Open letter to fellow Investors
I’m sure those who hold a lot of Steem think about this a lot. In other words, the blockchain today in my opinion lacks the ability to attract bigger investors and early adopters. But does this mean that the blockchain itself is not ready for the next step? Or could it have less to do with technology and more to do with the consensus of the community.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://oakmontinvestment.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/investors.jpg)
I ask these questions because it seems to be that even on that subject, the points of view are very different. The polarized position on bidbots is a common point of disagreement, but there are plenty more that keep the community at odds. In other words, even among big holders of Steem power, the way to move forward is not entirely clear.
This might seem like I’m being negative about this, but I promise this is not the case at all. I’m trying to be objective about the things I see. It’s also important to point out that I’m talking more about Steem the currency, and not so much about Steemit the platform, and this difference is important for the points I’m trying to make.
As it pertains to technology
The Steem blockchain might be unmatched at the moment. What other currencies have three second fee less transactions, and enjoy the privilege of a blockchain who does not struggle much, even on the highest traffic days? In this sense it’s easy to admit that aside all the challenges it may face, it stands out from thousands of other projects who might enjoy a higher valuation but lack any usable implementation.
Our Steem currency also has something very valuable in the way of development. Given the fact that not all development is handled by Steemit Inc, but a considerable amount of work is done by witnesses and other independent efforts. This is also not common among other currencies, and curiously enough it should be.
The ideas proposed this year, the possibility of SMT’s might be the way Steem can effectively attract investors by creating a separation wall between the challenges that Steemit currently faces and the platforms that these new tokens could facilitate. If that means that Steemit the website will lose some attention remains to be seen, but it’s possible that outcome is actually desirable.
Because it’s still early
I find Steem to be an incredible opportunity for those who can clearly see it’s true potential. A simple yet important rule of investments is that participating on an investment once it has succeeded, is a sure way of missing out on incredible gains.
I say that only to say that I’m completely aware and Ok with the fact that Steemit itself was never meant to be a final product of any sort. At least the things I’ve read some witnesses and prominent members of Steem share on the subject matter make this message clear to me. The idea of Steemit was possibly an implementation of possibilities and nothing more.
Does this mean that blogging won’t mean much in the future? I doubt it. I think blogging will always have a place, but what I’m starting to imagine is that when it takes off and becomes a global phenomenon, the center of attention might not be steemit, but something else entirely built on top of the same blockchain.
Attracting Investors
Has to be connected to the idea of presenting the possibilities of the blockchain itself and a lot less connected with the blogging platform called Steemit. At least this seems to me the best way to describe my position on this matter.
As someone who is invested on Steem, I must admit that the potential of the blockchain itself has not been truly exploited, and I mean that in a positive way of course. To believe that Steem should be only a blogging platform is to think small, to lack the needed imagination.
Now, this conversation if there is one to be had, should probably be held by some of the bigger investors who are currently holding the Steem token. In other words, the ones who stand to win the most if the right choices are made should be the ones who collectively agree on ways that this blockchain could attract other potential investors.
In this sense the Steem blockchain could effectively become fertile ground for Entrepreneurs and business of all sizes, including charities and non-profit organizations.
Passive investors
Also need to play a role on the solution. It’s not completely realistic to think that everyone can write or that they would want to become bloggers. I think that expectation is also hurting the valuation of Steem. I think that it’s exactly because of this reason that bidbots even became a thing at all. A healthy economic system should be able to accommodate many different types of investors, and saying that should not be something that should make anyone uncomfortable.
I’ve read a few Steemians say that curation rewards should be enough for them. But I’m inclined to say that those who hold that position, also don’t have the Steem Power to put themselves on the shoes of someone who has invested in those quantities. That lack of perspective might be the reason why that particular aspect of the conversation seems to go nowhere.
Maybe the code should change
I’m not entirely sure about it myself. But after reading some of the proposed ideas being shared by other investors, I have to admit they make a lot of sense to me. One thing to consider though is if the creation of SMT’s could implement some of those solutions, therefore making those changes not as relevant on Steem, but that remains to be seen.
I am of the opinion though that the main focus of Steem investors at the moment should be to support initiatives that would encourage other investments to buy into the token, since the market today seems to be only in the direction of vote-selling, the possible solution would be to design a product that could be just as effective, but less polemical.
The one thing that is no doubt needed is the willingness of people to have this particular conversation. Because if that’s not possible, then the things we want to see just won’t happen. In any case I remain positive about Steem, and will keep on looking forward to the coming days ahead.
Sincerely
Vote trading (effectively self-voting) is the most braindead move, yet it is currently the move with the highest rewards on Steem. With the same amount of SP, even the best curation works will go nowhere close to the rewards acquired from trading votes. No sane investor will be okay in buying and holding SP with such an imbalance, where content-agnostic activities that work against the platform dominate actual content/curation activities by a large margin.
There's nothing wrong with trading votes, but a good economy will be impossible without aligned incentives on desirable behaviour. We just need to tweak the code so that curating (directly / indirectly through curation services) earns just about as much as vote trading.
Here's a thought experiment:-
Every vote is money on Steem. Imagine that every vote we give out, we get back 0% of it. It'd be safe to assume that no curation will happen. Because if I curate, I earn exactly nothing while the other guy who's not even curating gets everything.
Now if we get 100% of our votes back for every vote we give out, we can say that curation will at least happen much more often because there's no opportunity cost between any kind of voting behaviour. But there's absolutely no incentive for content creators to do anything at all since it all goes back to the voter. So it's actually the same as scenario (1) above. The effect is symmetrical.
Today in Steem we get about 25% max (average about 13%) of our votes back for every vote we give out, while self-voting or vote trading all the time can bring us back 100% of our votes (or more). So naturally, vote trading /self-voting is the dominating force on the network, quite close to scenario (1).
Now if we get about 75% of our votes back for every vote we give out? Certainly an improved situation compared to (2). Again, we can assume symmetrical effect so it's the same situation as (3).
We can expect scenario (3) and (4) to collapse into scenarios similar to (1) and (2) over time as the profitability gap is too huge between voting behaviours.
So now we're onto the balancing point, what if we get about 50% of our votes back for every vote we give out? Sure one could still self-vote / vote-trading away to get back 100% of their votes, but this middle-point would actually encourage more curation and one may even be able to get more than 50% back by curating well. The point is for folks to vote out more whenever they come across good content instead of just saving up to take it all back. There's also the cost of building a social network that perhaps many are willing to take between getting back 50% (or more) vs 100%. We've suggested tweaks that could make this possible, but so far a lot of the investors are playing mental gymnastics and don't think it's an urgent problem that can be solved. Maybe because by playing the game as it is now, they can easily use Steem's inflation to pay themselves as well. So why change? In any case, we've already proposed the changes in our posts past couple of months.
The fixed rules on author vs. curation rewards always seemed like a mistake to me. As your thought experiment shows there will be a subjective balancing point where the hassle and effort of developing a voting scheme will outweigh its benefits.
But it's subjective and each SP holder will have his or her own tipping point.
So it seems to me that there should be a market in curation. Let each SP hodler determine how much curation value his or her vote is worth. Ideally there would be some sort of feedback loop where the more generous you are with your curation the more it is worth - possibly in visibility terms.
Part of the difficulty with steem is how multi-dimensional it is. Optimizing on one parameter will necessarily de-optimize another.
Isn't changes like these ultimately in the hands on STINC? It seems to be clear curation rewards need a boosting as authors are leaving without being founded and low quality content drives away those who are deciding on if their time is well spent on Steem ecosystem. Serious curation just isn't worth it right now and that is something that would set our social media ecosystem apart from the rest as there's many more coming up.
What if a post would continue to generate revenue even after seven days? Then curation rewards could would continue to flow over time and people would be rewarded for writing useful and timeless posts, rather than knowing that their post might be somewhat useless after seven days.
Generate revenue even after seven days... My thoughts always run in this direction.
Yet presumably it would so dilute the reward pool as to make up-to-the-minute posts much less appealing to the cell phone set. This 7-day limit goes after the NOW Market occupied by Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit and so many others.
Quality, long-term content becomes ultra-niche, niche market, quite a different kettle of fish. But in an EOS-centric universe it might just work out fine. If there is demand, a market will emerge.
True, but we could still let older content be able to gather rewards anyway. The limit has probably turned away a lot of content creators.
"Let older content...gather rewards" I hope so! Since the Mainstream Media confines itself to PURE BS there is a world of citizen journalism just waiting for the newcomers to speak up.
It's something to consider and I guess it might be even required change to capture a bit more professional journalism that take a lot of work to create.
I'd imagine the required work to do the change isn't crazy either, you could just essentially keep resetting the 7 day window internally.
There are many thoughts in it i have.. but what i appreciate the most there are some specific parameter values which can be tried out to get a more balanced system.
I stopped vote selling on Minnowbooster recently but i know there are many who just continue with it and get a lot more payouts. But for me it was a two-folded decision
The social and economic factors cannot be separated. If we exploit Steemit or any other future platform it works short term for a few like a pyramid scheme (Steemit is not) and we never ever get to mass adoption because word of mouth spreads like wild fire in the savannah about the anti-social behaviour with massive bot usage.
Regular people are not interested to be part of such systems.. because then it's like a horde of globlins with clubs is just waiting for new victims.. exaggerated view but basically the selfish attitude to attract people just for this purpose to exploit a even bigger reward pool with bots, vote selling and so forth cannot lead to a long term success.
It is the same with every business, if i start as CEO and immediately want a Mercedes and golden faucets but don't even have any product sales or customers.. it won't work.. i'll destroy the first green shoots immediately. I see a similar situation on Steemit currently. The growth of the platform is impeded by this imbalance.
I'm not a iPhone socialist but a long term investor who has always the choice like any other Steemian to use no, a bit or massively bots and services for higher gains but the more we move the balance to the reward robbing or distorting reputation bots it gets a very bad taste and economic desaster in the long term is my opinion.
I think Dan Larimer knows exactly what's going on and will get to the next level with a EOS platform in the near future but Steemit has still potential with the strong community of witnesses and Steemit Inc.
vote for vote
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Positions on bidbots are not necessarily polarized. Most users do not mind a great project or outstanding post to get to the Trending page but won't appreciate a so-called "open letter" that says little more than "maybe we should change the code... or not" to rape the reward pool.
You re not bringing solutions here, you re rather one big example of what the problem is.
Well, while I disagree with the use of bidbots and repeatedly find myself wondering if these posts are worth 1000 dollars, they are actually pretty well written. It's posts like these which meet the eyes of potential users and investors checking out the platform for the first time. While they don't necessarily bring much new to the table, they are easly comprehensible and can make new users think "Hmm, that's a pretty decent post, but with some practice, I could do just as good and make 1000 bucks myself". I like reading @chbartists posts. They are a lot better than the posts which were featured on the first page last year when I joined Steemit.
That's a huge problem. These posts are misleading. People come, they see the money, they see themselves not earning anything after a couple of posts, they blame steemit and the community, then leave.
This guy isn't making $1000. The rewards here reflect how much he paid to post on a platform that offers a FREE publishing tool. This is not someone a new member should be looking up to and attempting to emulate nor is it someone anyone should listen to when it comes to financial advice or investment concerns.
Part of the reason he posts his confusion up to the trending page is because he is one of the few who comes here and actually loses money, while the majority of us who've been around for a long time can easily tell folks the place works great, with evidence to back us up, while we all continue to MAKE money. Many of our stories could easily grab the interest of outside investors, if they shared the same vision and realized how revolutionary a platform like this is when it comes to the potential billions generated yearly by the arts/entertainment industry combined with the information age along with advertising. Who wouldn't want a piece of that pie?
You're talking about the posts featured here a year ago. This guy once published a post with a short paragraph telling everyone he is about to publish a post. He then boosted his silly announcement all the way to the top of trending, and took a loss in the money department. Out of all the posts I've seen here over the years, that one and the fact he boosted it to the top, stands as one of the most ridiculous things I've seen here so far.
Telling people these promotions and advertisements like the post above (that's what they are if promotion bots are used, regardless of content) are better than what used to be here is just a fancy way of kicking us all who were here attempting to produce those posts back then, while we're already down.
When these folks offer up their FUD to the rest of us and disguise it as popular opinion through the use of promotional services (paid votes), we could all be taking a hit financially, including those who offer the promotional services once they place their stamp of approval upon this bunk and release it to the public.
By far, these are some of the worst posts plaguing this platform and the future of the blockchain. It doesn't matter how well they're written. I don't see typos on those cigarette ads from the 1960's when they told people doctors recommend Camels brand. It's all bunk.
Have a nice day.
@nonameslefttouse wow, you spoke my mind entirely and i cannot agree with you less, the concept of portraying post as such with great rewards on the trending page are not essentially helpful to the newbies or a good approach of mentorship, most members having joined the platform and find out that all this trending post and all with great profit are all a sham and deceit, will find it hard to continue or strive to success as they would eventually give up and forfeit their stay on steemit, from my research ever since the inception of bidbots you barely find a post worth about 50$ without the use of the bidbots, we see post daily trending giving little or no value to the community, we see post with no quality information trending on the top and hot pages while those with great value and of paramount info... are shut down and forever lay on the seabed, none to see or read. Voiceless they become.
I hold no grudges against the use bidbots or promoting of content cause personally i do make use of it as well, but saying such is a good deed for the promotion of steem is as well killing the vision of steem and creating more problems.
Its no doubt that the mass populace of steemians are here with the hope of making money or getting successful via the platform and if the platform only keep enriching those who are already "rich" then what does the future holds for the next gen steemians, from steemwhales statistics we can see the wealth distribution of steem whereas only 0.72% goes to the minnows of which possess a greater number of the entire steem community.... this data gets smaller and smaller as the days goes by...
In the early days of steem, before the introduction of the bots, people get rewarded based on the true value their content gave to the community and authors with great contents get fair rewards for their post, i would totally disagree with @oyvindsabo saying way back content wasnt much appreciated, actually way back content had more realistic value and with more sense and benenfit to the community, i can still pinpoint over 20 post since 2016 which are still very helpful and are still commented on. unlike what we see now.
I offered up a potential solution to this mess, but I've a feeling, much like the many months of folks attempting to point out the real issues here without sounding like whiners, it'll be ignored. Blown off. I'm done talking about this stuff though.
@nonameslefttouse checking through your profile you have a decent amount of followers as well as a high reputation as seen on steemit, as well as youve been here since the early days of the platform, you have a better vision and say about the whole concept of steemit, as well as your post are of decent rewards value without much abuse to bidbots or reaping the reward pool as earlier said, hhahaaha, if we could be the change we speak it would really be of great help to the future gen, i would suggest you set up a discord for the most part of your followers as well as the upcoming steemians to help re-orient their mindset and attitude towards the true reality of steemit or any of the other steem DAPP as well as help other curators and authors of quality content succeed justly in the platform....
I would be glad and it would be of great privilege to work with you in this..
im sharing this idea with you because you have a better reputation and influence in the community and based on the contents of your words earlier, However its an open suggestion and if anyone could do such a thing would be very helpful.
Thanks.
Correction: Absolutely no use of bidbots whatsoever. I focus on art and entertainment. If I have to pay people just to look at my art, I shouldn't be an artist. If I ever produced something that became insanely popular, earned $1000, got outside attention and publicity, then was asked what it's like to EARN $1000, as a digital artist, using a revolutionary technology, with one blog post, in an interview published elsewhere: I'd be the laughingstock of the internet if I told the interviewer I had to purchase the money and actually went into debt, and this platform already gets enough bad publicity.
If an author publishes a book, then goes into debt purchasing millions of copies of their own book, does that make them a best selling author? No, it doesn't. That makes them a fraud.
As for your offer here, I respect the idea, but I do not have the time to run my blog, my way (something I love doing), plus mentor and help people on the side. As for supporting people, I've dropped 299 votes on 124 accounts this week and I could probably do better. My voting power is not going to waste though.
If people want to succeed, all they have to do is work for it.
lol, you actually hit on one of the big secrets of traditional book publishing. You have to pay out the nose to get on the best sellers lists. MOST books that hit the list barely break even or lose money. Unless you have been on the list a couple of times or have other means of marketing your books.
Also just think about how many authors you see giving away free copies of their NYT best-selling book, just give us your email and pay shipping and you can have the book that they already bought to get on the best selling list....
Wow,
I must confess this made me took a second look and survey through your posts/blog. I was amazed after going through the first page, i realised you were actually right.
I gave you a follow and possibly would be writing about you in the future .
Earning a decent 10-20$ on an avg per post is convincing , realistic and more motivating enough for the upcoming steemians.
Though i'm still be studying more about you I'm trying to make a list and survey of top steemians who actually earn decently with the platform without the bids. 'Ll defin.. Be in contact with you
Cause i almost felt this was impossible.
It quite unfortunate the idea wasnt bought by you however i totally respect your decision and as well the reasons highlighted
Thanks for replying i appreciate that
Nicholas Ilechie
Deep analysis, increas my knowladge thanks
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you welcome
I agree with you, those who came here long time ago can testify how good and great the platform is. Those times, we really see posts that were organically brought to trending/hot page. Unfortunately, those days are gone with the current system of bidbots.
I agree with you and plan
Yes i am too, totally rigth
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Very long comment, its very good review,
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Yup. This sort of post is actually massively misleading. It sends a message that sounds like "come to Steemit, and you can make $1000 for a blog post!"
Which is basically patent bullshit. The real story is "come to Steemit and after working your ass off for six months, you might make $3-5 a post." Wait... I've been here for over 18 months and I am barely getting beyond that...
Part of the reason our attrition rate here is so high is that people are selling a lie to get people to sign up. But maybe that's just part of the core nature of "sales." Tell a "story" and worry about people discovering the truth, later.
While I agree with what you write, I can't help but think that the fact that it's possible to pay to get your post to the front page where it's seen by thousands of people is what actually gives Steem value to investors.
Sure, you could buy Steem to get Steem Power to self vote, or earn some tiny amount off curation, but from an influencer perspective, Steem is worth something because it can be used to reach and influence people. After all, all the money we make here comes from investors, and if they only buy Steem to get more Steem, there is only speculative value. The real value comes not directly from our posts, but from the time we and our readers spend here, consuming whatever people are willing to pay them to consume. And yes, the hard working Steemians are probably those who pay the highest price. I would like to hear other views here if you disagree.
I wish you a nice day as well.
Seen by thousands of people? The readership/viewership here is majority spam. These folks are not interested in the posts at all. Very little influence is happening here.
These ads should be included within the true, "organically grown" blog posts, so they can see potentially thousands more views; and the trending page should be given back to the actual content producers who advertisers typically rely on to make some REAL money.
There are only a few top trending slots. If this behavior was revved up, these people would pay for visibility, and a few hours if not minutes later, their promotion would get bumped down by the next one who pays more, and that spirals out of control leading to the top spot being far too expensive for only minutes worth of exposure.
Only a small handful of people can buy STEEM and buy exposure under this current model. It does not create enough demand to make a worthwhile impact.
I've offered a solid suggestion/solution to this problem here and more information in the comments section.
More bits and pieces can be found powering through this comment thread.
Removing the paid programming style promoted posts away from the Trending tab and placing them in a separate section (I call it the MARKET) where advertisers pay more to jockey for position like they do now, then having bloggers select from these posts to include as ad banners in their posts would draw far more eyes to the promotions. The banners function as a vote for the post hosting the banner, and that blogger earns ad revenue that way, along with a percentage of the rewards from the promotion would go to all those hosting that ad once the promotion pays out, much like a curation reward.
There's far more potential in that approach. It creates demand for STEEM, it gives bloggers another way to earn on top of their post rewards, it gives promoters and passive investors a shot at a larger venue and the promotions within blogs get more eyes because depending on a few top trending slots is wasteful when there are literally thousands of posts being published per day.
Going off on another tangent now: Out of the 22 months I've been producing my blog here, I took a total of six months off. I've received nearly 70000 votes, thousands upon thousands of organic views (they took our view counter away, unfortunately), and I've made thousands of dollars that was once worth hundreds of thousands. I never paid a dime for any of this.
In this post above, he's talking about how people don't see potential here, saying it's just a test. They simply don't understand the business they're in and therefore don't see the potential.
People have paid for websites and blogged for 10 years. They go into debt and don't even get half of the attention I've been able to grab since starting up here, working a total of 16 months producing 584 posts. Nothing else out there compares to this place if you're taking a professional approach, providing a unique experience, and know the business you're in.
Now if we can incorporate the Market I mentioned, and give the actual content producers a place to shine instead of allowing advertisers to hijack their stage, this place, along with the other DAPPs that depend on content producers in order function, will thrive and give plenty of opportunities for all involved to make some real money.
Yes i am agree with you thank you!
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good
Sir your words were inspirarional, i will try my best to post original content
Thank You @oyvindsabo. I can see respect in your words and this is very important! All the best!
Honesty, even if it's something you don't want to hear, is also a form of respect. Since you've been here, I've noticed how you consistently write off any critical opinions under your posts as being disrespectful.
I hope someday you can stop artificially inflating your posts with large votes and thousands of little votes in a attempt to make yourself appear to be popular, because some view your misleading approach to all this as being disrespectful. You're only fooling yourself and those you wish to mislead.
Next time you write a letter to me, I'll do what you do, and ignore it.
yes
Nothing should be said yes and yes
Very good analysis, i agree
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yes @stoodkev definitely true .....
I think Steemit should be more User Friendly to Mainsstream Users. And some Aplications the Users spend more Time here.
Like A Friend area,
Some Chat and something like facebook groups.
For sure the Trending page is sometimes Anoying as shit. But this is not the biggest problem to get some success with steem.
I agree 100%,
Steem it is a good platform, but I can say that it has changed... The whales, and people with lots Steem power, have too much power when it comes to rewards, and upvoting friends, and people they know. For example same people's articles always get to the top of hot and Trending sections, whether they worth it or not. This is mainly due to whale's voting their friends' articles.
@stoodkev You said it.
We all said it
yes your say the truth @livingstone9
Nothing should be said yes and yes
no bro , anything which shows negative is not right investment
yes
waaa great comment
i agree
Good comment and depp review
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Nice information
The golden rule is invest what you can afford, as there is risk.
yes that is key point,and along with this you should use your excess savings.
Yes, that is true. Good luck to you.
Most of my investments is in the stock market not in Cryptos. I like cryptos because of the "F" the government mentality. Also I'm running for President in 2028 - here is website page - https://www.tskjesusfreak.com/2028.html
So I wish you good luck.
That's in ten years! How old will you be then? We need some younger people in government. Like austria or france.
do you think it's a good investment to pay 550SBD to get 693 payout (-25% 520/2 = 260SBD + 160Steems)?
your thinking is same with me , I have shared same thinking in my post
https://steemit.com/mgsc/@bnbtravels123/calculaton-of-profit-and-loss-on-steemit
You'r right. That's why I don't use bid-bots. But most writers are using them to be listed on trending page. The pattern of earning reward on steemit is gradually changing. Write anything and pay to bid-bots and earn reward.
is this bid-bot a paid service. I mean if one pay them then they will help to vote and make the post trending ?
no its not a good investment
why not?
no bro , anything which shows negative is not right investment
you are right
you are right friend
It is good if one is good writer. One has to make himself/herself visible. And there is cost involved in getting attention.
Bot visibility is money wasted.
It actually has the effect that people will not look actively at what you write if they expect to find you on the trending page.
Authors self-rewarding themselves to this massive extent tend to alienate most readers.
Bid boting is basically shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to any long term status on steem.
Yes you mentioned a important point "self-rewarding" that's what it is and the money is taken from the reward pool of all Steemians. For new Steemians it creates a totally distorted view of rewards, because they are bought and not really earned by votes from interested readers of the post. The other thing.. also the reputation is bought then and represents not the term reputation as we understand it in the real world. A reputation of 60 or 70 reached with real votes is a real big achievement but the current system opens ways to get around that and that is also a completely distorting view for other Steemians. That is only fixable with good code.. the human behaviour is not changeable! If nothing happens Steemit would suffer and die in the long term. I hope Steemit Inc. and witnesses unite to create a long term solution for our beloved platform to not only survive but thrive!
I dont know how well, code by itself can get the wanted results. Im not a fan of rules but different people value things differently. I really cant see us coming to a across the board solution without resorting to adding in certain basic rules of conduct.
Can code really be written in such a way that it will not lead to people finding a path around its restrictions.
I havent seen proof that it can, unfortunately.
it depends on the level of rules. On the basic level it can work to a high degree. For example take Bitcoin, basically it cannot be hacked unless two of the biggest mining camps join together for a 51% attack on the network to manipulate cash flows. The flip side would that they destroy their own basis of trust. Nobody would use Bitcoin anymore because one of the basic needs of Maslows pyramid is now in danger..
On a more complex level there is always some drawback with regulation, bureaucracy and wasting precious time.. you take freedom from intelligent, honest and trustworthy people for the sake of avoiding criminal activities, stupid data inputs which can harm a system..
In this case we talking about money and if there is a opportunity to silently plunder the reward pool with complex bot systems.. they simply will do. If you have no hard rules which regulate it by themselves you always need a police who is overwhelmed by all these activities.. why not imprint something on the blockchain.. immutable, automatically operated.
It is not so challenging to find a solution for 90% of abuse but for 95% or 99% like the self-upvote checkbox which is gone now in favor of Steemit. Sometimes you must swallow the drawbacks to vastly improve something for long term in my opinion. If we want real mass adoption there cannot be all doors wide open for every option and scammers.. which would destroy user experience.
To refer to the self-upvote, currently it's still possible but not offered when you publish a new post.. why not shut down this function completely? There are so many new people which slowly realizing the implications just after months or the negative impact.. so disabling such functions would help new people and prevent misuse from the beginning. We need less money options and more social experience.. it's not about tech savvy people here which control the cash flows against not tech savvy people in my eyes.
lol
In my investment practice use tool forecast.ws .
Steem blockchain was so promising and im adamant that it will outshine others. Actually, it is the second in the list just next to ethereum and this is a great news for all of us steemians. There are so many possibilities will come in our way and im so excited what steem will bring us in the future or should I say a greener future :)
i think , steem has good future , but will long time to grow, because mother of all currency Bitcoin, will not allow anyone to grow , what is your thought
Yes, I believe in Steem! All the best! @elizahfhaye
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In addition to bots, big controversies are also arousing huge delegations to such interfaces as dtube or dlive. And since only the metadata of these films is stored on the blockchain, is the added value really so big?
To increase the Steem price, you need mass adoption among non-crypto ordinary people. The number of active users of a social network defines it's value.
Tokenized social media IS the wave of the future, cutting out the manipulative third party identity sellers, like Facebook.
There is more scope in Steem and EOS, in my opinion (not financial advice), which use the scalable DPOS consensus algorithm, to enter the mass market, and become breakout cryptos, than any other coin, bar Bitcoin itself.
Steemit, as you say, is unappealing to the masses because of it's misaligned incentive structures, which naively focus on investment returns now, rather than using Steem's first-mover advantage to build an active user base of a million people. If the active user base grows to such a level, Brands like Macdonalds and Coca Cola will buy Steem because they will need to be part of it. Where the people are, in social media, the money follows.
SMTs and new applications focused on incentivising mass market adoption by ordinary people are the way to go. The key to putting Steem in its rightful place among the top 5 Cryptos is to create an application that is wholesale designed to entice and retain the general public, be it a tokenized twitter type app, or even a redesigned Steemit, but which is NOT about investors claiming back the inflation from Steem.
Steem ONLY works if the inflation goes to platform growth and recruitment of the general public, and not if investors feel the need to claim it back immediately through bidbots, which ultimately slows the growth and give other tokenized social media platforms, like EOS, the breathing room to catch up with Steem's first-mover advantage.
Caveat: I'm just a redfish, but I still want to be helpful. :)
This is why @dan left steem.
Dan left steemit to build EOS and a competitor to steem.
That is the reason why ned was angry at dan.
@littleboy have you any references for your statement, i'm curious about please give me a read
I completely agree with this, especially about the big brands buying into it because they NEED to. If 200 million people use steem/steemit, actively, regularly, then big brands will not want to miss out on the ability to advertise and promote their brands here or to keep their brand-loyal customers informed of new deals/information/plans for the future. I also agree with the rest of your statement, as that's the nature of social media and any economy, growth needs to be fueled by long-term investment and aimed towards the retention of users/value. When you see large stakeholders trying to get an roi on their investment by selling votes and creating bots just to get some immediate returns... It makes you think that maybe they don't truly believe in the idea of what they've invested in and that maybe they just saw it as a way to make a quick profit or that they feel like it's going to fail, so they want to get their money's worth out of it before they pull out of it entirely. Great comment!
- 🄹🄴🅁🅁
Regards @jerr. All the best!
Wishfull thinking, where do you think the inflation goes?
Some to the witnesses, some to sign new people up, most to the rewards pool, where it is scooped back up by investors through the use of bidbots.
My point is that that latter usage is shortsighted.
Think of Steem stakeholders as fishermen: each of them using their stakes to fish for active users of the Steem blockchain. The bait the fishermen are using is the reward pool (which is inflation on their stakes). If the fishermen delegate to bidbots, it is like eating their own bait, and those fishermen will catch no fish.
Then it will be up to the other stakeholders to catch the fish, and make Steem valuable, except they will become jealous and resentful of the Stakeholders who ate their own bait, and say: Why should I fish for the benefit of everybody when that guy ate his own bait!?
So you see, Steemit is improperly incentivized. By design, fishermen should be prohibited from eating their own bait. It should be a condition of buying Steem that you accept that the inflation on your stake will be used to grow the platform, not be recouped immediately.
This is not a moral issue, it's just a business design flaw, that slows growth, and allows the competition to catch up.
I expect Dan Larimer to solve this design problem, so Steem should hurry up because they still have a massive headstart, and every chance of being worth multiple billions of dollars.
You mentioned a very important point for every new user on Steemit.. often he/she came for the money and just wanted to stay for the money. I changed my mind in terms of bot usage the last few months and stopped it completely because of the reason you mentioned. But the short comment above yours is the truth in my eyes.. wishful thinking. It needs some serious changes within the code.. the user behaviour is nothing we can change. If a system has flaws immediately there are people to exploit them. Within Steemit it's a quite heavy challenge to solve but nothing is impossible. Dan Larimer is on the next level EOS now and Steemit 2.0 (not real name) was announced months before and is now on the finish line. Maybe he fixes these issues with this new platform.. what do you think?
Could be @onetim84 but the most important point I would like many users to understand is that steemit is a cryptocurrency platform and everyone is here to make money and I do not like to see negative people with unfounded criticism when they should be taking care of the your own blogs instead of going into the other's yard and throwing junk. I also see many here with enormous hypocrisy. These I entitle of i-phone socialists ... LOL Everywhere there will always be competition and I search in my posts to teach and motivate people writing in a simple way so they can clearly understand what I mean and this for some people is a low quality content. The fact is that I will always continue to write like this because those who are great poets around here I have already analyzed and I do not see them helping people. Anyway I vote for all those who dedicate a little of their time to interact in my posts and I call it income distribution. I do this with pleasure for those who are always with me. Regards
"It needs some serious changes within the code.. the user behaviour is nothing we can change."
I agree with you. That is why I said we have a "design problem."
The design needs to be trustless, not relying on good human behavior, and I'm certain Larimer is focused on this exact problem The man is a genius, after all.
On the other hand, I also think Steem has some time to get another better-designed app going on the blockchain, or to fork Steemit and resolve some of the design issues. 60,000 current active users is nothing to sneeze at, though admittedly the serious money will probably only come in when you get ten times that many active users.
If there is any advertising or promotional campaign of any kind, it needs to be targeted at first world markets, because users from those markets are more desirable to Brands. Users from other markets will come anyway, because they will follow the wealthier first world users on to the platform by word of mouth.
Big picture: I strongly feel that tokenized social media WILL succeed massively. It will happen. But it's up for grabs who has the most precise trustless vision, incentivized for user growth, most swiftly implemented. :)
Im in the same boat as you. I had a series running where i promoted other authors and creators by using bots once i started earning some more serious Steem and getting recognized by the music community. Trying to use the bots in a positive manner and promote such use..
After some time i realized that anything you did with bots was counter productive. Bots, for all the uglyness in the word are truly a cancer for this platform
If you google "tumor" and compare the main characteristics and effects a tumor has on the body you can easily find the parallel with what bots are doing to this platform.
This is a very harsh comparisson and i apologise to anyone that might feel offended by this, but the parallel is more then vivid to me.
Thank you for your response @chbartist. To make it clear i came here for the money and a part of me always stay here for the money. I'll try to stay always positive. My point is just how all these options on Steemit are used.. some in good some in bad manner and that is very subjective view too.
One of the most important points for me and also the most challenging i think is the valuation of that what we are doing here. Writing content, interacting with each other, curating, earning rewards, powering up/down.. using bots. Steemit has a answer for all of that. There are many moving parts come together to build this economy here. If i would color from green over gray to red the behaviour on Steemit i see a gradient with a big gray belt.
Something which is not abuse at the first glance but if you look deeper you see all the relations between the moving parts of Steemit and what implications that has long term for the platform or may have. That was the reason why i stopped bots completely and decreased my daily payouts because indirectly i supported the gray or in some cases unconsciously maybe the red area with bad actors.
The other thing is always wealth distribution on a bigger scale. We have this common reward pool and yes there is a social aspect to it. As i understand the mechanism for example if someone is paying a bot with high amounts of SBD to get an big upvote the payout comes from the common reward pool where all Steemians get their payouts from. The bot operator itself gets huge sums of cash from the author. The clear winner is the bot operator and second the author who payed and get this big upvote. I would be concerned if these practices would be a standard on Steemit.
Regards
Yes there is no free lunch.. if we always take excessively and don't analyze and be aware of what's really going on behind (if you pay a bot to get a booster who gets the money? not you, Where is money coming from? the Steemit reward pool, not from the bot) then we pull the roots out of the ground and not just the reward pool dries out.. the whole community suffers until it's gone.
Your metaphor puts it in a nutshell.. we should stop to find excuses why we must use this or that.. for visibility, to get back what we invested or whatever.. in the end it's always the same.. for ourselves.. but asking the question is this really in our favour long term or just selflish self-destruction?
I think that you make a fairly compelling case about Steemit in terms of Investor involvement and the use of bidbots. But what I find particularly interesting is the proposed introduction of a 'Steemit 2.0' based of EOS technology. From what I understand, Dan @dan and co. have amassed a rather sizeable financial warchesss and have generated a good deal of interest among investors within the tech startup community. Having been a primary player in the development Bitshares, Steemit, and now EOS, @dan has built a strong reputation within the crypto space. If EOS progresses as envisioned, he will have have the advantage strong brand recognition which should in turn make Steemit 2.0 appears as an attractive investment opportunity. If a good rewards distribution algorithm can address the problems currently facing Steemit and problems associated with new account activation, then it should follow that an EOS implementation of the Steemit model should see significant growth and attract large investments. This should have the follow-on effect causing Steemit to up its game or face being eclipsed by Steemit 2.0. Competition is indeed a good thing.
Bro , steem will get adopted by the masses , but it will take long time , because first bitcoin has to be accepted by the system and then comes every one else, what would you say ??????
No. The whole point of Steem is that the crypto complexities can be hidden from new users, who may never use bitcoin in their whole lives.
A beautiful seamless system, where token operations all occur out of view of your average everyday person. You join a Steem app, you earn Steem, the end.
agree with you , however all other crypto currencies comes with complexity , hence every once would select bitcoin , what say ???
Great!
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One of the solutions could be to reduce the STEEM's current inflation drastically to 2% from current 8.7% by eliminating rewardpool using STEEM.
Assuming that STEEM distribution has completed reasonably (better than ICOs such as EOS). New STEEM production will only be used for interest on staking and witness compensation.
Demand for STEEM will come from bandwidth purchases from the companies behind the SMTs, scarcity and speculation.
STINC, as a owner of Steemit will lunch their own SMT. Perhaps they can airdrop their SMTs on SP holders.
All the experimentation about rewardpool distribution on Steemit and other DApps will bottled out. These controversies will affect STEEM a little, since most are related how new rewards (STEEM) are earned.
The very DApp developers and community will decide on their own reward pool distribution for their SMT.
STEEM inflation will reduced severely, which will create scarcity, therefore, STEEM's demand will rise. Moreover, STEEM's valuation will also depend of DApps/SMT's success and DApp/SMT's bandwidth requirements.
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come on invest in steem!
I will also like tO be in for it