Can you remember what attracted your attention when you first landed here on steemit? If you don’t, let me remind you. It’s the dollar sign at the bottom of every post.
You were intrigued. You read the posts on trending that’s making hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars and decided that YOU can make posts like that yourself.
After a week or two of anxiously waiting, you got your account approved. You dove in eager to make hundreds just like those in the trending page. Heck, you’d settle for $20 or $30 per post.
You made a few dollars with your introductory post and you are certain this will work.
And then you discover it’s not a walk in the park.
Even if you poured out your heart and dedicated several hours in crafting your work, nobody seemed to notice. But with much effort, you made some connections, you commented on other posts and some people are actually following you!
Now your posts are getting a few dollars here and there. Nothing much but you’re now EARNING money from your posts. You’re ecstatic.
Then came the pay-out.
You received SBD and some SP. But the amount is smaller than what you are expecting. Scratching your head, you are compelled to dig deeper into this mystery. You find out that the amount with the dollar sign is not what it seems.
You only get 75% of that amount as the author and 25% goes the ‘curators’ or those who upvoted your post. Out of that 75%, half will be given in SBD or steem-backed dollars while the other half will be in SP or Steem Power. But you’re getting fewer SP than SBD.
More head scratching. Then despair. You feel like you wasted your time. It all seems too complicated. Then a glimmer of hope. You finally realize that SP is actually worth more than a US dollar!
Your post actually made more than the dollar value posted below it!
Which brings us to the point of this post . . .
The dollar sign on the bottom of the posts messes up your mind. And
I suggest that we change it to something more accurate.
Steem.supply creator @dragosroua calls them STU (Steem Token Units).
I feel that changing the dollar signs to STU’s will have a profoundly good effect overall on steemit. And here are my reasons:
Confusion will be avoided.
There’s too many things you’ll have to wrap your mind around with when you’re new to steemit. Removing the dollar sign will simplify things significantly. One less thing to get confused about.
The dollar sign doesn’t represent the actual amount your posts are going to get anyway.
If that doesn’t sound compelling enough, read on. Removing the dollar sign could actually promote more engagement on steemit. Hear me out.
The Psychology of Money
Ever wondered why casinos exchange your money for tokens? Sure, it would make it easier for the dealers to not to have to check each bill if it’s counterfeit or not. But there’s a more practical reason why casinos do that.
Players don’t feel they’re losing REAL money when they’re playing with chips.
I have a feeling that the same holds true for upvoting on steemit.
Steemians are being stringy with their upvotes because of the dollar value associated. We feel, albeit perhaps subconsciously, that we are LOSING money by upvoting other posts.
And in a sense, this is true. You only have so many upvotes available every day. And you can either use those upvotes for your own posts OR to upvote other people’s posts.
Now if your voting power is only a few cents worth, this is not a big issue. But as your SP becomes bigger and bigger, you tend to be careful (perhaps too careful) with your votes.
There are some (a good example is @surpassinggoogle) who freely upvote other people’s posts. But those people are few and far between.
By removing the dollar sign on the posts, it will be easier to upvote others as you won’t always be reminded of the dollar value of your vote.
Will Removing the Dollar Sign Negatively Affect New User Recruitment?
I can imagine it will. But right now, that doesn't really matter. We're growing by 300 to 400 new users everyday currently. This is happening because, apparently, approval of new members is done manually.
So, unless this is fixed, whatever positive effect the dollar sign has on new membership is negligible.
There are a lot of things to fix on steemit. I'm not a developer but removing the dollar sign probably won't take up much time to implement but would impact steemit positively.
Wow, that summary in the first half of your post pretty much summarizes how everyone feels when they start, I mean right on the money!
Although I agree with getting rid of the money sign in principle, I think it helps attract new users, so may be important for future growth. The problem is balancing future growth vs. retention of new members.
Hey @hb1. For a moment I thought you and @hr1 were the same person. LOL.
Like I said in the post, steemit is not actually able to keep up with the rate of new registrations. That's why it takes too long to get an account approved. Because it's being done manually. SO, I'm reasoning that removing the dollar sign won't really have a big effect on onboarding new users.
You definitively have a point here.
Although i have to admit it is very appealing to see this, it still is after some time.
So i agree on your point, but maybe instead of removing the dollar sign, some option should be added in "Settings" . Give you the choice betweem "Post value" / "Author pay-out " / "Curqtor pay out" .
Would increase transparency too iguess.
I totally agree with your reasoning why dollar sign should be removed besides the numbers.
But, don’t you think removing the dollar sign will also affect the number of new users on boarding the platform. The dollar sign makes a huge impact on their minds when they first see it. I am sure many of us would not have signed up for steemit if we hadn’t seen the dollar sign. What do you think?
Right now steemit can't even handle the volume of new registration. That's why it takes too long to get approved. So its impact on new registration can be ignored for now.
I got you. Removing dollar sign will remove all the misconceptions about the payouts. Thank you for the explanation.
Being stringy in upvoting is the only way to get rid of those low effort content, getting some numbers on the side of the dollar sign. We dedicate hours to create one good post, while they’re already making $100 from posting 5 articles copied somewhere, or from uploading photos of what they had for lunch or dinner.
The very essence of upvoting is to reward Steemians like us, who are working so hard to provide useful information that can help our community. The dollar sign reminds us of our own value, and who should we value in return. My two cents.
Hi @cocoland. I really appreciate the smart comment.
I hate spam as much as you do. The point I was trying to make was that we could all be more generous in upvoting GOOD QUALITY posts.
The amount of pay-out is another issue. It doesn't reflect the quality of content.
I can see that you've started using upvote bots for your posts. I use them too. I'd suggest using @minnowbooster though as they're the only service that guarantee a profit.
I'm nominating you to be whitelisted. We need more people like you here.
Thank you for clarifying that @digitaldreamer
"The amount of payout is another issue. It doesn't reflect the quality of content".
I agree. There are times where I feel like quitting because of the amount of pay-out vs. the efforts, but I always remind myself of Steemit’s guarantee that one day, it will all be worth it. It’s only been a month since I joined anyway, and my first month was just about learning the basics. My second month is going to be a little more exciting, building relationships :)
Yes! I’ve started using bid bots. All thanks to you! :) I used @minnowbooster several times. Although, I only used it once with my recent post because its voting power at that time was only 57%. Remember you told us before, in Filipino language, to make sure its voting power is above 70% to get a positive ROI? I followed your advice :)
Wow! :) Thanks for nominating me to be whitelisted. I haven’t really explored that part, but I’m willing to learn it :)
The bot's voting power only matters to the availability of votes, not the ROI.
Thanks, @tcpolymath. But can you explain further what that means, please? Thank you again.
You said:
The bot's voting power doesn't really matter. The only way it makes a difference is that if it's very low its large votes might not be available at all. (And it doesn't matter at all for the small votes, which come from users.)
I see. Thank you for the clarifications @tcpolymath! I appreciate it! :)
If you want to know more about the community driven Minnow Booster white list i recommend these 2 posts:
https://steemit.com/minnowbooster/@minnowbooster/minnowbooster-epic-update-community-whitelist-now-online
https://steemit.com/minnowbooster/@tcpolymath/understanding-the-minnowbooster-whitelist-process-from-a-voter-s-perspective
Btw I voted for you, so you're one step closer.
Thank you @news-today. I'm currently reading the posts you've just shared. I was also able to login to minnowbooster.net.
And hey! Thank you...
You'll get more upvote options when you're white listed plus you'll be earning 25%.
This is new to me. *Starts reading...
MB White List is erg interessant voor quality authors.
Laat maar weten als je vragen hebt.
Excellent post for the newbies like me. Even, some of the old ones do not sure how it works. because i talked to some of them.
Very much Appreciated. Thanks
No, the dollars don't need to be removed at all. They're good just like that. They are good enough to give you a rough estimate.
Hi @technological. I'm actually suggesting that the figures stay. It's just the dollar sign itself that needs to be removed or modified as per @misterbob 's idea.
Dollar signs bring a shine to the eyes. Why remove them? SBD is a dollar too.
You've got a really good point here. I think rather than an abbreviation (STU), redoing or re-branding the Steem logo into a recognizable symbol like the dollar sign or Euro or Yen or even Bitcoin would help more.
I mean, even if you've never used that particular currency, think how easy it is to read these: ¥ £ ₿ € when they are connected to a number. As it is, if there were just an abbreviation, I fear that it would seem akin to a non-currency, like Reddit karma or likes or favorites.
In other words, we need a symbol that reads as currency, not upvotes. Right now, the dollar sign does that. (I suspect - I've done no research - that one reason the dollar sign works well is that it looks like an S already.)
So, while I agree that we should get rid of the dollar sign, I think any replacement should be instantly recognizable as money.
Thanks for the great post!
That's an excellent idea!
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Hello and sorry for posting here my concern because this is the only way I know that my fellow steemir can see me! I just wanted to ask only I know your an expert now here because im only new here..regarding to my estimated account value is not splitting to steem dollars but only to steem power only can have because i know I start with 100% power up when I post any not the 50/50..so my ask how can I split now this? this is my screenshot. Thank you!!!
I hope anybody can help me for this thank you!!!!!
Hi. Using steemit.com go to SETTINGS. Then under preferences you will see a dropdown menu for blog post rewards and also for comment rewards. Make sure they are set to 50% SP, 50% SBD. Hope that helps.
thank you so much very helpul!!!godbless!
Hey, the content you delivered that what exactly every new member feels like!!
Thanks for sharing this!
Good work! Keep posting!
God bless! :)