Wow, I just finished a reply to Kyriacos (hope I spelled that correctly) who also wrote about the culture that is developing here that I believe will ultimately hurt the platform.
One thing I need to say first is that all pay-outs are now suffering due to the lower value of steem.
As for your posts of 2 or 3 dollars, all I can say is that I would be happy to get that! Mine are getting around 20 cents. I understand you have been around a lot longer than I have, but the point I'm trying to make is that new members are suffering even greater unless they have made friends in high places or use methods to 'work' the system. When a Redfish spends 3 to 4 days on a single post that is 'for sure going to impress someone' and then gets 3 views and 2 cents reward, it is very disheartening. Who can afford that kind of effort to reward ratio? Where is the incentive to stick around? Some leave, while others resort to 'tactics' that will get them some quick cash.
I'm very glad to hear that you no longer want to use randowhale and other bots that boost rewards for payment. I refuse to use such 'tactics' because although they do (or can) produce greater rewards, the end result is that everyone and their dog will see the benefit of selling their votes (and I have seen some pretty inventive methods)!
Vote-buying bots do not add a social component to this social media platform. They vote based on a script and don't even open the post. There is no SOCIAL in bot voting and I think it hurts the platform in the long run.
As a redfish, I totally understand your predicament and I feel for you. I agree that HF19 may have caused more problems than it solved. I understand the predicament those in charge are facing. I can see the issues that Bitcoin is having and that they could collapse if they don't do something to fix what is wrong. Steem is no different. It is faced with complex choices. Making the wrong ones will hurt them. Making the right ones could allow them to flourish and rise to the top of the crypto-currency market. I have read of some excellent suggestions about how to fix the situation. What will actually be done about it will remain to be seen.
Thank you so much for your input @happyme! I know this post of mine did a lot of generalisation by using the word 'newbies'. I know many of them are struggling aswell and I hope you'll forgive me for throwing everyone on one pile. For me it was needed to get a certain point across.
It's been hard on many people, new and old. It is just frustrating for older minnows to not only see lesser payouts (which is partly caused by Steem value going down), but also see lesser upvotes, while some newbies make huge strides forward with mediocre content at best. It just feels wrong to see someone surpass you with content like that in a matter of weeks, while you've been at it over half a year now.
You're completely right about the decreasing value overall and yes, it could also be worse, I could also earn nothing. Even after half a year, ofcourse I'm not entitled to anything, but I'm comparing to past results. They show a downward trend in not only value, but also amount of votes. It has been like that for a lot of older minnows, which was why I wrote this, because I know I'm not the only one frustrated over this.
I'd rather see voting bots go than stay. The only 'upside' of them is that everyone has an equal shot at them. Everyone can use them, so it's not like you have to brown nose your way into the good graces of a whale. I don't like using them though and quite frankly, anyone using them now, with the Steem price where it is, is throwing away their money.
I now only make an exception for my contest post. I upvote it with a bot to increase the reward payouts for participants.
Honestly, I have been thinking, but I can't understand why HF19 would be the reason for these things, other than the fact that newer minnows have less voting power to go around, because they miss the slider. That explains it a bit, but I wouldn't have expected it to have so much effect. And you're right, Steemit Inc. is facing big choices on how to run this platform and I certainly don't envy them. I think there are no changes that would please everyone, so they just have to do what they think is best and we'll have to understand the tough spot they're in.
From the things I have read, a lot of the whales are saving their votes for themselves and friends due to the lesser number of votes they can now make at full SP. This in turn leaves less votes for others and that is what seems to be the reason for less votes all around. The minnows don't vote on each other and chase the whales, looking to make a bit more on curating, so again, less votes to go around. This effect was actually predicted by aggroed.
That makes no sense to me though. Those whales (and dolphins and many older minnows) have a voting power slider. They can adjust the weight of their votes, so they will be able to vote on the same amount of people they used to, without draining their VP more than they used to. They all know how it works, so that's a bit of a lame excuse if they are using it.
Yes, they CAN use their slider to make more votes, but as they deplete their vote power, they make less on the votes they want to earn money on.
Look at it from a numbers point of view:
If a whale has 40 votes at full power per day and uses 5 to self-upvote the 5 posts they made that day, they still have 35 votes left to self-upvote their own comments and other content. They may use another 10 for their own comments. That leaves 25 full-power votes that they can then use to upvote content from others.
Now lets do that again with only 10 votes per day:
5 for their own posts, 5 for their own comments.... OH OHHHH.... ran out of votes! Sorry everyone else.
Now does it make sense?
That makes complete sense. I guess I need to stop thinking of people as though they are fair.
They say nothing is fair about love and war, but when it comes to money, things can get ugly real fast.
Don't get me wrong; there are many kind and generous people here on this platform. It takes but a few to ruin it for everyone though. What is that saying? A few rotten apples can spoil the whole bunch.
That saying fits perfectly here! I guess I was just hoping whales, with how much they have invested in this platform, will all want it to succeed, so they'd go for a long-term vision, instead of the short-sightedness you described previously.
I'm glad there are plenty of kind people here too, otherwise I wouldn't have lasted this long :-)