We need to fix it. The platform is getting ripped off paying too few people too much money for too little work.
The ones getting paid too much must decide the formula for dispersing the curator funds. Voting is not rational or profitable for 95%+ of users. So hardly anyone is curating. I think we agree on this and I haven't explained myself well. Currently the rewards for curation do not encourage enough people to curate.
I think we both agree that the number of curators with a measurable effect on a post should be larger. Everyone wants this, then more content is reviewed and more users can make money curating so they don't have to post as the only option for earning income. This would create 1000's of income streams for users and free up room for serious authors to be reviewed.
And, let me repeat, blogging should not be the only form of income. We need to create more ideas on this, and then have the results of our efforts be in blogging form. Many of the top creators are professionals: programmers, video bloggers, artists.....the point is that THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING ELSE BESIDES WRITING. That is my main point here. The writing comes afterwards, as they are documenting their work. Not everyone can be a successful writer. More stress should be placed on different disciplines: teaching, outreach, parenting, running a business, programming, etc........... making films, you get the idea...
Yes agree 100% on same page, Curating should be a form of income for more users.
Those other avenues of income are not related to the platform. If some one wants to be a teacher or programmer this is not relevant to the discusion of optimizing the platform or payout of posts and curation. Unless they will be monetized by blogging or curating. Those are the only current mechanisms to reward income for any effort related to the platform.
We are left with two streams of income, posting and curating. 100% of users will have to derive any Steemit related income from those two sources.
There is only ONE discussion that matters and that is optimizing the use of those two rewards to facilitate growth of the platform.
I wrote a blog proposal about changing curation rewards but you can find it if you havent.
how things like running interest groups (i've been admin in a few over on facebook it's hard work so rewarding those who do it well would be amazing), a steemit version of instagram or a steemit wiki,
I'm so happy to see this discussion StellaBelle. I think blockcodes has explained the current problem with curation. As a minnow, when I upvote a post that I think has merit, it does little to nothing to reward the writer financially. Whereas, if a whale or two upvote the post, it produces a larger payout for the author and the whale benefits with a large curation payment. Aside from upvoting and commenting because I like a post, I have no financial incentive to do either. I just do it because I'm moved to by the content.
Steemit is promoted as a community where people can earn a payment for curation, commenting, and writing good content. If new members who don't have a lot of steem or steem power quickly realize curation and commenting don't pay off financially, they'll try writing content... or they'll leave. Good content can generate excellent payments, but only if it's noticed. And then the whales jumping on to upvote is what seems to result in posts being noticed and the higher rewards for all.
I think some of the ideas mentioned, like storefronts and maybe contests, could provide a form of payment that might keep people in the community. As a writer, I'm excited by the potential audience here and interaction with other creative people. Thanks StellaBelle!