing even though my vote isnt as big so your influence is trickling down
we plan to do the same with the witness...
I have taken my delegation almost completely from smartsteem by the way (still sell the votes) but I cannot support pure bidbots anymore. already found 2 cool projects to put it in... our chat helped, thanks for that
As said, the bidbots are not going away but, they could be more community orientated. Perhaps there is a happy medium. At the moment though with 9 months of bidbots and extremey high SBD, doesn't look like many used it to power up does it?
If only @ned would do something like this maybe the trending pages would be something worth looking at...
some people like trending now.. ( @whatsup, I am looking at you)
Amazing post! I've always wondered about the 'middle class' it seems like theres a long divide between those who make cents and those would make thousands with few in between. If there was more delegation going around more active users would have the SP they needed to make an influence. Many times the users with the most SP do the least curation and low rep voting, if delegations were larger and better handed out it might spread the wealth.
I think we would need better apps first from the developers. Many of the apps has just been out for 6 months and they are not super impressive but it's getting there. Also how a good community can still be a bit challenging to find. There clearly must be some more effective way to do it in the future but well they are working on it. But people can also learn to step out from their specific tribe and learn to consume something new. It can be a nice learning experience.
But also, looking back. Some of the issue here is even in your reply. I don't care about an upvote obviously, but when larger dolphins and whales choose to upvote their own comment on a reply rather than spread their own wealth and give a minnow that measly dollar, it furthers the gap between the so-called "upper" and "lower" class.
I just noticed that afterwards, but its small things like this from individual community members that hinder it more. If you want to upvote yourself go for it, maybe you just didn't think my comment was deserving of your upvote, but if the community doesn't change development means nothing.
If you upvote your own reply then that means you live in a scarcity mode already. So they don't make themselves richer. Will always live in scarcity. One thing is clear and that is nobody wants to give away value to a small account that doesn't seem to have potential. The value will be going to the people you can clearly see expand massive amounts of energy.
Maybe not new apps though, just better development of the ones we already have. Dtube is a constant frustration for me with its loading times and uploading errors. Steemit could also use more attention to detail and some spreading of the wealth by the devs. I definitely feel on the "tribe" mindset as well. I've found myself in the science tribe and notice some of the most hardworking users get very little recognition from the larger community for their efforts. Cheers to it getting better though, i'm sure the platform will only grow from here.
This may be a naive point of view, but sometimes I wonder whether there is a good understanding of how the platform works... I mean, I have a PhD and I'm still grasping the concepts 5 months after starting. I see plankton wallets with 600steem sitting there wo seeing what their strategy is. I assume that they don't have one, nor really understand how the platform works.
I assume again that I'm one of few who have put their own hard earned in because I believe in the future of the platform. Even then I'm not as engaged as I would like to be.... We all leady busy lives.
But with thought leaders such as yourself and @abh12345 throwing data and ideas like these around, I'm sure it will come good in the end.
There's your problem. Have you read 'Lord of flies'? it will help. ;)
It is going to take enough community thinkers at each tier to pull it all together but, we aren't lost yet, just need some fine tuning with a sledgehammer.
Well im just over 50% of the way to a 1% group. Im all for powering up and have never powered down or cashed out. I do have a nice @curie waiting for the market to place nice but as you said that may not happen.
I like to think we are very community minded, starting the @asapers with the delegations initially recieved from @hitmeasap. Through this we have helped reward over 160 undervalued steemians, problem is of course that the love we share isnt enough to make a substantial difference to that steemian's wallet, it does however keep some of them Steeming on and with luck powering up and fingers crossed paying it forward and helping other undervalued Steemians.
It isn't much but I have just delegated 200 SP to @asapers and when @hitmeasap gets back on track I will reconsider :)
Thats awesome @tarazkp! Everything helps and we really appreciate it. I will put it to good use promise. 😁
I love the loan idea. That would be a complete game changer. I’ve always wanted to help build the Steemit community a best I can. But my 700SP doesn’t go very far sadly.
I’ll continue to build my account though and hope to be a middle class Steemian by early next year. :)
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get to 500sp now? I have been here almost 6 months, ok I give sbd to pensiff for his cause of 1sbd a day and no I do not give 1 sbd per day, I give when I can, I give also to a guy in Syria, a man I support in Tom Duggan, I have given him over 1000 sbd in real money, steemit helped, I still have less then 500 sp, it is not all about me, Don't knock us for helping others bro, I may never be a whale or have the sp you earned, but I tell you this, open a new account and try again, you may find the sp harder to come by now, just on the new numbers you get paid, try reaching 500sp in 6 months without help, go on, I dare you.
I think you are missing the point of this...
A large part of the reason you are having a hard time getting to 500 SP is because so many people have used it as an ATM and powered out. I know it is hard and that is why I am trying to do something about it. The argument amount starting a new account is invalid because, I don't have to start from scratch because I powered up which allows me to help others. If more over the last year had done similar, there would be many more like me and people such as yourself could grow faster. Understand?
You think that I have not helped others...
Ok I get your point now, I misunderstood. Dan took out a few Million, I guess others have also, as I am fairly new you will know better than me who and when, keep up the good fight then.
It is much harder to get to 500sp the higher steem goes.
When i got a 20sbd payout at .10 usd steem i got 100sp, now at 4usd steem i get 2.5 sp.
Dont let goldenboy fool you, he is one of them or he wouldnt have been allowed those rewards.
Bloody hell I really did miss the boat then.
Yep, unless we get one more dip in the price buying stake is going to be pricey.
I believe steemit is a microcosm of the real world, and let's face it, it's a selfish one. I'm afraid it's the same percentage there as here...the rare breed of human being who cares about things like community, paying it forward, helping others growing together, as opposed to thinking of me
Rant over.
I hope your message doesn't fall on deaf ears, and at the very least, those of us who do believe in community, rally together even more.
This is the problem with the 1% idea though also as you can see from Steem, there is quite a big gap between the top of the 1 and the bottom. Essentially all with a vote lay in that 1%.
A long way to go so perhaps communities and SMTs will help.
First thing that comes to mind is that IF Steemit bills itself as a "social content platform," the vast majority of accounts will be just like mine: very tiny, started with 3.00SP and didn't start here with the intention of "investing."
On the other hand, IF Steemit bills itself as "a place to make money," most people who make accounts here will be looking to make money, and that does NOT mean powering up, it means cashing out next week so you can buy pizza, or cell phone apps or whatever.
So, the problem you're describing, and a lot of people are aware of, starts with the root branding of Steemit, the venue. I'd be willing to guess that if all the effort and energy had gone into presenting Steemit as "a social content platform that allows content creators to become stake holders," we'd be looking at a different landscape, now.
Ten weeks of blogging and interacting and evidently using Steemit "appropriately" has gotten me to about 37 SP. Granted, it's a niche blog. But I have powered up pretty much every cent, except for those given away in contests.
Maybe by this time next year, I can claw and scrape my way to 500SP, and that would be pretty amazing. MOST people would look at that and declare "That's too frakkin' much work!" and they end up being all those dormant accounts.
Yes, "wall of text," I know. But I'm happy to give my 100% 0.006 upvote to you for this rant!
=^..^=
I am hoping that communities will help the niches. Let's say you make it to 500 SP in a year. What is the time worth to you? at current prices of 3 it is about 1500 dollars, not a great deal considering the effort. What about in 2 years if it is 50 dollars? This year you would have made 25,000. Next year, you might be able to add 750 more SP by working and building network. 2 years from today that will be worth 37500 at 50 dollars. During that time you could add another 1000 with a 50,000 value. 3 years hard work for 112,500 dollars and you still hold all your Steem and can use it to grow further. 5 years from now as competition is high and steem hard to get? So much work for so little is invalid if you believe in the long-view. I hope we are going to get there.
I think the idea of a 100K SP delegation to 10 individuals who could demonstrate good stewardship with it is an excellent one. It is specific, actionable, and the effects could easily be measureable. Best of all, it delegates responsibility, not just SP. If he were willing, @ned could implement this with very little need to direct or supervise the effort, and yet would still retain the power to withdraw the delegation at any time.
I have a hypothesis about @ned and Steemit, inc. that springs from my own experience in business so far. Lots of people, especially creators and founders, resist or neglect delegating responsibility. It's not their m.o. as self-starters, and since the vision is theirs it is hard to find anyone on the same page. It's possible @ned is juggling too many priorities.
I've struggled with this, and my business is a heluva lot smaller. My m.o. was putting other priorities on hold to focus on the most important (say, developing and promoting SMTs). It took me a while to see that the things I was putting off would never reach the top of my to do list, even though they were also critically important (say, developing the user base organically).
When I finally prioritized delegating responsibility (not just tasks) to others, my business began to grow. I had more confidence and energy talking to new prospects, because I knew other things were moving forward.
I also lost an important stakeholder in my business in the past 6 months. No matter how amicable a parting, I know that stings. I respect @ned for persisting. I hope he takes the suggestion. I see it as a way to invest in the platform, not a "handout" (as one critique here put it) but something much more like hiring a contractor.
Due to the decetralized nature, the will to keep it uncensored and the early mined stake, Ned has his hands largely tied in some areas. It is up to the community to do things.
That's why this idea makes sense to me. You aren't suggesting governance or even a change to the rules and reward structure. This is simply an investment in people who are already working on community from within the framework of the decentralized platform. Not even a permanent investment: a delegation.
I think decentralization is a good thing, as it's forcing adaptation to grow organically.
I've read quite a few of your posts now, and in each one, I would say I have gained something. A little knowledge, a different perspective, a new insight, a differing opinion, but all of it worthwhile.
I'm sorry that there aren't a lot of others who are following suit. Either busting their backs to do what you've done, or powered up as much as you have, and then complaining about community all the while. That's does not feel good at all.
At the same time, you are being true to you, not someone else's ideas or desires. Yours. Maybe there's some things you wouldn't mind doing differently, and maybe there are things that you will change, but those things will still be true to your own thoughts and desires.
Since I've done it myself, I know that it's super easy to look at what others are doing and thinking, how foolish was I? Daring to think what I do is making a difference when there's so few others following suit.
Well, I'm just going to say that the investment you're making isn't in the folks that should be powered up as high as you or more, the ones that have been around as long as you or longer, it's in the rest of us, the future dolphins. The active minnows and larger plankton (now that's an oxymoron). We're your middle class, sir. It's just going to take us a little while to get there, because we're community oriented and we're trying to recruit the newest of folks and we're trying to do what's best for the platform. We're more educated because of you. We're better prepared because of you.
So, thank you for all you've done and continue to do. @abh12345 and you, along with others are making a difference here on the platform, and its worth won't all be measured in SP. Not yet, anyway. That's coming. :)
When I say help others in the mid grow, it isn't going to be indiscriminately, there are some I know who are the people who will still support others below them along the way (as I will too) but those that in a year from now, you are still going to have to support you and others, 2 years, 5 years. There needs to be some kind of critical mass point where there are enough willing in the middle to support the lower also if that makes sense. Don't worry, there will be no complete abandonment, just adjustment so long term is healthier than the short. At the moment, there are still taps open to grow but they will start shutting off with price increases and competition. If that middleclass isn't large enough at the shutoff, who keeps the steem flowing?
Very good question. From their last steemitblog post, it sounds like HF 20 is shaping up for Q3 drop, so if they actually hit that, Velocity will be a part of it and the flood gates will be opened. If that actually happens, there won't be enough of us, regardless, and we'll all be sprinting to try to keep up. Not sure I'm looking forward to that eventuality yet, even though I know we want growth here, but I think we also want sustainable growth.
Yes, what you said makes perfect sense. We keep reaching back as we reach upward.
At any rate, we'll just keep doing what we do, only a little smarter and a little wiser, and see what happens, right?
Rome was not built in one day. From rational financial perspective, it behooves those with resources to power down, invest the proceeds in a speculative alt-coin, grow their portfolio, and then "invest" a small percentage into this platform. Steem has plateaued. It would be financially unsound to hold this coin, especially at a time when financial institutions are poised to enter the cryptosphere.
Yeah, this is true but there is also a high chance that the institutions will back something with a product already too. Meh, maybe they will just pump and dump big...
You must consider that institutions, or rather the bureaucrats who run them, are "investing" other people's money. They have quarterly time horizon. The money pouring in will raise all coins, particularly the alt-coins, much like the "dotcome" bubble valuated the ludicrous pets.com at delusional levels. Just be prepared to exit out into another asset class when your hairdresser begin to give you crypto-investment advise.
It was disheartening to read Paulag post that over 500k never made a post or upvoted anything. then we have only about 60k active users for the past month.
No more disturving is the fact that I am a 1 percenter.
I know these people you talk about that say they are community based but continue to cash out their money, they get upvotes from whales, from sndbox and even curie community votes but everything is going out. Some of these folks I have more SP when they were a good 2-3 months before me.
I started slow. I only started taking things more seriously on my 3rd month and I have regularly powered up so that I can reach my goal of 1k SP, I rent delegations and I really want to reach being a dolphin before my 1st year or at least 2 years because the more people sharing the reward pool the harder it will be.
I wish more people would see it long term but the fact is too many want to just withdraw and withdraw not thinking that they should be investing as well as strengthening their account.
lol, in 2 years, you will be a 0.1 percenter
This is a first for me, I did not read a single comment before responding. Steemd has my ID as - 291,360 I don't know if that means I was that number to join up, or if it is just a random assigned number. Aug 1st 2018. Beside 10SBD that was stolen by a high rep person, and likely about 60SBD donated or given out for this cause or that cause, I have powered up all my SBD's and converted to SP. Not counting Delegated SP I have reached the 565.47 SP level. After about my 3rd month on steemit, I started to help the people like me, (a redfish), and tried to educate them and myself.
Due to Asher and Dave's help, (they gave me some delegated SP to help me grow), I slowly since mid Jan grown to the Minnow Level. (My own 500+SP). I would love to reach the level you see as "Middle Class", the reality is though that your vision of the "Middle Class" Level is to high. A level of 5,000 to 15,000 seems to be the real middle class right now.
I know that people are not going to like this bit, but I think all the talk about circle jerk activity is just a distraction from the Orcas and whales to discourage/slow down the growth of communities. Where the top .05% have no problem voting 85% for each other, they do not want to see that happen at the lower levels because then those redfish and minnows, might grow into dolphins, and then grow into a middle class. Face it votes are the only thing that count toward raising ones SP. And the upper forces will do all they can to stop it.
Don't think they will? the SBI people are already in transisto's sights. I can see that program being slammed to a close very easily, because they give votes out to people that gave them money. @dustsweeper, witness ran or not will likely be the next program under the gun, because they give votes out to people that pay them.
I do not think that steem will ever allow a significant middle class level, because then they would lose control of the steem economy. But I did like your rant. Now to read some of the other thoughts.
Whether they like it or not, it is a necessary requirement for the health of the system as we can see what happens when there is not enough distribution. That is real world economy now.
I know that some of the whales have been pushing for the smaller fish to grow all they can and I think it is time to do just that before the gap between is unbridgeable.
I don't know what some of the people with the SP at the top think but the current system is not healthy. and there are not enough people holding SP who in the future will care. The current organic approach is not fast enough for most of the community minded to close those gaps before the taps shutoff so they will be able to remain helping the community. they are going to carry a large burden I think and I know that I don't have the current SP to carry many in two years from now.
My investment for the future needs to increase for me to be able to do what I want here. Currently, I have enough and I am going to be fins and I can even help a few but, that isn't going to cut it later.
@tarazkp A part of your message really seems too negative to me but I really like you bring a solution here.
I discovered Steem in December 2017 and decided to invest in it in January 2018 (outch, 6,5$/Steem !). My goal was clear (still is !) : I want to develop the self development trend within the French Community. Because I really love people sharing about this subject but also because I'm pretty sure it will help us all as we all are humans !
But I quickly realized that my investment had no impact at all and I had to develop it as much as possible in order to realize this dream in some months (years?). That's why I always powerup everything I get (just waiting now a great ratio SBD:SP)
In the French community we have some orcas & dolphins helping as much as possible and I really thank them as they motivate at their levels the community to grow.
That's why I continue to do my best at all levels (here and on discord) in order to bring as happiness as possible in the French community to help people to not stay for money but only for discussions, learnings stuff & fun ! Because at the end of the day I don't care about money, I just care about people & communities building here something great for a new kind of world.
Thanks for your article and have a great day,
Laurent
Ps : If someday you want to develop your idea, feel free to contact me on discord happydaddyfr#5698
I am not afraid of negatives ;)
The french community is one of the lucky ones from my understanding as there are some big accounts supporting it currently like @wackou. But, the same is true as onboarding happens that if other French accounts aren't powering up, as the community grows what is supporting is either not enough or can't see widely enough to reach all in the network. It take people such as yourself to build and grow to be able to help others later.
Never heard about him , maybe because I'm more focusing about building relationships and new friendships than whales stuffs ^^
But anyway the issue comes from the fact a lot of people (French or not) comes here because they understood you can earn money in exchange of content. So when they earn some money, they just want to use it in real life. They aren't here for investment part or for the idea to build something new. But when you are a successful youtuber or a influencer on instagram, you have better way to monetize your content so they leave.
Other people comes from crypto world and they see an opportunity to get more coins "for free". They create a steemit account, they post for some weeks then they realize "content creator" isn't easy, it's a lifestyle we choose to embrace way before steemit and they leave the plateform.
Finally what you really need for your project is to touch some specific persons : "content creators investors". People like us willing to reach new people and powerup in order to grow month after month, year after year.
I really hope communities will help us to grow and maybe if they mix them with your idea, we'll have something really great for the future !
Imagine the top 100/1000 communities leader getting a loan to promote their community, it would be amazing !
Nice analysis. My feeling already says for a pretty long time that Steemit is not really moving in a good direction. More or less 100 or say a maximum of 1,000 Steemians earn/have a notable amount. That is only 0.1% or maximum of 1% of the total active users.
@taskmaster4450 saus the influence of whales is decreasing. But I agree with what you stated, it's not significant. Also I believe their power is decreasing because they sell Steem and power down. I asked this several times to @taskmaster4450, but I don't think he answered my question.
What do you think, are the whales losing power because they are powering down on a regular basis?
Yeah, they are powering down fair amounts but it is also that some like myself are powering up too. Plus, there are other factors like with every sign up through steemit they are getting a delegation which I think is also factored in. so 100,000 sign ups is 1.5 million in delegation. That must have an effect too right?
It is hard to say precisely though but, I don't mind the whales powering out if the smaller fisher are powering up. Low price means more opportunity for them to earn more steem and combined with high SBD, buy in is pretty good if using earning here. Unfortunately, the vast majority aren't it seems.
You might be right about the effect of new users. They seem to lower the power from whales. But aa many of them become inactive they probably don't.
I have been powering every single penny ever since I started blogging on Steemit, and I have been trying to be as selfless as I could possibly be. Yes, I do upvote my own blog posts because most of them don't earn that much, but other than that, I have been trying to give back to the community.
That said, I cannot judge those who decide to power down. Yes, it does make me feel a bit sad, but it's their own money and they might need it. And as you said, delegating SP could be key to growing a bigger middle class. Thanks for writing this!
keep growing and hopefully it will all come together and we can have drinks. You buying this round?
There are less dolphins than I thought, quite sad really as I am trying to be one. I have been on the platform for less than 3 months, and am in the fortunate position where I can buy into it, and have done.
I read some articles in my early days to invest in Steem, and so I have, and am in the 1-5k catagory you mention above.
I think many on here simply cant do this though due to financial constraints. I see your frustration and I feel it too.
I have put small amounts in but most is earned on sire (and powered up). I think that people such as yourself won't have many regrets in the future except perhaps not buying more.
Many can't and this is why the opportunity to earn here is so good, it gives them that chance. take what is needed and power up even 10% and it will make a future difference.
I will continue to power up because I believe in the system Im using. I hope my confidence in this is correct. I havent taken anything out so far and dont intend to in the near future.
Have you got your comment rewards set to declined for a reason?
The suggestion to cross-fund community accounts in a similar way as developers isn't new, but hasn't lost significancy since I first heard it. I think @ned should listen.
yeah, it isn't but, perhaps repetition helps :)
Congratulations @tarazkp!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:
Yes, you are right that there needs to be a middle class that does the bulk of the volume of transactions.
You are also right that currently there are very very few active accounts that have much interaction value.
But giving handouts is the wrong way to go. That’s just asking for power downs and cash outs.
People need to buy and in and build their value. It currently takes 4300 SP to create 1 STU in a vote. You can do 10 votes per day and recover all your voting power by the next day. That works out to 9.1 times your maximum vote. So with 4300 SP, worth about 12-13k USD right now, you can create 9.1 STUs per day or about 15-20 USD. Per day.
For someone who is interested in curating and only gets 25% of that it works out to a yield of about 20% without compounding. Show me anywhere else you can get that for clicking a few buttons.
Throw in a coupe self votes here and there and you’re off to the races.
But for whatever reason people aren’t buying in and powering up. They are trading on exchanges like every other crypto because they are trying to catch the next m00n.
The handouts aren't quite that if you mean the delegations to community builders. It wouldn't be random, no-track record.
This is what had people powering up (and buying in) before but with the bidbots, many feel that all they need to get a return is a few SBD, no need to power up...
They don't get what makes Steem important.
it's kind of like the USA ... it needs a middle-class again
Wow, what a fascinating post and equally fascinating comments.
My reading of this is that it all boils down to how you incentivise people to power up the vote rewards that they receive - because it all starts to feel rather futile if vote rewards dished out by us mere mortal minnows / dolphins (the 1%,that needn't be that high as per the post) are routinely cashed out (let's exclude here cashing out for genuine unexpected life expenses; what I'm talking about is more frivolous expenditure like new cell phones as someone else mentioned here).
This then means that way fewer than necessary progress up the chain as is needed for this platform to work.
Your posts are very interesting especially for me who is
still a beginner and I have to learn more do you want to be a
teacher for me.
Sure.
Lesson one: read the posts you comment on.
lol, they cannot help themselves... sometimes
-_-
You're really cool with this info and update you are really progressing. You have had more experience than your days on here.
a very good post, I really like about posting @tarazkp, good luck always a friend,
Very good this point of view from your side with respect to small accounts. In a few words I remember when I started on this platform, we won more recomepensa with SP if not bad memory now it is a bit tedious to win SP as previously we managed to get something less complicated than now. Very good your publication
An enlightening post. The idea of steemit loan is great.
what you say is true, not all we can bilionner but by making use of community we can at least stand on this platform, sp I was just 39, me and the other steemian also the same want to become millionaires in this diplatform, I think the people who have the sp is greater should pay attention to the small stemian to have them grow up in this diplatform
Great analysis. These numbers are indeed worrying. There is much responsibility on our shoulders to distribute the wealth. I have now several communites who I follow and I will try to give to as many as possible. I must say I am a bit proud that I did not cash out my Steem Power although I went full-time Steemian basically right away and had to pay my bills with it. But I somehow managed with the SBD I made. I still believe in Steem despite the low moral during the past few months.