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RE: Will Steem succeed or commit suicide?

in #steemit7 years ago

Really? Cause I've been climbing up this hill pretty steadily by putting in the work of forging bonds with the people on here and posting consistently good original material. And yes, it has been catching up. It's a slow process that's set to happen over the course of years, but SP is and will continue to diffuse across more users as time goes on. Again, it's in the white paper. The more people receiving curation/author rewards, the less rewards end up in the pocket of whales. This has been accelerated with the linear rewards curve established in Hardfork 19, as the overall weight of whale accounts has decreased.

I have had zero difficulty in explaining the situation to people on here regarding rewards, as it's a matter of perspective. Just like in the real world, if you don't have any social currency (reputation, not just a rep score), no one's going to know who you are. You have to market yourself. It takes time, and it takes effort, but if I can do it, take a break for a few months to finish a novel, and pick right back up and gain an average of 12 users a day since I've been back, anyone can.

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I think you hit the nail on the head here. This is social jealousy. Those without the clout or the following, or the extreme writing skill to get to trending without it, are always looking for ways to try to change the system for the better.

I honestly think that most of the minnows here are basically Steemit-communists. They all want to "seize the means of production" because it's unfair that "he makes more than me after investing $10,000s"

That's exactly what it is. To quote the other guy responding to me:

some people are lucky enough to have a shit load of money to invest.

As if having a shit ton of money to invest just magically happens to people. Nope, no way hard work and effort ever factored into that. Risk assessment and leveraging your assets to get on the cutting edge? Nonsense. It's all luck.

Can't stand that shit.

Nice one; don't get me started...
You know the platform better than me; so it's good to have your perspective. Thankyou.

Those without the clout or the following, or the extreme writing skill to get to trending without it, are always looking for ways to try to change the system for the better.

Is changing the system for the better supposed to be a bad thing?

I honestly think that most of the minnows here are basically Steemit-communists. They all want to "seize the means of production" because it's unfair that "he makes more than me after investing $10,000s"

What were you expecting, an An-cap circle jerk? The vast majority of people detest anarcho-capitalism and prefer socialism. Look at reddit, /r/socialsim has around 100,000 subscribers, /r/anarchocapitalsm has around 1,500 subscribers.

If this site takes off, that's what you can expect. If it doesn't make the distribution system fairer though, it won't take off and users will abandon the site. Less people will upvote your posts and your payouts will decrease. Also, the value of steem will drop.

That was poorly phrased on my part. I was implying "for the better" simply means whatever benefits them more.

The whole point is there isn't agreement on what "for the better" is. Sorry about that.

It's disingenuous of you to compare Socialism and An-Cap. We're talking straight capitalism here, control of one's own assets. You want to compare the numbers of capitalists and socialists in the US, totally inverting your numerical advantage?

Socialism is a garbage ideal for those with garbage logic. Like Communism, it only works in theory until you run out of other people's money (tm), and Steemit is designed to be diametrically opposed to it.

"Less people will upvote your posts and your payouts will decrease. Also, the value of steem will drop."

If you haven't already noticed that the number of your votes is almost irrelevant, because 1 whale is worth 10,000 minnows, then I don't know what to tell you. Losing a bunch of minnow votes really doesn't mean anything. Minnows, if they aren't creating quality content, are a drain on the platform.

If you have data to prove that the value of an asset will drop if you can't get it into the hands of those with no net worth, I'd love to see it.

PS - Still loving the name.

If you have data to prove that the value of an asset will drop if you can't get it into the hands of those with no net worth, I'd love to see it.

Just look at what happened to digg when it became dominated by a handful of power users.

Well, I don't have any data to show you but I do belive the value of a social plataform depends heavly on how many people want to use it.

Think about it: there is no ads, no value creation besides the content posted which is not sold to anyone. So, where the actual value comes from? Like any other currency, from the adoptions and trade utility. Both will not grow if the reward system still the way it is. And I know it because all those minnows trying to change this reward system is the only data I have to think about steemit, maybe not enought to convince you, but still something you should consider.

If things stay the way they are, steemit will soon become a small and valueless plataform for early adopters/investors scratch each others back. That's the right time for steemit to learn and improve or resist and probably die. That's the main reason I am not willing to invest more than the 500 usd I alredy invested on steemit.

Followed you based on your comments in this thread. I'm a minnow. I'm investing a lot of time and effort to provide good content (well i hope it's classed as "good) on here. That's all i intend to do. Hopefully, over time, my investment (although not liquid like yours) will reward myself and others on here.

@anarcho-andrei The speed of the distribution will change depending on the inflation rate of steem (new coins issued to authors and curators) and on the behave of whales. If inflation is low and whales and selfish, the distribution may not be enought to keep new users comming to the plataform and everyone will hurt.

It's even harder when you think of other languages and without them steem will never grow global. We have good people on steem trying to make national projects, like @camoes for portuguese, but it's almost impossible to make relevant money writing in other language besides english. So, if steem is to really go global and became what it is suposed to, the distribution speed should increase. You are right, it's better after HF19, but maybe not fast enought yet.

And it's not really about social capital. A famous brazillian youtuber could come here with hundreds or thousands of fans and still would be a minnow since very few people in Brazil have any SP to vote for him. Today, it's more like a plutocracy + aristocratic system where you have to either put thousands of dolars or be connected to the nobility class to become relevant. What you are saying is that connecting to the nobility is possible and I agree, but people are saying that maybe it's not the best thing to do with this plataform.

Everyone belives on the concept, but people have different expectations. Let's keep discussing until we find a way to make everyone happy and rich. =)

Cheers!

"Let's keep discussing until we find a way to make everyone happy and rich. =)"

We don't want this. Most of the content creators on here create garbage. They deserve the nothing they get.

I guess they are posting (not even creating) garbage because that's the best cost-benefit choise if someone wants to maximize rewards.

I wrote a fairly good content 10 days ago, took me 3 hours of research and writing plus review and linking in facebook and twitter. I had almost 100 views and 10 upvotes, made 50 cents.
Two days after that, as a test, I postes a youtube video of a song that I like, absolutly no maketing or anything involved and got 15 views and 1 dólar reward.

So, if my goal was to maximize my reawards, the best option would be to just post tons of garbage stuff hoping I can get somone to vote on them or invest time and energy on a single quality post? People say that making a quality post will get you more followers and on the long tun will be better, but I belive there is a problem in the way things are done now.

One option would be to limit the dayly posts by rep, so the quality content wouldn't be lost amont tons of garbage.

"I wrote a fairly good content 10 days ago, took me 3 hours of research and writing plus review and linking in facebook and twitter. I had almost 100 views and 10 upvotes, made 50 cents.
Two days after that, as a test, I postes a youtube video of a song that I like, absolutly no maketing or anything involved and got 15 views and 1 dólar reward."

I think, unfortunately, you have effectively summarized why many of us have felt Social Media is fucking stupid for a very long time. This exact same stuff regularly happens to me, or I release two very similar-in-quality posts and one makes 7 cents while another makes $300. Unfortunately, as I believe it says in the white paper, Steemit is kind of a lottery. You aren't rewarded on a fair, regular basis (unless you buy a ton of stake to reward yourself). All you can do is release the best content and hope for the best.

You can release garbage content, and because you get more "lottery tickets" that way, the chance of someone with some stake seeing it is higher. However, that is a short-term strategy that doesn't create followers.

The only long-term-guaranteed strategy is blood, sweat and tears. I have been writing for decades and even with a lot of content pre-brainstormed, regular quality production is difficult and often unrewarded.

Steemit isn't a magic money machine...unless we go to the moon and you are Hodl'ing, I guess.

Perhaps it is because the system incentivizes this type of behavior. We need a valid solution to this.

"Most of the content creators on here create garbage. They deserve the nothing they get."

I could not have less respect for that attitude.

Maybe you find @sweetsssj's posts riveting, and any number of others of little value. However, there are people that have not had your opportunities to attain liquid assets, through no fault of their own, and that does not make them less than human.

The value of Steem is derived from Steemit. Absent Steemit, your investment in Steem will prove unrewarding, and the masses of posters of 'useless' content are all that stands between you and a bad investment.

Heh, so, someone commented on this string and it came up in my reply feed, so I'll take this chance to reply again:

I think we're talking past each other here.

If you take a look at "New" right now, you'll see what I mean about most posts being garbage. 4 of the 7 posts in "New" when I wrote this were single pictures of food that may well have been plagiarism.

This is garbage content. That's all I mean.

"However, there are people that have not had your opportunities to attain liquid assets, through no fault of their own, and that does not make them less than human."

I don't think I implied this anywhere. I certainly didn't state it.

"and the masses of posters of 'useless' content are all that stands between you and a bad investment."

I don't think those masses of garbage content stand between Steemit crashing at all. It's the 10% of users with quality content, the top 1000 authors....they are what make Steemit valuable.

Not the 299000 accounts full of upvoting-nogonaoo bots.

LOL

I do take your points, particularly regarding botnets. But, and I wish to say this with complete respect, those 'garbage posts' are gonna be Steemit's bread and butter. Not the Single Malt and Champagne, but the bulk of the posts people are able to make that intercourse with their social circle.

As such, I don't have a problem with that. I'm not gonna follow folks that post pics of Kim Kardashian's butt, but I consider such posts literally sacred compared to AI written posts, botnets, etc.. Actual people hold them to be valuable, which gives them value.

While there may be little substantive difference between such posts and posts that are simply vehicles for votebots and vote buying schemes, there is a qualitative difference, and it's important. Most people aren't gonna write work that Hemingway did, and Steemit needs to be their social network too.

That it is will make the top content more valuable, not the only valuable content.

Without the 'masses' Steemit will fail. Fakebook will win, because the masses are recognized as integral to it's success. I bow to necessity in the fight to destroy Fakebook. Doesn't mean I'm gonna post pics of Nascar...

I apologize for any outrage I may have expressed in a semi-ad hominem manner. You are correct that stating that posts are 'garbage' doesn't state that the posters are.

No problemo. I agree with you. I've made the same argument from the other side when appropriate (when people complain that their quality posts to 37 followers make no rewards). Steemit is ultimately a popularity contest, after all.

I reckon it's only a contest if you're trying to win ;)

I see it as more of a forum, because that's what I come here for - to air and hear ideas in a melting pot.

I have endured a dissatisfaction with people so profound that I am considered a recluse by those that know me today. The thing is, I am not a recluse, I just cannot abide the fermented despair and doublethink imposed by society (in America) so simply opt out, in order to avoid having those influences injected into my mind and person.

This causes me no end of difficulties, particularly with lack of substantive criticism. Most people I encounter are trained to talk behind ones back, rather than offer straightforward comment.

This is not useful to me, so I extend my reach on here, to those that, like myself, and you also, will make comment that is not designed to save the face of whom you are talking to, and may actually help them reconsider what they need to.

I reckon I 'win' just by being here, popularity be damned!

Hi, you may be interested in joining the discussion on my recent post on Steemit's issues.

Let's all work together through building awareness of these problems to find a good solution.

Really? Cause I've been climbing up this hill pretty steadily by putting in the work of forging bonds with the people on here and posting consistently good original material.

Well, your transaction history tell a different story. It shows that you've been buying lot's of steem rather than earning it. It shows that you have 1,479.318 STEEM yourself and people have delegated 9,048.881 STEEM to you - probably because you purchased it off a whale. It also shows that you've been buying upvotes.

You've simply used your wealth to buy yourself a better position. How on earth is that fair to those who don't have the wealth to buy themselves influential positions?

It's my earnings. I can use them in whatever fashion I want to. As for the delegated SP, I purchased that with the earnings I gathered from all the posts I've made previous to now, and I purchased it to expand my ability to curate. So you can shove your self-righteousness. You know how I earned enough SP to power down into Steem so I could purchase wider curating power in the first place? Good original content and building relationships with people.

I earned where I'm at and what I'm doing. I've put forth a year's worth of effort to build my position. I'm all for charity; I've delegated to curation bots I believe in run by people I know and trust. I have sat on the introduceyourself tag and greeted hundreds of new Steemians and answered tons of questions on Steemit.chat and Discord to help new users out. What I will never support is the notion that this should be automatic or a feature. No one deserves something just for showing up.

Of course you can do whatever you want with your steem, that doesn't mean the system is fair.

As for the delegated SP, I purchased that with the earnings I gathered from all the posts I've made previous to now, and I purchased it to expand my ability to curate. So you can shove your self-righteousness. You know how I earned enough SP to power down into Steem so I could purchase wider curating power in the first place?

How stupid do you think people are? You powered down your SP into steem in order to use that steem to purchase 10x more SP? Sure mate, that happened.

I'm not being self-righteous, I merely pointing out the recorded facts.

I earned where I'm at and what I'm doing.

As your transaction history shows, you've clearly bought your position. I'm not saying that you haven't made good posts or been helpful, I'm merely stating a recorded and undeniable fact. You can try to deny it as much as you want but it's right there in your transaction history.

No one deserves something just for showing up.

Likewise, no one deserves anything just for being wealthy enough to be able to buy themselves a nice position.

If you looked at my transaction history, you'd see me powering down the SP I've earned over the course of a year in order to do this. Why don't you look again?

Also, what were those transfers in your transaction history from blocktrades?

Why would I need to look over it again? You just said that you powered down your SP in order to purchase SP? On what planet does that make any sense? It ain't fucking this one that's for sure.

I powered down SP into Steem. I leased 10k SP from minnowbooster for 400 Steem. Need me to write it in crayon or are you gonna keep making assumptions?

I'm glad I could finally get you to admit that you bought your position rather than earning it.

Oh wait, I know exactly what those transfers are. You trying to buy your position.

https://steemit.com/steem/@steempower/how-to-use-blocktrades

Yes, that's me trying to buy my way higher up the ladder. Unlike you, I'm not going to deny that fact and I'm not going to try to convince people that I earned that SP when I so very clearly bought it and din't earn it in any way, shape or form. I didn't even earn the money I used to buy that SP, I made it from mining altcoins with my GPU.

Good for you. I earned mine. So by your own metric, I have way more of a leg to stand on.

Sure mate, you earned it by paying 400 steem for 10K SP.

This is exactly the issue I've pointed out in my recent post.

It'd be great if you could join that discussion as well to help highlight this problem further.

Show data please.

Show me a current chart of the one I posted earlier, in reply to another comment. I have asked @arcange for a new, post HF19 chart, but receive no answer.

Social media needs to be useful to everybody, not just salespeople. While people that market themselves successfully can succeed in business, ordinary people just posting the stuff they post are the market for Steemit. This isn't supposed to be a marketing platform, but a social media site.

The rewards, as you point out, increase as folks gain followers. But, as long as bots, collusion, and punitive flagging exist, those rewards are going to continue to be concentrated in the accounts that 'game' Steemit for rewards, rather than to post ordinary content on social media.

This is not what the white paper lays out. Indeed, the white paper says

"In the real world, algorithms must be designed in such a manner
that they are resistant to intentional manipulation for profit.
Any widespread abuse of the scoring system could cause community
members to lose faith in the perceived fairness of the economic system."