I greatly appreciate your cogent discussion of rewards curve, as this is not well understood by many. However, I don't think any rewards curve solves a basic problem that prevents rewards from inuring more to higher quality posts. While non-linear rewards curves may reduce Sybilline issues, they do not discourage extractive profiteering, simply varying how profitable it is. Non-linear reward curves so far discussed all increase the potential rewards for self-voting, delegating to bidbots, and other essentially fraudulent mechanisms to extract rewards that are intended to be delivered by curation, which is intended to best reward the best content and thereby create incentive to create content of high quality which in turn attracts eyeballs to the Steem blockchain and investment by new users, thus producing upwards price pressure on Steem and creating capital gains for stakeholders.
I joined just prior to HF19, and since then Steem has dropped about 30 positions in market cap ranking to around 60th today. I believe the reason Steem underperforms the market is because of the incentive rewards create to extract rewards from the pool, rather than curate good content, as this is clearly profiteering (extracting operational resources) and the opposite of investment (which seeks to generate capital gains). I don't see how altering rewards curves, or increasing curation rewards - which are just additive to author rewards as mechanisms for profiteering, and essentially ignored by folks without substantial stake - can change these incentives.
However, there are mechanisms that can. There is no mechanism that encourages delegation or direct funding of development, and recently the @steemalliance has officially elected a structure by which to operate means of choosing development operations. Also the SPS was completed by @blocktrades to provide mechanisms to deliver that funding recently. Were dividends potential to stakeholders for delegating to or funding directly via SPS the development intended to increase the value of Steem, and thus create capital gains, real investment would be encouraged. I strongly recommend some mechanism be provided that creates financial incentive to invest in Steem, rather than extract rewards better intended to market Steem to potential investors.
Additionally, rewards are currently unlimited and this creates a vector for profiteering. I propose an algorithm be applied to author rewards that confined rewards to no less than 3% nor more than 300% of the median reward, and eliminating curation rewards altogether. Curation rewards don't create incentive to choose high quality content, but instead are simply gamed by substantial stakeholders to maximize rewards. This is not curation at all, but merely additional extraction of operational resources, and only of import to folks with substantial stake.
By limiting curation rewards to a multiple of the median, most profiteering would be eliminated, as the potential returns would be insubstantial for profiteers seeking large returns on large sums. However, by leaving two orders of magnitude available to differentially reward content of lesser or greater quality, significant incentive to produce higher quality content is preserved, albeit not unlimited. Coupling this with a dividend mechanism that potentiates substantial returns from substantial funding or delegation to development restores the utility of rewards as a mechanism to market Steem, as well as introduces another to drive capital gains, and eliminates the negative pressure profiteering exerts on Steem price.
I am not particularly wedded to these ratios, nor specific mechanisms to create these healthy incentives, but reckon these will do the job of attracting investors rather than profiteers to Steem and create capital gains. Real investors will respond to appropriate incentives and the high quality of the Steem blockchain, use case, and community has very real value that has heretofore not produced nominal capital gains. Nominal incentives is how to change that, IMHO.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on these matters, as you are clearly of agile mind and competent to consider how these changes would affect Steem, Steemit, and capital flows (although that may not be your particular area of expertise).
Thanks!
I think it could work, but until people understand that the current curation issue really has nothing to do with curation, and is nothing more than a smoke screen so a few larger accounts can get more rewards, and the same with the call for a downvote pool, I think people like you and I are just whistling in the wind and no one will really hear or care.
I flag trash. You have received a flag.