Fixing Steem: Words Are Not Enough

People love to talk about fixing the problems with the Steem platform, I have even blogged about the problems and potential solutions to fix Steem in the past, but ultimately the topic keeps on coming up and nothing seems to change.

And I completely understand/sympathise why the topic keeps being brought up like family drama at the yearly family Christmas party, there are some serious issues and flaws with Steem. People are frustrated and it's fitting that words are the weapon of choice.

I want to make it clear that I am not targeting anyone or speaking out against wanting change. This post comes from the same place of frustration that the "changing Steem" posts others write come from. I want things to change just as much as you do.

It's universally acknowledged that:

• Whales are raping the reward pool and taking more than they deserve from self-upvoting, proxy accounts, bidbots, etc.
• The flagging system is broken.
• Some whales are abusing their voting power by silencing anyone who calls out bad behaviour or abuse of the platform.
• Steem has a quality problem
• User retention rates are low, many newcomers leave within the first month out of frustration
• The onboarding process isn't simple
• Getting to the trending page requires spending money on bidbots

Fixing these problems

Here lies the problem, many of these issues are core level problems in the design of Steem itself. I love the concept and ability to earn a few dollars from writing, but only Steemit Inc can fix many of these problems.

We can all protest, start working groups and collectives to try and make things better, but ultimately there are flaws in the design of Steem that the community cannot easily solve. As negative as it sounds, there is only so much we the people can do to change things before Steemit Inc needs to step in.

Reward pool raping

The community is powerless to stop this. We can band together and starting flagging these whales to reduce their rewards, but it makes you a target. A high-reputation user has the potential to silence and do a lot of damage to users with very little reputation and voting power.

Broken flagging system

Efforts such as @steemcleaners are doing beautiful work by allowing you to report content and they'll flag it for you. But, the fundamental issues with flagging on Steem cannot be fixed, as shown by community efforts which require reporting/flagging by proxy.

Misuse of the flagging system

There is nothing anyone can do when they get slapped with a big ol' flag from a whale, nothing. You have to take it on the chin and move on, I've been on the receiving end of a whale flag and it wasn't a justified one either.

Quality problem

This comes back to the flagging situation. Flagging uses up voting power, it's one of those situations where you think upvoting good content would be more beneficial and a use of voting power. But herein lies the problem, when we ignore low-quality content and spam to save our voting power, that's a flaw.

Poor user retention

Newcomers arrive because of the promise of making money from writing and producing content. Many leave because they eventually experience the unjust nature of Steem, especially when it comes to the rampant bot abuse and reward pool raping.

Users leave out of frustration over not being able to get anywhere. Your first month is rough on Steem, unless you're fortunate enough to become involved with the numerous curation grooups and community-led efforts that will help you earn a little money.

Difficult onboarding process

Joining Steem requires paying to create an account, or waiting a couple of weeks to be approved. Considering people are used to being able to supply an email/username and password to join services like Medium or Facebook, it really affects the signup experience and deters people.

Trending page bidbots

Once again, a flaw within the platform itself. This is a hard problem to tackle, but ultimately needs to be solved by Steemit by creating a true trending algorithm which takes into account bot vots and unnatural voting behaviour.

I have nothing against bidbots, I have used them a few times now to try and get visibility (I've never made it to trending though), but there is a fine line between fair use and abuse.

Conclusion

Words are not enough. Steemit Inc needs to start driving real change and change comes from the top. Members of the community (including witnesses) are sincerely trying to make this a better place, but there is only so much that the community can do.

Image credit Pixabay.