A Humble Minnow's Perspective
As a newbie and a minnow, I don't have any problem with the founders setting themselves up with significant stakes in Steemit. It's to be expected, in fact. I do not believe it's a scam or a Ponzi scheme, anyone who thinks that doesn't really know what a scam or Ponzi scheme really are. Steemit is a great opportunity and the future of social media.
The biggest complaint I'm seeing is from fellow minnows is that whales pretty much only upvote other whales (or the quasi-celebrities who sign up). This is viewed not as supporting quality content but as "keeping the wealth in the family".
Whales may be producing great content, but so are some other people that aren't whales. A single vote from a whale would probably give some users, in that single vote, more SP and SD then they've earned in the last month, even with 50-60 or even 100 upvotes on a single post.
SD and SP are actually LESS an indicator of quality than the NUMBER of votes is, but even stupid cat videos can get a lot of votes. I can buy SP, and mine it, and then I can give big upvotes to my friends. But if I'm buying it and mining it, it doesn't come from quality content. And my upvote could give more SP to a stupid cat video than a steemion doing superb photography, writing original poetry, or producing great news content.
You see how that works? As a big stake holder in Steemit, and being friends and partners with the other large stake holders (whales), of course you're going to read their posts and comment on them. That's what friends do. It's what me and my friend do here too.
However, in creates a redistribution and creation of steem power that is not necessarily based on quality and certainly gives the impression (not saying it's real, saying it's the impression) that whales are washing each others' backs.
This needs to be dealt with somehow, because it is discouraging new users after short trials with the site.
Since I'd like to focus on solutions, here's some suggestions to play with:
- Limit or prohibit whales from upvoting other whales too much.
- re-scale rewards program
- assign groups of minnows to whales for for possible upvotes, help and comments
- establish mentoring relationships between experienced users and noobs. This can be voluntary.
- Find other ways to attract "celebrity" users like Bix Weir & Jeff Berwick than just big upvotes from whales
- a recommended board where power users can promote quality work they come across from non-power users
There are six suggestions to get the ball rolling on how to improve/change the system so that new steemions might not get so easily discouraged and make sure quality content outside the circle of whales gets seen.
If anyone has any comments on my suggestions, or on my view of the problem, please share them below. I don't care if you disagree as long as it's thoughtful and leads to intelligent dialog.
Update: I notice my post from 2 days ago has 18 votes. At time of update this also has 18 votes. The post from 2 days ago paid out $5.55. This post so far is $0.04. This is presumably the same quality, if not better considering the time frame for votes, yet there is a substantial difference in potential pay out. This was Jennsky's point below.
Update: For those who think I'm complaing, I'm not. I'm just reporting the issue as I understand it. This isn't an editorial, it's reporting. Just seems like something that needs to seen from another perspective and talked about. You can see from the discussion below this is precisely so.
Update 3: Well, I (we, minnows) may stand corrected. I just got a whale vote on the post I put up after this one! And I believe one of the commenters below did tell us it's known to happen. Keep pluggin', steemers.
I'm not going to get into your points on changing the rules. Whether I agree with them or not isn't my reason for commenting.
As a maturing minnow who signed up 2-3 weeks ago, I'm on my way to becoming a dolphin. The best advice I can give other plankton and minnows is to ask what you can do for others.
When you ask what you can do for others, try to focus on people who have a lot of power. For example, Ned (Steemit CEO) wanted a Steemit FAQ page written, so I volunteered to produce it for him, and I'm going to do a damn good job. Then, when he needs something at a later time, he'll think of me. When he sees my posts, he'll be more likely to read them and probably be more likely to upvote them. Ned now knows who I am and is on my side.
Another time, a Steemian was compiling a wiki-type page and asking for help. This time, it was a baby whale, but someone with a ton of Steem Power nonetheless. I said I'd help her out and have been messaging her. Now she's on my side.
Another time, I wrote a thoughtful comment on a thread about improving Steemit, linking a post I had written on the topic. A whale responded in agreement with me, telling me he has been saying that same thing for a long time. I had written an excellent article on the subject that made like $0.20 because it got no traction. (Granted, it has received a couple of dollars now, but that was after the first payout.) I told this whale he could go ahead and repost my article if he wants because it's more likely to gain traction being posted by someone of his stature. No strings attached. He didn't repost it, but he did start following me.
TL;DR I'm still a minnow, but in just 2-3 weeks, I got three different whales on my side, one of whom now follows me, all because I came to give, not take.
Excellent suggestions, worthy of consideration. Unfortunately I'm not a techhead, but there may be other ways to contribute.
That being said, our posts, comments, replies and upvotes are the contributions the community is based on.
I'm not tech savvy either. I know nothing about any of that techy stuff. I am, however, diligent and hard-working. I can research and ask the right questions to the right people. I may not be able to write the entire FAQ, but I did take 99% of the work of Ned's plate and I know he's grateful for that.
Good job, man!
And I forgot to say thank you for the thoughtful reply.
I'm happy to contribute!
Your steem power comes from the blocktrades account?
I believe in Steemit. I think it's going to be huge. So I decided to purchase some Steem Power, which is why it shows it as coming from blocktrades.
You wrote the Steemit FAQ thats about to appear. Your a minnow? Or a whale in his minnow acct. Dont get me wrong. I am not anti-whale. I am not anti-Steemit. But whales need these minnows as much as the minnows need the whales. If whales dont share the love more, we end up with a shitstorm of bitter minnows retreating back to previous platforms attacking our "shared" content. That becomes LOSE-LOSE. Not WIN-WIN
The entire FAQ wasn't written by me, but I did compile it and edit all the answers. Well over half (probably 60-70%) of it was my personal writing.
Yes I'm a minnow, but am working hard to help others and I think it will come back around to help me.
I used to have that though when I started steemit, in fact I even posted a piece asking if steemit is also for ordinary people but it turns out that I was wrong. It doesn't mean that because you submitted a post, you can gain rewards right away, that's not the story here, you have to get involve. Posting is not enough. Try it and you'll see that you are wrong.
I'm not really complaining about anything. I'm really posting what I understand the general minnow complaint to be. You can say I'm posting my "understanding of things", not necessarily my complaint. Get that?
And I forgot to say thank you for the thoughtful reply.
at 30 minute mark, 15 votes is $0.00 value. Thats the problem, can we at least be valued at a penny. We post good content every day. Some is quality. Seriously 1000 pennies is $10 bucks. Dirt is worth more than your content providers.
And this gets back to suggestion 2--re-scale the rewards program. There may be other ways to do this too. Not sure how they calculated the scores because I haven't finished the white paper yet, too busy producing content, laaa. But even a big whale vote doesn't bestow much value if you compare the upvote to the amounts in their wallets.
if you remove the 2500 content providers all your left with is 100 whales trying to convince people steem coin has value and Steemit has value. Yet we are to believe we have no value.
That what suggestions 3, 4 and 6 address. We'll have to see if and how any of the big kahunas respond. You should also offer any suggestions you have. We are still in Beta so this is a good time to work out kinks and respond to Beta users' feedback.
As a newbie I totally agree with your post.
Looking forward to greater support for new users.. Stanceu
Thanks, Stanceu. It'll be interesting to see what happens. It's still only beta.
Tell your friends to upvote to keep it trending, LOL!
You have raised interesting points but personally I don't agree with point no 1. Limiting or prohibiting anyone reeks of censorship and should be discouraged on a platform such as this
Point well-taken. It is just a suggestion presented more to stimulate discussion than anything else.
A whales view. Dont get me wrong, I like whales too. Whales operate under numerous accounts.
I am a business man, and for me, customers are everything. I want to make sure that good customers are not displeased with my service or are not confused about the value or outlook of value of my product (MVP i guess?). If good customers are turning away, because they do not get value for the price they pay (and payment can equally well be content on Steemit), well then they will likely, at least say, i will check it out later, or worse. What a crap system, not for me. That would be bad business in my eyes
thank you for the thoughtful reply.
Again, I'm not necessarily complaining. I'm trying to explain the point of view of fellow minnows as I understand it. Of course, even they are wrong, the impression people have regardless of reality is very important to a business.
I think the problem is that people sign up assuming they'll be rich! It becomes discouraging because the votes of new users aren't even worth a penny. Its a catch 22. If the site was bigger my review of Spiderman No. 28 might make ten dollars from comicbook fans, but because the site is small it doesn't, which makes me discouraged, so I leave. There's a tipping point the community has to reach to make future growth more likely.
With 2500+ content providers, you think they ALL are the get rich types. Its not catch 22, its the 10% at the top and the 90% at the bottom. 10,000 content providers doesn't change the equation.
Well, you could actually say this is the fault of the minnows. "Everybody" wants to produce, nobody wants to read or comment or vote (which doesn't include you are working hard to contribute from all angles). So this is an issue that goes both ways, but for different reasons.
That is a problem, and @shenanigator in his above comments goes pretty far with his suggestions on how those "get rich quick" types might make a better course for themselves. Getting rich quick is probably the wrong reason for coming here. Participating in a social media community that offers opportunities and rewards Facebook doesn't is a good reason. Building that community to oppose the corporate debt driven slavery and manipulation is another good reason. The "get rich quick" types who come here are no better than that weasel Zuckerberg who stole an idea to a make a fortune.
However, I think what I hear from fellow minnows goes beyond that, as discussed in the original post--an inner circle of whales vs. everyone else. May not be true, per se, but it is the impression.
what you say is pretty true at this moment, but sometimes whales also vote for ordinary people, as I can see. As time goes by, it will be less and less true, as whales are diluted in SP, and moreover are selling lot of steem. So no need to change the rules.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. You may be right. I know I plan on sticking around for a while. Will be interesting to see how the site evolves over time.
Nice..posting :)
Thank you, happyphoenix!
Tell your friends to upvote to keep it trending, LOL!