People like to take shots at the whales on here and complain that the system is unfair. It appears that many feel that they are "entitled" to enormous rewards in their first post or two. Few take the time to think about what others are doing, or have done, to push this ecosystem forward. Instead, they start to whine how the reward system is unfair.
Of course, many of us who are on here only add fuel to the fire by stating the same thing. We see someone hit the trending page for saying good night while we work an hour on an article that gets 50 cents. That can be very frustrating to say the least. Often, we follow this by posting a comment or writing an article stating exactly how we feel. This, in turn, gets read by our newcomers who have the idea planted in their heads before they even get started.
So I decided to do a bit of research to determine what is going on and I will state this emphatically:
The rich on here are not getting richer, at least proportionally speaking. Those at the whale level are not taking an unfair percentage of the reward pool. They are not increasing their holdings over everyone else. None of this is true and is total mythology.
In fact, the numbers tell us the exact opposite is happening. The whales are losing ground in terms of their holdings of steem (SP) compared to the rest of us. I will state if the banking-run world worked this well, most of humanity would be living the high life instead of struggling to make ends meet.
I started this process by reading an article that was written last year:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@hisnameisolllie/the-top-1-steem-v-the-real-world
Since this article was written, the distribution of STEEM has gotten more equal and will continue to do so. However, let's look at a couple of points.
From the article:
Top 1%: 88.3%
1%-10%: 10.67%
Bottom 90%: 1.03%
Well that pretty much blows. It is obvious you have a situation where the STEEM wealth is in the hands of a select few. I think this fact cannot be argued.
However, let us look at things today. This came from https://steemwhales.com/.
Top 1%: 80.45%
1%-10%: 13.99%
Bottom 90%: 5.56%
Can you imagine if this happened in the banker-run world? The top 1% went from over 88% of the wealth to close to 80%. The 1%-10% class did rather well but it is the bottom 90% who made the biggest gain going from 1% of the pie to 5.5% (and a much bigger pie too).
So what caused this? There were a number of factors I am sure. Last year, @hisnameisolllie mentioned the dilution rate based upon how the steem is set up. Here were his conclusions:
These results suggest to me that, the dilution rate (being experienced by the top 1%) is likely much lower than the 7.725% I previously extrapolated, however most accounts I looked at were well below the 10.30% limit, and on average I would suggest that dilution is closer to the 3% mark… This I believe shows the inefficiency of the Steemit community (being currently too small) to nullify the 'Whales' power of attraction (especially the Bot accounts). As the user base gets larger, we will see this dilution rate tend to 7.725% over time. A larger user base will breed efficiency.
What is ironic is his conclusion was off a bit. His original analysis of the whales being diluted the 7.75% was close to accurate. He predicted in a year that the 1% group would be diluted to 81.47% (not too far off from the 80.45 today). Of course, the article date is last year, so we might be dealing with 14 or 16 months. Nevertheless, the top 1% holds a smaller piece of the pie than they did.
The key to all this is the fact that everyone is limited to 20% of their voting power daily. Nobody can exceed that and have it replenished without it taking more than 24 hours. This means that, unless someone is upvoting oneself exclusively which I have yet to see any whale do, there is a loss of 25% on those votes that are spread around to others. Of course, this situation is further enhanced if the whale does not use his or her daily allotment. This puts more in the reward pool for those that are.
And that is the second key. Upvoting your daily allotment is critical. That is what causes the transfer of wealth and changes these percentages. In fact, if 100,000 minnows increased their accounts by just 20 SP, that would result a shift in 1% of the overall wealth to them. The bottom 90% would jump to 6.5% (all other things being equal). How hard is it to take an account to 20 SP? Even one just opened could do that in the first month if that person actually took the time to post, comment, and upvote.
There you have it. The system was designed to reward those people who post, upvote, and comment. As we can see, overall, this is working. While there might be some issues when we scale down to the individual level, these numbers show that in spite of bots, circle voting, and whatever other games that are being played, the system is doing what it intended. This process surely is being helped along by those whales who are delegating SP to others who are contributing. Nevertheless, as more people join and get active, the amount of wealth the top 1% has as a percentage of the whole is going to go down.
Thus, my conclusion is to stop the calls to change the curation system. Why fix what is not broken?
Remember this article the next you want to lash out how unfair this system is and ask yourself "do I use my alloted 20% of voting power today?". From what I can gather, that is one of the major keys.
If you found this article helpful and informative, please give it an upvote and a re-steem.
Pictures by Google Images.
Absolutely.
I support your continual efforts to get people to upvote their daily allotment. Anything less is the same as throwing money away.
Blogging is the new mining, and if you're not upvoting, you're not mining!
Edit: just resteemed too. 😜
ouh great post and inspiring for everyone to read! Really like the system and I do agree it sounds like the most fair of all I've seen.
Blogging is the new mining - well, said @cryptographic!
Not mine though. That's one of the original Steemit slogans - first thing you saw on the website before signing up - still present on Bitcoin Forum. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466593.0
ouh, it has a super nice ring to it! :) Thanks for the link, nice to read more of the backstory!
The key takeaway from this post for me was your point about actually USING steem, not just holding it. I have some friends who invested in steem a few months ago who don't use the steemit platform and are now powering down. The key to making the most of being a steem owner is to actually post here on steemit because the fact is that if you don't you will never be able to make the most of your potential as a sp owner
Yes I think many of us encounter something similar with someone. It is amazing how people come in here and expect it to magically happen for them.
What is interesting is that as an owner of steem, we have the opportunity to directly influence the token. This is not too common anywhere else. The more we make this platform grow, the better the blockchain will be.
Its an even playing field for all the only people complaining are the ones not making anything because they don't put in the time and investment that others have.
Going from 88 to 80% and from 0.10 to 1.50usd
Nice move!
Another great informative post.
I caught you with the banker comments didnt I @tt-dogg? LOL
Awesome post!
LOL Thank you very much.
Glad you appreciated it.
An absolutely fantastic post @taskmaster4450 - really enjoyed reading this and seeing those insights. Definitely will be re-steeming this!
The funny thing about it all, is that those that complain about the system being broke, are the ones that copyright content or post links to news articles! No wonder they don't see any rewards when they abuse the system. People can see through them!
P.s Just a heads up. I emailed you on Sunday. Awaiting your response :)
Anton
Great article. I am spreading the word to everyone I know about steemit. Steemit to the moon. I am following you and I am upvoting. I am doing my part, my Friend. :) ALL THE BEST!
So how many times can we up vote?
You can use up to 20% of your power a day. At 100% vote, that is 10 times. It takes 2.4 hours for each 100% upvote to regenerate. Once you get over 500 SP, you can start using lower percentages.
When new, without a ton in your wallet, your votes wont be worth a ton but use them anyway. Probably the most important thing to do is to comment as much as you can. That is how people get to know you. Plus, if you make a number of pertinent comments, there could be a bunch of people who upvote you. I have seen people in the trending stories have upvotes in comments worth $25 and $30.
In other words, get active on here as much as you can.
You can start using lower percentages of upvote power way before you hit 500SP using busy.org. I do not know if there is minimal SP limit, for example I can use vote power slider for quite some time there.
Thank you for the quick response @taskmaster4450 I've been up voting every comment I read but I guess it's all for naught.
I made the same mistake during the first week. I voted too much. I'm taking a break until sometime tomorrow to restore my power back.
When you are relatively new, it really doesnt matter. If you dont have a ton of SP in your account, your VP is weak even at 100%. So voting for most of what you like isnt the end of the world.
The key is building up your SP in whatever ways you can. If you dont buy STEEM, then it requires work to get known and get some currency coming in. It can be down....post, comment, upvote....that is the key to the system.
Thank you so much for this info. This is my third day on steemit and I am trying to help as many people as I can and myself included. It is such an honor to be a part of this steemit community.
Understood, I will start with posting once a day.
I totally disagree with voting like a fool when you first get here. Like you say above - if the minnows all gain by only a small percent - the rewards are big. I just wrote this post and I'm sending it to everyone who votes on my posts at less than 50% power. I will try to get them to vote less and raise up above 75% at least.
There is no reason for this wasted effort of voting at 20% power, and it uses the blockchain for no reason. No one cares about a .000 minnow vote. But even a .001 vote will grow over time.
Plus, people need to learn voting skills from the get go. I'm on a mission lol.
What is Your Steemit Voting Power and Why Does it Matter?
Here's something else the complainers seem to overlook... Most of the whales are the people that invested their own money into the platform.
That is very true also.
I love when people talk about the whales being able to buy in at 6 or 8 cents after the price collapsed 90%.....like they would have taken the risk and jumped on STEEM at that price.
Hell few were buying at $.85 a month ago.
They were willing to take the risk and it paid off, I say kudos! It always gets me the people who write posts about how unfair things are and are amazed that they don't make a bunch of money on them. Nobody ever said this was a democracy or that rewards are automatic. I've done well enough on here to pay my bills, after starting with nothing- but I worked my ass off to do it (and still do!)
I agree...most of my SP was purchased...I was fortunate to have some money to tap into to get it. However, I am at roughly 1/4 earned, 3/4 bought....
But as you said, it is work. And what does fair mean anyway? Is it unfair that someone took thousands of dollars and bought STEEM when the price was crashing? I guess it is unfair they had the money to begin with.
Nowhere does it say Steemit is a handout.
Absolutely correct... and I have no idea what fair means. I'm 72 and still trying to figure it out- I think it's one of those childish notions we're supposed to outgrow.
It is true that at first I thought too that the reward system is broken and that the whales are going to be richer and richer but in time I have seen my account growing, and I realised that I was wrong! Whales became whales either because they have invested money in these accounts or because they have done a great amount of work to get where they are. And this is what I will be trying to do, even if I won't succeed, at least I will enjoy the ride :)
Hover your mouse pointer over
last yeartext for second or two and steemit will show you exact post's publish date:Thank you for the 411 on that.
I have a question regarding the chart for the current Steem situation. Does the chart account for all the Steem Power lease delegations? Technically all that SP still belongs to the 1% and is currently only leased out. I'm wondering if it all got returned today what would the chart reflect in regards to the ownership levels then?
That is a very good point @hendrix22 and I dont know the answer to that since I am only going off the chart on steemwhales.
I thought you conclusion would be correct but when I put my name into that site, it reflects my account value without the SP delegated to me. So obviously they strip that out and only go based upon what is truly in the account, not the amount delegated. Which actually makes sense since the estimated account value in my wallet does not reflect the delegation either.
Great point to bring up...could really change things.
Very interesting either way.
@taskmaster4450 Brilliant!
The bot's need to stay, even if reformed some how but where else can you get this kind of community level, give open source development chance, as Steemit community grow's the bot's will grow to become very useful if people have enough time and community help.
This is an innovative platform so why not innovate....and hater's gonna hate anyway's, go play any online game just after update time.
Also, three thing's stood out when I joined. Don't loose your password, upvote lot's and it take's time.
This is why I like STEEM long term even though its a little rough right now. Whales are inevitably upvote content than isn't produced by whales. So there will be a transfer of wealth to quality content producers. And those people are more insentivized to upvote others producing quality content, especially within their niches, to expand those niches. That second layer is insentivised to do the same. Its trickle down economics with a push toward meritocracy that should actually work.
People, it's simple, just behave as the decent human beings. Seriously, if you like the post - like the post. I like cars and I vote for the posts that will earn me nothing because - I like the content. There are several super-powerful people who are making incredibly pointless posts and those will never get an upvote from me. I don't see this as the career, but rather as the source of good content produced by a few users.
Well said. We shouldn't let jealousy and entitlement plague steemit or we'd end up being another Fakebook like fad. steemit isn't broken, it just lacks refinement.
You totally deserve my resteem.
Nice article, I liked the approach and the result.
Here are some things that the complainants seem to see ... Most whales invest their money in the platform. thanks for a good informetive post.
I ended up here after reading your comment on another post and i'm glad i did. I used to liked steemit because it worked, and now i realised it does not only work but works really good. It's hard to find that in the crypto world. I mean, i've tried diferent platforms (like Sia or Bts) but not one as smoth and frendly to the user as steem.
Great read! I believe in the community....I still struggle to get people to even view my content. I am learning along the way what may work or what may not....I know my content have value but how does one get people to notice the content? Not sure i think most of us are learning this reality. I guess getting people with high SP to upvote is the key to create visibility, and so I will continue on learning, growing, being grateful, and believing......Much love❤
So when you up vote, do you have to reply?
No, you don't have to do anything. Today, I've been replying more than upvoting because I messed up and blew through too much SP out of ignorance of how the system worked. Lesson learned. But actually, I've been making some Steem friends, finding people to follow, and getting followed by focusing on replies, so I'm discovering how valuable that is. i.e. your comments can add value to a post and often, authors really appreciate feedback.
I almost always reply to comments on my own posts. That's mostly because I really appreciate anybody who is engaged enough to leave a useful comment.
I was up voting so much I got below 30%. I'm trying to get it back up to 100% now
In sales/marketing there is the axiom that it takes 7 contacts for a person to remember you. Using that, it is going to take some time to get on people's radar.
Looking at your account, I would suggest you commenting more. I see you only have 201 posts which is articles and comments combined. Cast a wide net as they say...start doing a lot more commenting in different people's posts and over time, they will get to know you.
We encountered each other in the STEEM post by @haejin. Do more of that and you will start to get followers.
Yes i remember you.....thanks!!! I will continue to comment more and more....I just recently started getting involved in commenting and consistently voting.....Thanks!!
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STOPEverything is fair, but we need to support more new people, which is very important for the growth of Steem's value.
Yes, very true.
The point is that minnow have more power than they think. If all of us work together and arent stinging with our votes, we can see all of us progress to the point of taking a bigger piece of the pie. While one minnow vote does not amount to much, 20,000 of them does.
There are a ton more minnows and dolphins than there are whales. And with each vote, the pool grows.
Another question,
Why did you tag this post @Jerryscamfield?
He posted that he was going to support minnows by upvoting any post tagged with his name. It gets one on his voting bot I presume.
I see
Well stated. It's tough not to feel the unfairness of the situation, as you say when we work really hard on a post and it earns nothing while someone else posts what amounts to a tweet and they get hundreds of upvotes and $100 in no time at all. Very frustrating. But when we calm down and look at the situation logically, we can find that it is fair. Those people put in the time to build their network to the point where they will get upvotes for pretty much anything or they invested the money to get there. We didn't, at least not as much as them.
Anyway, I'm glad to read your post and see things are actually moving in our direction. Very interesting!
Exactly....what did they do to get to the point they did? Many came here with a following which took them years of developing on facebook or youtube. Others spent time on here posting and commenting to get a following.
Either way, nobody comes on here with nothing and magically has people suddenly upvoting their content. It just doesnt work that way.
Good point. I came here in August 2016 and bought 100K. I spend many years to earn and save all that money.
I do agree 100%. I would like to see some focus on the group/community feature that can enable people to raise interesting content from the noise, that would help a lot to fully use the daily limit for upvotes.
From what I understand, that is in the works. There is a community feature that is to be added...I am going to guess we see that in the first part of 2018. I have no idea what it will look like or what the thinking is on the layout.
I hope it will be well designed, groups are now a major part of FaceBook usage.
The bottom % represents the enormous collection of bots being powered up to, well, rape the rewards...
Information can be sneaky, lots of smoke and mirrors.
As said, i would like to ask the whales:
Compared to last year, how many new accounts have you powered up?? Or created so as to vote on?
If that question provides any insights...
It could be debated weather the top % actually gained ground by increasing there share across smaller accounts...
Anyways, great post. I myself will have to consume some salt though.
*cheers
Great post and different from what I usually see since I'm on this platform (not that long). I'll follow your advice and try to grow on Steemit!
I agree with you @taskmaster4450, with lots of posting, upvote, resteem and comment, then each account will increase its wealth, but still many do not think so, should we respect each other,
Thanks for sharing this amazing post ...
How do you know if you are using your 20% alotted daily?
You have 10 votes at 100% daily: each 100% vote take 2.4 hours to reload.
You can see your voting power on https://steemd.com/@positivechange10.
Thanks!!
Also this link is useful too: https://www.steemnow.com/upvotecalc.html
Thank you for this it really helps me understand so much....😇
Steemnow.com
Enter your username in the upper right hand corner.
It has the voting bar about 25% of the way down. You can watch it move as you start voting.
So good thanks!
Great article. I am guilty of doing what you said - writing an article that doesn't get read and then writing another article damning the system. Ooops.