So I just finished reading @snowflake's post, Enter a Whale's Mind and I learned that the reason he no longer votes for posts he geniunely likes is because he can earn more SP by delegating his SP to various Vote Buying bots.
@snowflake writes:
I like these posts, I think they are undervalued a lot BUT I'm not going to upvote them because I earn way more selling my votes to a bot.
As an example, If I upvote the first post to $10 I would earn about 2 steem but if I sell my vote to a bot I would earn about 6 steem, that's 3 times more.
And as you read further along, you realize that he wrote it in order to wake us up the solution he provided... He wrote it in an inflammatory style to get us to see what's going on and his solution. I got a bit worked up, and have had a chance to see clearly why he wrote it.
So, there it is people. It's safe to say that Steem's reward mechanism is mostly broken, or wait, are the mega whales broken inside? Which is it?
MONEY CANNOT REPLACE INTEGRITY
It comes down to this:
I could lose all my money at any time, but I could rebuild my wealth if my integrity is intact.
If I lose my reputation and my money, I'm fucked.
So, I operate from the vantage of integrity and I am constantly asking myself these questions:
Is what I am doing building up my reputation?
Is this the best way of utilizing my energy?
How many people can I affect if I do this or this?
How can I influence the most amount of people?
How can I bring about a revolution of the way the world operates?
How can I help 3 people today, right now?
How can I use my skills to make some people's lives less shitty?
I am not going to lie. I want the value of my Steem investment to increase. But I see the value of it increasing by creating a site that is actually valuable.
What is valuable to humans?
Being recognized, rewarded, acknowledged, respected and held in high esteem. I think that maybe the issue is that two things are broken.....
I guess if the reward mechanisms were changed, so that whales would not have the option to make 6 Steem back from a full upvote, then @snowflake would have just voted for those 3 posts that he thought deserved upvotes........
My question to those three people: how did you feel when you read the reason why you're not going to get upvotes from a whale?
Ugh. I had not intended to write a post....if you're a whale, let's have a discussion, to see if you are being incentivized in the same way as @snowflake....is this how Steem is now operating?
I had no clue that this was possible...
Moral of the story: I would have to earn at least the same amount that the bot earns to upvote quality content that I actually like. ( which is about 50-60% of the post's value). I also think it's fair to say that changing curation ratio from 50/50 to 25/75 was a bad idea..
Why don't we switch back to 50/50 rewards, with curators receiving half again?
Edited comment:
Wow, that's (concerning to me). (I would like to see a higher) regard for the creators who are working hard to bring Steemit to the next level!
(In order for a healthier platform with solid future success, I'd like to see some restraint with this type of voting)
glad you responded with disgust, because that was my initial gut reaction too. We are both artists at heart, and I often wonder if we operate differently than most people. I have a healthy appetite for self-preservation, competition and perfection, which does result in rewards, but this level of greed that was displayed, I do wonder: how many whales operate like this? Is it the majority? Do they think that it's going to make Steem more valuable moving forward?
I am at a loss, because I didn't know that the ROI was that extreme for the bot vote buying...
Additionally, their article is a great way to discourage new investors in Steem, new users from joining and current authors. If I was an outsider and this post was the first thing I saw when I visited Steemit, I'd turn around and never look back. :-/ It's potentially an embarrassment that will fuel the fires of mockers and naysayers.
I understand monetary ambitions too, but what's the sense in grabbing all one can in the short term when Steem has so much potential. It's plain short-sighted. The healthier this platform is now, the better off everyone will be in the future, especially large holders of SP...
@snowflake did create the solution at the end which I am trying to fully understand...I'm waiting for him to spell it out for me.
You didn't read my post properly which is why you misinterpreted it. The solution is not to return to 50/50, please re-read my post.
so you are saying that you want authors to set their own curation rewards? You want them to set it to 60% so you can earn just as much by voting for them as you do with the bot system? Why mention at the end that changing the rewards from 50/50 was bad?
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@lexiconical/allow-authors-to-determine-curation-split-and-timing-edit-30-minute-delay
https://steemit.com/steem/@snowflake/make-curating-great-again
Reducing curation rewards from 50/50 to 25/75 was bad because it created a system where curation was no longer profitable, which is why people started selling their vote instead.
Is there currently a way to set one's own "Curation" reward levels?
After being on this planet for 34 years, I have come to realize that greed and short-sightedness are traits that the majority of humans seem to be "blessed" with...
As someone who has been on the planet for 60 years, I have seen where there is a direct correlation between how big government and big business make people richer and richer and the number of common people willing to do WHATEVER it takes to get higher up the food chain. People act and react in the same way as their role models and the media has made the rich and famous our role models.
This is the sad and unfortunate truth about our so-called "Modern Society".
Yes, I am afraid so.
having been blasted through HyperSpace (Thrice) and meeting Goddess(es?) on a couple of those journeys, my epiphany was that these are learned behaviours. These bad traits are most likely holdovers from the times of scarcity.
We have entered an age when abundance should be the fruits we all reap, but we haven't yet matured as a species to realize where we stand. Buckminster Fuller was right, we have the tech to take care of everyone and make sure everyone has what they need.
Me too. As crazy as it seems, I'm going to buck that trend however I can! XD
That makes two of us :)
Three of us! 😊
I agree.
With all I see going on, I firmly believe that $100 is a low price for STEEM. The SMTs along with apps that basically cover the entire social media spectrum (DTube, Zappl, Steemit, Steepshot) are basically poised to rewrite all the rules as they apply to this arena. One only needs to look at the values given to twitter, FB, Youtube, and instagram (that one sold for $1B) to realize it is a huge market.
The steem blockchain can be one of the first to truly gain worldwide recognition, not because of publicity and hype, but, rather, due to the developments that are taking place on it. These are apps people will use.
@stellabelle Before going around trying to make me look bad you should have realized that my post is a wake up call. I offered a solution which is meant to improve the current situation.
Why do you think I'm calling out the system that I profit from?
I have edited my post. If you find something offensive, let me know. I am very willing to adjust anything that is not accurate.
Ok, I agree with you. Please tell me how i should edit my post.
I have added your solution to the post, at the bottom.
Wasn't your post meant to get people upset? That's how many of us perceived it. That's how you wrote it... in order to wake up everyone.
i agree with you @stellabelle
his post was offensive...am new on this and am trying to learn more about it and how it works...am also meant to believe that we are here to help each other grow...whales also started as newbies, then minnows and so on. i believe they got to where they are now because of their hard work and other people voted their contents too
That is true @overkillcoin, it might.
However, I am optimistic enough to believe that this is the extreme minority. I know there are a number of people on here with big VP who are helping all they can.
There simply are some people who look at things from the viewpoint of getting all they can while others have the approach "what can I bring".
In the end, I have faith in the later group.
I hope you're right, @taskmaster4450, I tend to think you are... I suppose I'm passionate about this because I see good people falling away from Steemit fairly regularly. They've told me that it's too hard to keep going, and they've cited circular voting as one of the main reasons they feel shut out.
I think very few of us are making a living from Steemit, and all our efforts aren't going to be rewarded for many months, possibly years. Whales obviously can and will do whatever they want with their VP, but it's chilling to see admission of undervalued posts and then a cold, "**** you, creators" attitude.
agree.
I agree. There are times I get de-motivated by the behavior I see on here but then remind myself why I am here and what I am committed to. My goal is to be a poster that makes a difference...to bring areas of knowledge that people who read what I write do not have.
I want to make money like everyone else although I have no complaints about what I have gotten thus far (or at least I should have no complaints).
Thanks you for your kindred spirit of maintaining optimism and that we are bigger than the challenges that are in front of us. If 10,000 people get together and focus on making this place the best if can be, it will create an incredible outcome.
In the overall scheme of things, that isnt that big a number.
I'm really thankful for super dolphins and orca like the @acidyo and the @stellabelle and @pappa-pepper. They certainly help balance some of the lopsidedness that's troubling everyone.
I see what you mean, I'd really like to get my videos in gear, make a splash on youtube and then drive traffic back here consistently.
Wow you're right, 10,000 hyper Steemsters could really rock the show!
That is all we can do...try to drive as much traffic here as we can. I gave the link to someone this morning...I have no idea if she will sign up or not but she was given it and I told her about it. It will not be the last mention from me either.
Well it seems with you and I, we only need 9,998 more. LOL
Oh I haven't been that great for Steemit yet, but the intention and potential's there... and I do have things in motion... :D
Yeah it's disgusting, but people join steemit to earn by their own means. But they are not getting what they or their blog worth so they use bots for that.
I am not sure I would use the word " disgusting". He was being "Honest" with the users of steemit on how and why he votes the way he does. I don't think there is such a thing as "Disgusting Honesty". He obviously has a huge amount of respect for the creators of content. I would bet along with the dollar amount of those post, that the number of views,(prior) to him pointing them out was very low also. So while he may have not upvoted the post due to his own financial considerations he did Reward them immensely by bring so much attention to them. (I have not looked or checked to see if that did happen or not)
At first read it is easy to see your point of view of what he said. However on a second read, and reading the clarification comments he made to a few commenters, you may become a little less disgusted, and a little bit more understanding. I view it at a cautionary tale; be careful of where you travel, lest you become like me and sell your soul.
I do appreciate your comment, it helped me to see a little more into @snowflake 's post.
I rephrased my original comment, not to bury it so much as to simmer things down a bit... Thanks @bashadow
Fight or flight syndrome, it hits and we react. I am sure it was a hard thing for @snowflake to write. And it has gotten even more people talking, and discussing one of the issues that many have here on steemit.
@bashadow so maybe this is cathartic in some way, if so, that's a positive. You're right, it's not easy to be open, so hats off to snowflake there...
Better to address things earlier on, right?
Thanks b.a.!
I think it's really sad to sell your votes... because if someone has a certain reputation, whoever they vote on is basically given a "stamp of approval". If the vote was sold to a spammer, that approval can have devastating effects.
My vote isn't big (although bigger than that of many) but I refuse to sell it specifically because I want to know who I upvote and only upvote people who put effort in their posts. This, and only this, helps steemit to grow.
How is this platform supposed to grow if nobody takes it serious?
A whale might earn some additional money by selling votes instead of upvoting content that deserves it but if the platform goes down, they will lose everything.
I wonder if they really think that's worth it ...
please clone yourself. thanks.
I'm trying :P
agreed with you, if every one specially whales thinking like this then after some time that form breakdown very quickly so the seniors should think about that.
You are very right. I think they do not think as they probably have much more important matters to attend. And steemit for them is just a game, though a wise enterpreneur should see to his investment and now it is happening just in the opposite :)
Brilliant, and totally on the money. No pun intended.
It just goes to show that there are two schools of thought here... which is a realization I have slowly been coming to. There are those who see Steemit merely as a giant cash dispenser, and those who see it as a social content platform. You and I happen to be part of the latter...
All that stuff aside though... communities are built by PEOPLE, not by code or bots.
Let's think about that, for a moment. THAT also means that the whales who are into "maximizing their ROI" are also directly sending their long term prospects down the toilet. Why? Because Steemit will never become more than a small niche venue if it's dominated by automation rather than human generated content... which means it will NOT become "the Facebook killer," which in turn means the long term value of the Steem token will be lower than on a site that was organically people driven.
Implication: For the whales who are "cash now" focused... you may earn your $1000 a week NOW, but watch your $800,000 holdings decline 3-4% a month till Steem is worth... about as much as Dogecoin.
Exactly my thoughts on this issue. The value of steem would so drop drastically if this type of issues are dominating. The main reason most people come onboard steemit is the fairness being preached "get rewards for your post". Its discouraging for us minnows to be compelled to use bots to get attention or rewards after going weeks without votes it leaves us little or no choice but then to know these bots are fuelled by greed of some whales is so annoying. Steemit active users are few for this reason : the few rich keeps accumulating money greedily here forgetting this is a social media platform if majority feel sad or cheated the steemit vibe wanes and no new investment comes in and the price of steem crashes what then is the gain?
Please someone give us a better solution then the greedy suggestions of @snowflake.
You are not realizing one thing though.
Steemit was recently made it's own entity.
For the purpose of moving forward with SMTs.
Your post is admirable and would have made sense before the re-branding. However the game has changed dramatically now. Steemit Inc. have realized that the STEEM blockchain and the token is the real value. Not the steemit community. It's hard to swallow for those that are here thinking they found utopia, but truth is truth.
From an investor's perspective, the fact that they have realized the power of their blockchain and token is actually a good thing. If the token remained tied to this platform it would have kept going down. The SMT model now actually gives it new found freedom and possibility. If they roll it out right and successfully sell it to other platforms, the price of the STEEM token will see good growth. I'm not about to throw a lot of money at it but I am doing much research and watching progress closely.
You are right in thinking that there is value in the token existing below $1.00. You are wrong in assuming steemit determines it's future. In all honesty, people should start to see that steemit.com was more or less a test (hence beta). One which will continue to be managed and improved, but it certainly won't be the platform that takes on Facebook and such. Or the perfect alternative. It should be quite clear: You got to pay to win around here.
The blockchain/token phenomena is barely in it's infancy.
The future will give rise to many new platforms. It already is. Appics for instance, has a very noble vision. Indahash, another that (although broken) aims to set the new standard. In time, the place that you describe, and that which is admirably longed for in stellabelle's post - where the BEAST known as GREED is kept safely at the gates - will probably become a reality. That does not yet exist though.
BUT, this is just my opinion. Anyone wanting to reach their own conclusion should do some research. There's always more to a story than what greets you on the surface. Informing yourself is very valuable.
great insight. I would be happy if something really cool was built. I am not picky....as long as my steem investment is not a waste.
My exact thoughts:
You are very well articulated on this matter. I appreciate your insights.
Very well said @reddragonfly!
I guess some whales have one thing wrong if they bought steem in hope of earning from upvoting.
Scenario one: Whale bought 500 000 Steem. Steem price is 1 USD. One full upvote 50 USD. They are making 10 full votes a day. They get 125 USD from curation rewards. They make 45k a year from curation. Since they voted other whales or rented it for upvote bots the whole ecosystem does not grow and steem price dropped to 0.75 Value of their assets at the end of the year 545 000 steem = 408 000.
Scenario two: Whale bought 500 000 Steem. Steem price is 1 USD. One full upvote 50 USD. They are making 10 full votes a day. They get 125 USD from curation rewards. They make 45k a year from curation. Since they find time and spend it curating quality content, new talented contributors come to the platform and they bring new people with them, platform grows, demand for steem is increasing. Price rises to 1.25 x 545 000 = 681 250
While there are different other scenarios but this is just to illustrate how everybody would benefit from keeping ecosystem healthy and profitable for everybody.
there seems to be a huge lack of understanding about how to create value on a social network...
Exactly. Because noone comes and tells everybody like some dude came to facebook and told everybody how to do it. This is decentralised platform with no leader that act to a loose set of rules and try to play a system finally all they play is themselves. Decentralised blockchain is good - decentralised platform with loose rules not that much it seems.
On the other hand if they had time and conditions to distribute tokens more evenly majority of the problems would be absent. Like EOS are doing their token distribution for a whole year to give everybody a chance to get some. While on steemit too many tokens are concentrated in too few hands why the system fails.
Some are talking about democracy while this is being more of oligarchy. So no wonder that a platform built and suited to work on democratic and liberal setting is failing due to oligarchy power distribution.
Thanks for treating us like adults @stellabelle!
I think Apple and others proved how valuable a healthy and growing ecosystem is.
I like you how present these scenarios which spell out the difference in viewpoints I alluded to above. For me, this place is the answer to a lot of injustice that takes place in the world. There are 2B Facebook users (so they claim) who are basically paid nothing for their efforts. The steem blockchain is the first opportunity to get people paid for what they do. That said, it isnt about "gaming" the system so one maximizes his/her profit. Rather, it is about contributing via upvoting, posting, and commenting in an effort to have the entire entity grow.
You see the only way to truly maximise the profit is increasing the price/value of unit. Billion tokens with no value is much less valuable than thousand tokens with a value of 1. And that is where most people fail to see the point.
And the only way I can see to increase the price/value of unit is to have more activity which attracts more people which stimulates more activity.
I doubt that the steem token would be worth under a dollar with 25 times the number of people on here posting, commenting, and upvoting.
I doubt it too but i thing the development team abandoned the idea of building steemit as a major platform instead creating SMT that will fuel up many other solutions and apps with Steem as a backbone currency which will rise their price. As for steemit as a platform... i have serious doubts if it will survive the competition as a front end application.
All valid points.
Do you think that an app like busy.org steps up in its place or is your view the entire model is broken since those apps read the same blockchain?
No, model is perfect. You just need to do UI changes. Hide the wallet of the author for example, or hide value of the post which would be only revealed after upvoting it so that your decision is not influenced by the current value of the post. That would have helped a lot if done at the right time. Or most importantly more even token distribution at the distribution stage like they do with EOS. They run distribution for a while year so everybody has a chance to get some.
busy.org which i use too, bescouted.com which we built steepshot.com are just few of many front end applications that will be bulilt and empowered with SMTs. Steem blockchain is an amazing reward distribution mechanism with steemit rather poor front end application implementation with it's known faults. There will be thousands of applications running on it in longer term.
I fully get and agree with what you are saying here - but its obvious some of the whales do not get this. Maybe I am wrong but many of these people are techie people, not business people, and the same with the witnesses. We need people at the top that understand this and are willing to work towards this
People at the top who build the very Steem blockchain do. I can not tell why those guys who invest heavily do it. Maybe they just do not have time to curate manually. So they just rent it out to bots to keep it spinning.
well, let's get them (or us) to the top.
Another great post on-topic of what people are thinking about 'round here. I'm with you @stellabelle -- i drop my little dolphin hammers on good content and on the people that support me. I easily give away 3x as much as i take via upvoting. Yes i upvote myself -- but i upvote others more!
It is sad that people's greed is more important to them than their integrity and option to really found something good. In this way Steemit is like a microcosm of the world writ large. It may be broken, but it's all we got.
The ironic thing is that this greed flaw could ultimately impact the dark whales the most...
~i'm gonna' get back to snoozing with my baby boy on my chest and listen to the rest of this Willie Nelson album :)
Lead(ing) by example stellabelle! It's all one can do
✨🤘😎✨
Thank you.
I'm resteeming this out so more people can consider who the fuck they wanna be in this life.
ha ha, that sentence was funny.
Nothing funnier than real life!
👋😜
you finally speak out what i had in mind for some days now, really appreciate this post👍
Like seriously i will forever remain great full to you @stellballe. I remember when i nock on a door of this particular whale asking for his upvote it's really a bad experience to me, not until i saw a post you made (saying about good communication and relationships is more batter than an upvote ) my mental change and i have to improve on my own quality contains too. Thank for always having minnow in mind @stellballe i will also stand up for you😇🙏🙌 the only i celebrate a whale is by resteem post. This post is resteem @japfive
thanks, I appreciate you telling me about how i have helped you. I'm glad it has helped in the long term game.
Oh yeah infact you don't really know what you mean to me. @stellballe and @dragonslayer you both will surely have my support of all time, you made steemit more meaningful to me. High 5🙋 for ur upvote
@stellabelle. I think some people are just greedy and only think of themselves. The earlier people starts to see this whole scenario as our thing and not their thing then will the platform grow to that level we want it to be.
It's a mind set issue.
Thanks for always speaking frankly all the time.
Honestly I am confused on how I feel. I know it felt like a punch in the gut. I know that the negative ramblings of some people that I did not agree with turns out to be true and left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Yet the logic behind it is sound. The reason for him is right for him.
A couple weeks back I was feeling a bit down because I was writing content which I believed were good. Not the best but in my writing experience I thought it conveyed my feelings, my thoughts and give people a glimpse of my soul. Yet I was not getting a lot of traffic or comments. I was feeling down and then I come across posts that are just normal selfies or at times fluff articles. Then this was making 5- 20 dollars. So there I was thinking there is something broken in the system but being less than a month I could not pinpoint the problem. We don't want a robot colony yet to replace the citizens.
That post was a Eureka moment for me but also in a way disillusioned me. If I can describe it, I would say it would be at the level of finally realizing that Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy does not exist.
Not trying to be melodramatic but I am disillusioned. My mind is troubled.
I have to be thankful to you for giving your sides on how you think. It gives me hope that this can still be saved. That a solution is possible. How you go through it with integrity and passion. Hope for Steemit is alive as long as you are here and supporting good content.
I wish that I will be fine.
this might help you: it more important to create friendships and connect to those who will ultimately bring about more success to you. Being authentic while connecting is a key..
Experience is the best teacher and I learned it was better to have an authentic and organic relationship with like minded people who gets me.
My first week I followed and upVoted everyone that would leave a message and as that I upVote them as well.
Seems a pretty easy way to earn and get more followers but to connect but it there was a certain feeling doom.
I learned that these kinds of relationships is an easy way to you to know more people. It became a numbers game instead of quality.
I have removed quite a number of people from my list and have concentrated on posts that I live, build relationships and be happy for they joy and melancholy in their sadness.
Well said dear. Just be friendly with everybody and in that way you will know those that are for you in good faith and those that are spamming you. Friendship is key in everything.
I think snowflakes post was meant to make the point that doing the right thing on SteemIt doesn't pay off.
I don't use any bots, never have. If I vote for it, I read it.
If I find an article I like I upvote it regardless of timing.
I try to avoid voting for trending authors.
I vote for comments and lift up minnows.
Nobody cares. More and more often I consider signing up for bots, participate less and earn more... Why not?
I use a hybrid approach: I programmed @personz Fossbot voter and i put authors I like on that list. I don't make much SP from that bot, but I can reward everyone.....
Then on my Stella account i curate organically...
This is interesting. I've been using Streemian to auto-vote on a few favorites, just because I know I may go a day or two offline before I see their posts. But it's not for any kind of ROI. It's because I want them to know they have my (very modest) support.
Now if I'd poured a huge investment into Steem, rather than earning every coin by posting and interacting, maybe I'd feel differently. But I doubt it. Mostly I want to reward the creators I enjoy, because I want to come back to a place that's full of great stuff to read.
I divide my SP about half half between immediate ROI and long term community building (incl. Curation). That sounds annoying, but I do have to make a living too and so if I didn't have income opportunities I'd put that ROI half into stocks or something else.
I don't use autovoting on my main account but i can understand why people do. And I try focus my voting towards minnows where a few cents is actually a helpful morale booster. I'll take a lower immeduate ROI on this aspect of my steem activity in exchange for long-term growth.
Because of being shortsighted. They will not earn more. Yes they will have more steem tokens maybe that will be worth shit.
@whatsup
This is true. Doing the right thing does NOTHING except reflecting on one's integrity. If you're poor, you can't feed yourself with integrity. Likewise, if you're wealthy without integrity, your wealth becomes unsustainable.
To act according to one's moral compass and make a living out of it is a fine line to thread on, but certainly not impossible. If one chooses to give up, then is it okay for the world to give up on that one person too?
I didn't know the world could make that type of decision. We all have a choice where to put our energy. Everyone's choices are different.
If the world is made up of many individuals, and every individual can make that decision.. why can't the world?
Thus, with great choices come great responsibilities. We can do as we wish, but are we doing so by accepting/ignoring the consequences of our actions that shape the future of our world?
The right thing isn't about making your own decision, but making your own wise decision.
Great post
This is my favourite line:
"I could lose all my money at any time, but I could rebuild my wealth if my integrity is intact. If I lose my reputation and my money, I'm fucked"
So much dodgy voting going on...
Holy Fuck! This was hilarious to find! I am a freak magnet....every day.
Integrity is key in everything. For example i follow @michelle.gent because I love reading her post and articles. She has been a source of inspiration to me. Though she does not even know who I am but I love what is doing on the platform. Integrity is very important,.
I have some some people on my steemvoter just because I love what they do. People like you, @surpassingggoogle, @michelle.gent, @stach and many others like not because I needed them to respond but because they inspired me all the time and that is my only way of saying thank you. My SP is even small for them to take note , but that does not matter, as long as i love what am doing.
If people can be doing this then we should have a more better platform.
Just saying.....
DAFUQ! LOL
Kudos to him for breaking it down for us so honestly. That certainly feels like a "connection killer" unless those authors might also get higher votes through that bot and not miss out on anything in the end, but that's not the case from the sound of it..
thanks for your twitter message the other day.....
yeah, this was a wake up call for sure....and glad you had a chance to read it.
I'm going to link to my previous comment on your other post because it's particularly relevant here as well but very long.
The fact of the matter is that you get what you incentivise. Clearly we are seeing exactly what is being incenitivsed by the Steem blockchain at this point in time.
Good or bad, it will be what it is until the current incentives are changed.
The good news is that it is a living system and we all get to play a part in shaping it's future. So when we see something like this that doesn't align with our vision of how we'd like the system to operate we can have these great conversations and make the suggestions that can ultimately take us where we want to go.
Excellent comments @Raised2B !!
Thank You StellaBelle 4 bringing these issues up & posting about them... This is the 1st step to going in a better direction.
Cheers !!
Like I posted in the referenced thread, I'm going to re-evaluate why I'm here.
Probably by reducing my frequency of posting original content. I thought I'd be noticed by the upper tiers for my efforts.
I was wrong.
Appreciate the posts, it has enlightened me to why Steemit will fail.
Better learn it now than stick around for a year and get a reality check later. Assuming that the platform is still active, of course.
Actually, you are wrong and I will tell you why:
Most of what you see today is because we had fights and disagreements and discussions. Not all, but a lot. When i started on here, there was no mute button.
A stalker was on here, and we fought to get a mute button. This is how it works on this kind of platform. In early days, big discussions by users would result in changes to the code, as long as the community was all in consensus, for the most part. It's up to us to change things, and it is possible.....as long as decent people stay here. When the creators of culture leave, then it becomes more like a wasteland....I still think the experiment can work...as long as we try to make it better.
I'm not a whale, I'm collateral damage.
So while everyone decides whether or not to be greedy or create, I'll just scale back.
Its okay, the bots will keep the whales company.
Unless... the power base of those only interested in short-term profit and voting-for-reward becomes large enough to be able to squash any grass-roots movement to change things. The rule-set implemented in Steemit at the moment seems to enhance concentration of wealth and therefore power with a few, and not necessarily a few who have the long-term interests of Steemit in mind.
But I still hope you're right.
we can still change the way things are, nothing is set in stone except the past. Steemit has made much more radical changes than what snowflake proposed to fix the situation
I'll be watching for productive changes.
Until then, I'm scaling back.
There she goes again!, hitting the nail by the head, If every body looks at steemit the way you do, Steem blockchain will pick up more Value in every sense of the word. Our integrity is our wealth, our esteem is our humanity and our reputation keeps us flying and growing together!. It is not by how "much" but how "best" we affect people. Keep the flag of integrity and reputation flying!. Thank you @stellabelle
I can't express good enough how and how much your post is music to my ears!
BTW - I wasn't aware either such a possibility exists. I mean, I knew some people rent their SP (as I am the one who leases it), but I didn't know a member could rent to bots his/her voting possibility and especially not for such a huge payment difference.
Being here over a year by now, not always fully active (especially not at the very beginning), but still whatever and whenever I'm engaged, I'm trying to participate, contribute and reward those I think to deserve that by staying behind my every single action with full integrity.
On this way, I hate that I am somewhat forced to use bots if I want to shout out something. In other words, I hate that I have to use bots if I want to give at least some posts (certainly not all of them) better visibility.
And OK, let's say that I manage to make peace with myself (somehow) by trying to accept that as the promotional price and the price of visibility.
But what is still bothering me a lot about that concept is fact that I come across a lot of articles being boosted the same way which articles are pure BS, not rarely just copied/pasted content from elsewhere, in other words, blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement what any of those bots out there is NOT checking by any means before casting their vote.
It turns this platform into a perfect playground for all sorts of scammers!
Although with my current amount of SP, I am few galaxies far away from you and accordingly even farther away from @snowflake, just reading about this possibility you were describing makes me feel like a complete fool.
Why?
About week ago I created a contest through which I would be able to teach newcomers a bit more about the Steemit. I decided to start the series with a simple question: "Are you a minnow?" as I saw many people don't understand what, in fact, determines to be a minnow or not, as well as I saw that even some older members don't know where in that scale they really are.
(As the post is still active for about next 24 hours, I still didn't give the explanation as I'm waiting for the contest to end, to give each participant equal possibility to win the reward.)
However, I allocated my own money to that contest. It's not some big amount but at the moment when I launched the contest, it was almost everything I had (for 100 correct answers).
I was even accused that I'm buying cheap votes with that contest what is hilarious as I knew from the beginning which audience (newcomers) I'm targeting and how "huge" their votes might be. But OK - I can live with that. The member didn't get and probably wouldn't get until the contest ends (if even then) where and why I was heading.
But now, reading about that someone would rather give its $10 value vote through some bot, very likely to some scammer (as I said, bots don't check that) who would have the money to pay for it, than to someone who really deserves it by creating truly quality content, it makes me feel even as a bigger fool and my small attempt at some (educational help) contribution entirely silly.
But you know what?! - Although I'm a bit pissed, I'm planning to stay a silly fool in this regard, if nothing else (same as you) for my integrity sake!
well, good, we need you.
I think this type of behavior will break steemit. This has been my fear since I joined steemit and could see the bot, large accounts, and popularity patterns to their logical end. I don't have any solutions except maybe voting power shouldn't be weighted on size of the account. People who have large accounts may or may not be wise regarding how to exercise their power. I think maybe voting should be weighted on ones reputation, something you can't buy but must earn. Good post @stellabelle.
Edit, I've been painting all day and my language skills go out the door...blah, blah, blah lolol
Also this is bad business sense, ignoring or profiting from short term greedy behavior that will kill this platform will color all of the Steemit.inc other projects. How will investors in Steemit.inc trust the company bringing in long term profit? Trust will be lost...
You are right...people are too into the quick return and the fast money.
It takes time to develop a platform such as this. We are at the early stages of a very long transition away from the siloed internet to one where people freely enjoy the rewards of their efforts/contributions. Perhaps I take too much of a "philosophical" view on this but I am firm in this believe. We are starting the process of a radical shift.
Mindsets like the one pointed out in the post are the only thing that can derail it. Is this any different than how Zuckerberg views the world...he is out to get for him (although I will say he does at least bring some long term view to the table unlike the poster this article refers to).
In the end, we are the only ones who can botch this thing up.
People like me that are afraid to speak up because they will be ignored by whales should speak up. Maybe join healthy groups that bring a bit of protection from the whales. I spoke about this in the past and most of my rewards disappeared.
Yes that is a legitimate concern. They have the ability go gang up and really take away someone's reputation for which it will take them a long time to get it back.
It is one of the flaws in the system where the power is not even remotely distributed in a equitable manner.
I've been through the flag wars, I'm talking about being on a whales voting bot list and then being dumped when I question the systems integrety. This system seems to be designed for investors not content creators so they can skim the cream off the top...
Ah the proverbial bit the hand that fed you idea.
Yes that really sucks what happened to you. It seems that this system is tilte din the way you describe. The good content is a secondary consideration. Too many times I witnessed a good night post get $100.
Oh, I know, but this is the way the world works. I came here thinking that maybe we could change that....you know, the starlets and stars that suck the cock of the producer to get the a part in a production and then reap the rewards and don't say a word about the horrible behavior of the people in power and the system because they cashed in...but I was wrong. I'm not upset, I just remembered there is no solution to Samsara. Plus I made a bit of money before I fell out of favor. But I want to protect my investment and a wonderful idea that works for many people here, plus Steemit's big accounts are trashing Steemit's integrity and future and we need to stop it.
Solution wil be SMT's and split up to smaller communities with more fair token distribution and rules adjusted in accordance with lessons learned from failure of steemit.
@bescouted, I've read about this, I need to read some more before I can make any logical comments. I will do a search and pull up more articles explaining the system. Thanks for the heads-up!
That you should do. As it is the backbone of the whole steem blockchain strategy. Steemit being just a test platform that nobody is taking seriously i believe. We will be doing our SMT as a photography community and we have already a platform running on steem blockchain. Take a look if you are interested www.bescouted.com
I have been reading the post put out by Steem.inc about the SMT and to tell you the truth I don't know how this will benefit an ordinary person like me. That's why I didn't follow up and read the white paper. I guess I should and read posts written by smart people who can speak to me at my level of understanding.
It is true I create art and sell a piece occasionally but my product worth is declining in today's markets. No one owns a home to hang a painting unless they can wear it or use it for digital decoration!
I'm checking your group out right now nice looking landing page!
Take a look inside :) The simplest landing i could think of and took me 5 minutes to make lol
So you are into arts and painting. So imagine someone creates a page, with similar rewards just for painters and artists, where you would share your thoughts and exchange with like minded people in an inbuilt forum. A professional social community.
You will get a token of that group lets say Painting Coin which will be distributing rewards similar to steemit. So that community grows, you collect the tokens, you unlock certain features maybe, and there would be an inbuilt internal marketplace where you can sell your art or buy supplies by using that SmartMediaToken. it's just a simple example, how SMT could be used to infuse communities.
Or you will be visiting different websites like BeScouted and leaving your comments and curating content there when you feel you want to watch some photography art or get inspiration. For that you will get BeScouted SMT which you will be able to hire a photographer for one of your events through our casting system. And Steem will be a token that would provide you bandwidth, the more Steem you hold the more interactions you will be able to make, the more tokens you will be able to earn on different platforms.
Does it give at least an approximate understanding?
Ahhh, I have thought about this as have several other painterly people, you are a empathetic smart person that understand my level of communication....good job <3
Sharing is caring.
Oh, and I'd like to quote a saying that i like and it resonated with all the points that you brought up:
"The time that we spend not improving someone's life is time wasted."
Happy Steeming everyone, with integrity of course.
The only problem is that if the system is designed to mostly rely on people's integrity and honesty, it is very unfortunately a broken system from the very beginning.
A good system is one that enforces honesty and integrity or at least encourages it. The systems based solely on trust and discretion of it's members do not survive much in our society or in our species for that matter, unfortunately.
Pareto principle works here too actually (20% / 80%)
It is very good that you brought up this subject. Maybe someone would listen to you. But i saw it right away, a system where your votes and power can be bought, sold, rented (delegated) and so on is a corrupt system. As they say if "you build it, they will come". If the system allows for abuse there will be always those who will exploit it to the fullest. So it is the system design that should be thought through to the core to close those loopholes.
The moral issue still remains, but unfortunately on a large scale it is more academic until the system is fundamentally fixed.
I see it as a difference between short term and long term thinking. Yes, you can make more delegating your Steem to bots and raking in those curation rewards, but that's all in the short term.
Long term, there is a lot more money to be made from the appreciation of Steem value. And what will make that happen? We need lots of new users, more positive experiences: people who stick around, maybe make a little money, and then decide to invest in a little Steem power to upvote the content they care about.
As I look around, I think there is more focus on the short term than long term. Maybe it's because I'm new and the long term thinkers are busy with Steemfest, but I don't know.
good insight....i agree with short and long term thinking disparity.
Thanks, @stellabelle. I know you are very busy and I appreciate your response.
I realise I’m a very new user and only just beginning to understand the complex culture and inner workings of Steemit, but as a fresh pair of eyes I wondered... Has anyone considered changing the voting system so that everyone’s vote is equal? (Like Reddit for example) Whales could then resteem articles they really loved, and in this way these articles would get extra readers and upvotes organically.
I find it frustrating and kind of incredible that people who have the most to lose if this platform tanks, still cannot see the writing on the wall. These auto-vote bots are killing the platform and taking down their profits! Thankfully there seems to be a slow-growing movement afoot to stop using these bots. I have said it before and will say it again: Remove your votes from those witnesses who promote the use of bot votes. If change is going to happen, it must start from the top. Use YOUR vote to influence their decisions. Let's give this movement some momentum! Let's all push together to make change happen. Don't just complain about it... DO something about it. Don't allow the goose that lays golden eggs to be slaughtered.
The issue with curation incentives isn’t anything new. This is something I wrote...from nine months ago.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/on-curation-rewards-and-their-necessity
For the record: I find the “it’s so much more profitable” argument to be quite poor, especially when it comes from whales who can earn fairly large returns by voting on nearly anything. And I find it a particularly horrible argument when they then try to claim that they’re only trying to prove a point or that they really do want to improve the platform/community. If you want more money than you’re getting, then just say that. Don’t try to qualify it by saying, “It’s not my fault, guys!”
Anyway - curation rewards may be part of the problem, but it isn’t the problem, or even one of the prominent ones today. There are much bigger issues...and the largest one (the stake issue - particularly, STINC’s enormous percentage) has still not been addressed. That alone likely has the largest and worst impact on interest, investment, development, and sentiment/behavior. To this day, they are still moving things behind the scenes and picking winners/losers on the platform.
What STINC=Steem.inc?
Yeah...colloquially speaking.
I saw the companies huge holdings of sp while tracking the voting farms on the block chain....the whole picture regarding profit and power is coming together for me, I can watch it happen on Steemit. It will be interesting how long the minnows will last as a food source, hence SMT...
I do not think minnows can last as a food source, since they are just skin and bones lol
About going back to higher curation rewards; repeating a comment here so you see it:
I'm not so sure. Given the current goings-on on Steemit, I think the most likely scenario will be that:
I don't think increasing the curator's cut will increase proper curating, it will just increase the rewards for those who vote for rewards only rather than for rewarding content they like.
I suspect all it would do is make the in-crowds and short-term ROI-seekers work slightly differently, while at the same time increasing the income of those who vote for profit and decreasing the rewards for content creators.
The long-term/short-term outlook of those with the big wallets is key here, not the percentages.
There's only one way to find out what would happen, so we could just try it, as long as it can be reversed when it doesn't work as intended. Nothing wrong with experimenting as long as you say beforehand what you will do with the outcome of the experiment.
And yes, the huge STINC stake is hanging over everything like a big, black cloud.
How large is it? maybe you could save half of hour of research?
I also think or better believe or even better hope, that once Steemit will split into small shards of communities with SMTs all of them building their own token distribution and adjusted reward mechanism all that voting in steemit will not matter that much anymore.
I took me a few weeks after finding about steemit to realise that the real value lies in Blockchain itself and not Steemit as a platform. I guess only time will tell.
Apart from that i keep my reward expectations low and i'm cool. So many smart, interesting, creative and kind people here that it alone surpass benefits from the rewards. All the knowledge i have gained from advises, tips, tuts is priceless.
I look at it from a couple different angles. I'm not sure how @snowflake came to have so much power but would the way the came upon their power change people's opinion on the strategy they are employing for upvotes and profitability?
Example 1: Let's pretend @snowflake is a trust fund baby and gained the money for the Steem Power by taking $100,000 out of a $100 Million trust fund owned by their family. Now they just want to profit to the max and doesn't care about the community here and just wants to profit.
Example 2: @snowflake was living in their car and working at Wendy's part time and Subway the other part of the time and managed to invest $100 / week into crypto currencies in 2015 and finally caught their ride and put a large part of that into STEEM and needs to make the investment grow so they don't have to work a low paying job.
Suddenly people's perception about their motives for profiting the most changes depending on their situation. That is why these businesses guru's out there usually have an exaggerated story about their rise to success. They were sleeping in a car, eating mac and cheese......etc. In reality they probably slept in their car once when they were on a road trip and were too tired to make it to the next city so they had to sleep in their car at a rest stop before they fell asleep at the wheel.
So in regards to the strategies employed to make money here the system rules are an attempt to steer people's behaviors to do certain things but people will always attempt to bend, break, or work the rules in their favor. I'm not saying that is good or bad. That is just how it is.
So think about it this way. On Golos you have an account and I believe you have a bot running to upvote content creators. It would be extremely difficult for us to manually curate over there because I don't know Russian and I'm assuming you don't either but you have surprised me before with the fact that you know Japanese and many other things. But let's just say you don't know Russian. In the grand scheme of things you probably wouldn't consider it worth your time to try to translate all the posts and then determine who to upvote manually for a very small payout over there. So you have to act more efficiently.
That is all it is for the whales here. They don't see it to be worth their time to manually do most of the upvoting. For guys like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos....etc. it probably isn't worth their time to prepare their own food, wash their clothes, clean their cars, Install their own home audio systems....etc. On their level they don't have time for it.
Cool post....... and personally I don't think we should go back to 50/50 rewards. I feel like the current breakdown is pretty good for the time being.
You know my thoughts already from my reply to @snowflake's original post, but I've resteemed this, the original post, and your death spiral post as what I can do for now so this reaches my followers.
Thanks for taking immediate action!!
It's exciting to see so many people have the opportunity and confidence to speak up on YOUR platform.
THAT is TRUE Steem Power.
Conspiracy theory: maybe he was posting that as a martyr to spark change? It's the only thing I can think of!
I am supporting your conspiracy theory :)
OH I definitely think he was! And I was a bit overreacting when I went into my spiral about integrity...but i do believe it! Anyway, i am so happy he did write that post, as it brought new people to me to connect further and think of ways to create value..
I suppose the truth hurts and what @snowflake raised his post are problematic facts.
What I am finding difficult with all of this is how the steemit blockchain community can come to a conscious on how people should 'behave' on steemit.
Remember, Steemit is still new. its still in beta. We are still early adapters, and I believe we can still help shape the future of Steemit.
Each and everyone of us have our own stories, are own reasons for doing things, our own motives. but when it comes to money, many of us are the same. If there is a way to make more, they will take the opportunity.
The problem is, on steemit, we are mixing people with money, that in its self will always attract opportunists.
The solution, well I don't have one but we need to start with communication, with openness and with transparency And well I think @snowfalke made a good start there.
One thing I have said before is that the people that are highly invested need to start thinking long term and not short term financial gain. This mindset will sink steemit before it can even take off
I was wondering why the only way i can make a post over 10c is by using an up vote bot. How many whales actually do this? This is really disheartening to read for us minnows. It makes me wonder if steemit is worth it. It makes me wonder if the only way I can get a decent vote is by paying for it. If the future of steemit is going to be based on people buying votes and selling votes to bots. Then the content quality will drop because no one really has to read a post. What a grim future for steemit. Selling votes to bots has a serious implication for steemit. I think it somehow needs to be addressed by the developers.
I can share a story.. i joined one of my friends on steemit.. he was posting and earning 1-2 cents.. and losing interest on it.. then after 5 days one steemitwhale voted him and gifted 27$.. and his reputation score gone to 45. that vote made his day.. he got confidence to work on stemmit.. he got a belief that if he maintain quality, he must be rewarded.. after that day he is working regularly on steemit.. this the way how steemitwhale can make an influence to grow this community bigger and bigger and more people can be connected on it. #happysteemiting
Well it obviously shows that some people mentality about steemit is different. I see this act as just take and take and never give for love. I mean, this line of thought or action does not promote or give the right conduct about what steemit is all about.
In my previous post I mentioned why whales should give their votes to quality contents, it is through quality content that we add value to steem.
What if steemit losses its quality content bloggers because they are discouraged for not rewarded duly how then would this platform function and how would we change the world through the value of steem.
I just hope we don't get to have more people who do not have insight and passion for this platform but only come strictly for what they can take from it. I know there are people who still do the right thing, lets change the world through steemit.
I like you @stellabelle. Thanks for this. I did something similar on a smaller scale. I exited from all my voting guilds - you know where everyone votes for everyone. So now all my upvotes are organic - for my posts less votes and less money, but at least they feel more real. And every now and then I get a nice big upvote from a whale for like ten dollars.
But of course it also puts more power in my hands in terms of deciding what I spend my upvotes on. Just feels better.
Thanks for writing this, @stellabelle. It's wonderful to see someone remind the Steemit community about integrity and reputation.
I agree!!
😊😊
This deeply disturbed me. I work so hard on my posts and most of them are undervalued even though I know I am writing better content than many here who are getting bigger upvotes. While Steemit is a great platform, it is one that mainly functions on the principle- 'it doesn't matter what you know but who you know.' If you know the big whales, you are golden. If not, you are dead even if you know valuable stuff. The drive to make more money makes people to do things like selling their votes and depriving the well-deserved ones of their right. This is really upsetting!
Yeah it upsets me too.
WOW that’s interesting to read and I can understand some people’s mindset to always focus on the ROI but that’s something I wouldn’t do myself I am still a tiny Fish in this huge pond but my voting hasn’t changed from day one and won’t it’s just not my way
It does in a way shock me that people can focus that way and it is so against the grain of my principles but I try not to judge people
Well out loud silently in my head it’s a whole different story
Good point...
It pays to be good. Money is not everything. I like that you follow your heart. People may say it makes no economic sense to do that. But not everything should be about money. The people and money should be different. Not everything should be ruled by money. If you allow everything to be determined by money, it makes one almost robotic in how they behave. Would it give more money? No. Jump it. Would it give more money? Yes. Do it. That makes people the puppet dancing and moving around controlled by a puppeteer (money). But I guess that's how capitalism is built.
Yeah I guess capitalism is like a system that we have to take advantage of.
@pjcswart, I think it means the capability of a person to do things. I may be wrong but that is how I see it.
You mean like a free market economy? Just curious are you into self development books at all?
Please, can you rephrase your question adding more details to it so I could understand better what you are asking? Thanks.
I was wondering whether you sometimes read books to help you with business?
Ok. I do. But not that much. I get my business ideas more from observing the environment where I am in and try to fill a need or provide a service that is lacking.
yeah, i like the way you have worded this. Your responses always seem to come from a deep place, and I appreciate that. I decided this year I would get rid of my bot, and upvote organically.....and just look at my curation rewards as a residual of my interacting, like a nice surplus, that's it. I set up a different account, and a bot so that I would not miss any posts from my growing list of authors. I cannot keep up, and my bot for umami ensures that I never miss a post....it's a small upvote now, but it will grow, and keep supporting people who i feel have the PROOF OF PERSON attribute.
Organic voting seems to be more efficient as bots upvotes everything in their line of command. I do see umami upvotes. I've always wondered if the name is same as Japanese for savoriness. Thanks a lot. You've been very kind.
What does proof of person mean, I'm not familiar with that term but it sounds really interesting.
In my opinion, this is what the blockchain is about. Helping others, even as you help yourself. That's why I hate bots. There's no "human" interaction with them, it's just "upvote this, upvote that," but there's no feeling behind it.
I want to vote for what I believe in and for people who can bring great content.
yes!!!
Well Spoken, as usual Stellabelle!
I guess we have to disconnect ourselves from people who are looking at Steem as an investment and only care about the ROI. At this point, short of a hardfork that changes the reward system, you can't stop them from doing as they see fit.
But YOU will always be looked on with much greater respect for the way you do things. How people view you is important to you, as you say, way moreso than your ROI. This makes you an advocate for the community, all of the community. There are too few people who walk the same path as you.
I guess that I can somewhat see the flip side as well. While I am out curating new authors, I see so much crap posting that it makes me want to cry sometimes. It's surely not as bad as Facebook, but it isn't good. I can spend hours, even days, trying to find just one post that can be curated for new author rewards. It is disheartening.
Unfortunately, right now, Steem does not have a real good way for the cream to rise to the top. And I am not sure how you change that, other than by following the lead of people we respect. There's a handful of people who have been here for over a year who I can genuinely say are doing it right. So I attempt to follow their lead, and do the best I can.
There is a pragmatic side to me that understands what snowflake and people like him are doing, but I feel the same disgust at that mentality as overkillcoin. If this is just an investment, go invest in a different alt coin and leave the reward pool to the people who genuinely care about the platform.
Keep on Mining for people who don't Suck! You do a great job! ;-)
thanks. I realize that @snowflake gave his solution at the end, and he pointed it out that i overreacted...which i did. I think it was good of him to wake us up....i think it's worth looking into getting the reward percentages adjusted....back to 50/50.
I'm not so sure. Given the current goings-on on Steemit, I think the most likely scenario will be that:
I don't think increasing the curator's cut will increase proper curating, it will just increase the rewards for those who vote for rewards only rather than for rewarding content they like.
I suspect all it would do is make the in-crowds and short-term ROI-seekers work slightly differently, while at the same time increasing the income of those who vote for profit and decreasing the rewards for content creators.
The long-term/short-term outlook of those with the big wallets is key here, not the percentages.
There's only one way to find out what would happen, so we could just try it, as long as it can be reversed when it doesn't work as intended. Nothing wrong with experimenting as long as you say beforehand what you will do with the outcome of the experiment.
Whales and others who have invested in Steemit want a return on their investment and I understand that. Those who have a lot of Steempower can do both, use a part to rent their voice and yet vote in the usual way. However, the number of posts grows vigorously and it is not easy for those who have the power of "Voting Power" to follow up on the posts that deserve it. As it is now, there are unfortunately many good posts that do not get any upvote. And it is precisely the driving force that people spend a lot of time on their good posts to be noticed and get an upvote as deserved. Those who are not noticed and once do not get a comment on their posts will get bored and there are many here. But I do not have a blueprint on how we solve it.
@stellabelle I re-steemed the post because there are many good comments and for providing us with information about this.
its a biggest and great post to reaveled the fact about upvoting, and curration will remain 50/50 is always better choice.
Damn!
Whales has turned steemit to cryptocurrency exchange or market place, just when i am about to tell my friends about it.
indeed you gain my respects.
Thank you, I guess we all get attracted in the beginning for the $. but I learned along the way that reputation, honesty and transparancy are key.. one day we will all know that.. and yes I did also things I don't do anymore.. anyway if you admit you can learn..
Thats very true !! For now you need to pay for your post to be upvoted
Great post and I often ask myself the same questions.
Nevertheless humans will always Ben humans and most of them will try to maximize their return. Let's be honest, most of us are selfish in some ways.
Therefore, Steemit needs to adapt its way of rewarding the community in another way.
I use bots like most of Steemians but I believe they are killing the spirit of the platform...
I wish they would close them down and reward more curators or people that allow their time to comment/interact because this is what Steemit is ALL ABOUT!
Take care @stelabelle.
Well done , I heard that money is honey , nowadays money is everything , you can buy even love by money . Or if you can not buy love, but you buy the things that you love it .
You need some better philosophy man...
Thank you 😊
I think you missed my point. If your integrity is intact, you can rebuild your wealth....
But if you fuck up your integrity, and lose your money, you cannot rebuild your wealth.
It's sad to see that whales are selling their upvotes
But it truly shows somehow that steemit.com has a few flaws
I hope something will change in the future so selling upvotes won't be allowed here
But I don't know what to say because as I know if you Invest heavily in steemit.com then you kind of get the right to do whatever you want with your Steem Power
But normally this platform is about blogging earning by posting, commenting and curating good content
Thank you very much for Posting
Much love
Hi @stellabelle, i feel this is based on personality, @snowflake is entitled to what he want, and nobody including me, can judge him.
One can not be a bussiness man and still mantain reputation and the masses love, whatever he chooses he is entitled to it, although its true that where he is, is as a result of the upvotes of people, however whales are ontop of the food chain. They choose who tell want to upvote and do what they want with their SP that is why i feel @surpassinggoogle is a not just a whale, you should know that too.
If you call the whales attention they will still stress out what i have deduced, he has a right, and this rights should be respected by even minnows.
We all are allowed to judge. You can't take away that right from us.
And someone can be both a business man and still have a good reputation and be loved. You can't choose to be loved or respected though, as it is to be earned.
Its difficult m friend one cant eat his or her cake and have it.
Besides we cant judge when we ourselves aren't saints
Nobody needs to be a saint to be allowed to judge others.
A man can share a cake and still get a piece, he doesn't need to eat it all himself.
Thank you. More like you. You have to understand that if newcomers are not encouraged for good posts, people will start to leave.
Thanks for your integrity and honesty. There are some worrying trends appearing in recent months with greed rearing its ugly head more and more often, I guess it's human nature but it saddens me to see it here.
Let's hope you can have some productive conversations.
Maybe bring back 50/50 payouts? It sounds shitty but it would help lose the incentive to buy and sell votes. It would offer more incentive for people to vote no matter their sp.
yeah, that's a good idea.....I am sure there are some caveats....but it's worth looking into.
curation is fundamentally flawed and a key design issue of steemt. At this point i think this in combination with wealth distribution is be biggest problem of steem.
Curation can be solved. Just pay curation reward on activity. and now people will vote for what they like. it may still allow you to sell votes but there is not as much of an incentive any more as there is today.
The wealth distribution could also be solved via dilution long term and by steem just delegating their wealth a bit more aggressively short term.
This make a whole lot of sense. It really doesnt make sense to have curation based upon the power of "who am I following". I guess the intention is to find quality content and be early to upvote it...but how many are doing that...especially those with a lot of SP?
And wouldnt short term aggressive delegation dilute steem more in that time frame too?