@victoria-kelly made an interesting observation on a different post of mine, namely that Steemit seems to operate within two "circles," one of which is content creators and community builders, and the other is money seekers.
It's not that we have different objectives-- because who doesn't like getting a reward? -- but our motivating factors are different: Either "the content leads" or "the money leads."
Steemit, for me, picks up where I "lost" something back around 2005-ish when I was very involved in "social blogging," which was basically a more "human story intensive" type of social media. Then came Facebook and MySpace and pretty much removed the "needing to put thought and effort into it" part; loads of people flocked to this format of just collecting "thumbs up" and "number of friends." Actual content became an afterthought.
But it was actually a huge niche market; Xanga hosted 33 million bloggers in 2005-06. If Steemit could come even close to snagging all those (mostly) displaced users, this could become one of the greatest repositories of human stories ever built... the blockchain is ideal for that, to boot.
I love the kitten bots, by the way. Not only are they cute as hell, but they are excellent "training wheels;" if you upvote the kitten, you "get" something-- an endearing little graphic. Which beats the snot out of generic "Upaid4itbot upvoted you by 0.17%. Have a nice life!" message.
Those two "circles" are certainly a reality but neither is exclusive to the other really. I think the much more divisive factor is the attitude towards "entitlement". I think I'd personally make a threefold division in that respect, builders, takers and fakers... but again, neither is exclusive to the other.
The socio-economics of this platform sure make for a really intense cultural experiment.
And the kittens fall right into that experiment, I guess they sort of do exactly that community building type of reciprocal voting you describe in the OP (I guess we could also call it clique-voting to highlight the negative aspect of it?!) albeit they are bots.
Yes, that's another valid perspective... without doubt, this is a fascinating social experiment.
I'm taking a break here from writing a piece about the nature of social media... because sometimes it feels like people forget that (a) Steemit IS "social media" and (b) all other social media platforms have everything from garbage to genius, as well. Why would we be exempt here?
The kittens remind me a little of a current-day variation of the old "tit-for-tat" algorithm (sometimes known as the "Prisoner's Dilemma."), in that you support the kittens, the kittens support you.
Clique voting? Well, yes... but isn't social media inherently cliqueish? If you're into chess, you trail around behind your favorite chess people and pretty much ignore "Spanish cooking." We become cliqueish and tribal around our hobbies and interests... and our support of them can even be seen as "self-serving" in that if I encourage (let's say) the kittens, YOU are more likely to keep running something I experience as valuable. It becomes a win-win, in a self-interest sort of way.
And I have a sneaking suspicion that that was more or less what @dan (and his dad, I'm sure) originally were counting on, in creating Steemit as a viable concept.
Well, social media certainly is as cliquish in nature as humans are tribal... 100%
Seeing the kittens as a sort of inverse prisoner's dilemma is actually an interesting point of view... I should explore that more deeply.