It's been brought to my attention that my analysis of the whale problem on steemit has been flawed in previous posts. To quote @tolkatore:
"All the whales do is create their own posts, generally pertaining to Steemit and or cryptocurrency, and then proceed to 100% up-vote themselves.
Oh, and when they're not doing that, they're up-voting little Asian girls who travel the world, and then post about it on Steemit..."
If this is true, the problem is deeper than I initially understood it. If these posts are more lucrative simply because the whales are up voting themselves, this is an even worse disrespect to real content creators than before. Not only that, but the problem could easily be remedied by instilling a rule against up voting your own content. If the platform is really interested in content and isn't a giant ponzi scheme as it's been called in the past, wouldn't this rule make sense? What is the argument against it?
It may be that even a rule as drastic as the aforementioned one may be too late, as many up vote bots have already picked out the whales they know will up vote themselves and up vote them correspondingly.
Instead of great content, like reddit, we're getting stories like this:
"wow no kidding, thanks for saying like it is... first off thank you for posting this, I have max upvoted it and resteemed and now following you. Here is my experience so far. I transferred about a grand $1000 over here 3-4 months ago and have spent considerable time creating posts of relatively somewhat valuable content, and tried to get discussions going but overall to no avail. If it wasn't for a few generous whales taking pity on a few of my postings they all would have flopped completely. My account is now worth about $800. That may be partially due to the drop in the price of Steem on the marketplace, so if it had stayed where it was I would probably be around breaking even at this point. What I am seeing is a platform where 3% of Steemit members are raking in 97% of the Steem. So instead of networking and trying to help new users I am desperately trying to not lose more account value. I wait for my favorite whales to post and max upvote as early as I can to try and generate "vests" or curation awards? I don't know exactly it is confusing - but I have stopped posting because it is frustrating to be ignored, especially when just attempting to get a discussion going about a coin or the overall crypto space or whatever - people are ignoring me because I am not a whale, and they also are trying to not lose account value, so to upvote my content would be a waste of money. On one of my posts regarding my children raising money for a kids with cancer, I received 100 upvotes and it sat at $5 for about a week, then I guess a few whales saw it, and the upvotes went from 100 to 103, and the post jumped to $23. I don't know, I have not given up entirely but I am powering down because after watching this thing and attempting to participate for 4 months, I am definitely seeing a Social Media platform that imo is not sustainable. When Jerry Banfield can do a post of how be brushes his teeth, and get $400, I call bullshit. And no disrespect to Jerry, his content is AMAZING but is it worth 20-30 thousand a month? When he is also raking it in on YouTube for the same posts, I mean, c'mon. Anyway I do hope Steem succeeds, it is quite addictive, but if I am experiencing frustration and feeling ignored, how can I expect my 800+ Facebook friends to transition over? No way. I don't see that happening. There need to be some fundamental changes to how value is distributed and some caps put on the amount whales can earn here. I mean nobody should be able to make more than $20 grand a month here, or be able to upvote their own posts up $300 bucks or whatever. Obviously I am foggy on the details of how the payouts are structured, but I know something needs to change or this house of cards will fall in on itself, so that is just my 2 cents worth, a random view from a new user. I am remaining active on Steemit but powering down my account to get what I can back out in case it does implode due to inequalities. But much luck to everyone here, I mean no disrespect to anyone, I have learned a great deal, and will stay here -a bit more of a passive user, as with 4 kids and a full time job I don't have the time required to create valuable content and fight through the long process of being basically ignored for the most part. So good night my Steemit friends and always remember this message from your friend @cryptoted"
staying, and they aren't for the reasons stated above.And I can assure you, @cryptoted isn't the first, and he won't be the last. I've seen the exact same thing play out before my own eyes, both in person and on the platform. Steemit needs people investing heavily in the platform, as @cryptoted has, but steemit also needs these people
This software will only gain mainstream adoption if all content is valued, as it currently stands, it is not. This will never happen if the whales are allowed to continue to up vote themselves and make large quantities of money with little to no effort compared with remarkable effort put into posts by various content creators.
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Thank you for sharing that quote. I second that. However, maybe we should just post articles, because publishing makes us pleasure and without having the goal of making money in front of our eyes. That could make the whole situation less "frustrating".
Maybe some day you become a whale and ...?
Same here.
I do agree with you and I also share your critique. My point is merely, that we might take a different point of view, which helps to overcome the initial frustrations, when going through the minnow-stage: if money is your motivation to write, so pleasure is something external, that you cannot control. You might be lucky and people upvote/like you from the start; most of the time, this is however not the case and we get ignored.
On the other hand, if you write for the sake of writing (and you consider upvotes/earnings as an additional pleasure), then pleasure becomes something endogenous.
But as I've said, I share your critique and I think the Steemit-developpers have to change the incentive-structure. What I'm proposing here is merely a psychological trick.
I upvote many post, but others don't. By upvoting yourself you get a tiny fraction of profit for your invested time.
I guess some people have multiple accounts and profite by upvoting themselfs.
The richest get richer like in the real world.
If I remember right the profit was expontial to steem power in the past and is now linear, right?
Maybe it should be sqrt(steem power) instead?
I don't know the relation between steem power and rewards.
It would be easy to create bots and upvote efficiently, and Steemit would be more difficult to police by the good whales if the power is lowered.
Steem can be converted to steem power that give you upvote power. Some people got it very cheap, but in my case I bought for 1$ per piece.
You cant just lower somebodies account.
Yes, maybe. Need some coffee right now. Can't think.
It sucks not being a whale, doesn't it. I pour my heart and soul into some piece of writing and it gets two votes and if I am lucky two cents.
Great post steemking. I resteemed it.
It is discouraging to see some spell out something after being an active participant here for so many months. It does, indeed, appear that the system is rigged and the whales take full advantage of it. People need to have a chance and the idea of steem it is that all could profit. However, if this is a forum where only the few profit while the masses starve, well isnt Steemit just like Facebook, Reddit, and the rest of the banking controlled mechanism that are out there?
I really hope the coders can come up with an answer to some of these problems.
That was interesting. Nice post!
Very nice post.
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Interesting read! unfortunately most social-media platforms can be manipulated for gains... Steemit just seems to provide a better platform for the manipulators...
Hi, you're right, in many ways, I've seen a lot of voted posts, in short, just for traveling. there are people who deserve support because we work daily with steemit and it seems that we do not generate what we should. a couple of friends told me that they were paying me very little for the articles they published had high relevance but the case I do not know if I am or are the readers of the community. really is a very delicate subject for this page but we must always be frank in what we are going to do and more if it is something serious like I say it is STEEMIT apart I see your publications and they are of great importance. I feel your content and it is difficult to see us knowing that we write and put the hard work to bring the best information to this world of knowledge.
Great post @steemking777. I have been here less than 2 months and I have begun to suspect this much. I hope that the more you and others bring awareness to this issue it will begin to transition to something more sustainable. There are some very deserving people posting here and they aren't being recognized, it's a shame.
Well you have to fight for your 🎂 portion!
I can see what is happening too
But it is somehow about how much you invest in steemit.com from time to cash
I know you have invested cash and time but I strongly suggest you to make more friends use Discord Pal and all the other chat Rooms
I guess you have to stay around whales to become one!
I wish you a lovely time Steeming and please never quit steemit.com
The Value will skyrocket in years to come ( I hope) So it's All worth it as long as you like to post and don't do it to live of it
Let's hope it will better for all of us in the future
Have a lovely time Steeming
Words !
This post has received a 12.48 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @steemking777.
Little asian girls who travel the world need money to do it. This is a real business.
I replied in a whale post about up voting yourself. I said it was a stupid idea. I was chastised by the whale for being too loud and opinionated. He was looking for opinions on his post and giving large up votes to those that agreed with him. He tried to make me feel small after inviting discussion. I speak direct with few words and meant no disrespect. The greed for steem over comes good content. You are right, if they are going to keep self voting a least put limits on the amount.
Interesting discussion my friend. I've read through all the comments and see the level of discouragement in the majority who responded. Of course, the platform would grow a heck of a lot faster IF the payouts program made the adjustments you suggest. Shouldn't this too be in the best interest of the Founding Whales here? And if their own self-upvoting is the cause of this perceived "poverty" of the "minnow class," what would it take to bring this to light and promote a democratic petition to rectify some of the inequities?
You pitched out an interesting case mate. Write it up as a formal grievance and post it. I've got your back too. ~ longshot
I'm still pretty new here myself and don't blog enough due to time constraints to have an educated answer (as in: what's a ".01 steem private message?" See? nube ignorance :-) But if you come up with a plan, sign me up.
I do upvote my own posts now, did not a first but it seems most are doing so.
That it is even possible I do not understand.
Thanks for your post and more insight into how things are been managed - Hope you have more luck in the future and also just followed you - appreciate if you follow me too
the whales have extra accounts to vote for themselves so blocking self voting will only harm people with only one account ie. new users --they also vote for eachother in a kind of circle of self voting that boosts eachother posts into the hundreds .. i accept it cause they are in the drivers seat , but like you say it is no use inviting new users with things set up this way
not that i can see - unless you have to vote on someone with a lower VP
yes -right on .. good to meet you -David