RE: Hard Fork 21: A Case For the 50/50 Curation Reward Model
Dear @gandhibaba and everyone reading this comment
First of all: great choice of topic buddy. This is definetly very disturbing and important publication.
Since I've read post by @timcliff I couldn't stop thinking about consequences of this vital change. After all moving from "75/25" reward model to "50/50" is a huge deal.
I fully understand, that main idea behind such a change is to reduce abuse of some authors who self-upvote themselfs. But can it really be fixed ? I hardly doubt so.
Let's say that I self-upvote my own content. After HF21 I will receive less as an author from such an upvote. But it will be compensated with receiving more as curator.
Under this regime, the author will earn 50% of the payouts on posts while the curators will have to share the remaining 50%
In other words: content creators doing actual work will have it even harder to be rewarded. In order to get any rewards they need to create content.
At the same time curators do not need to do any work. After all they can switch on auto-upvotes and simply enjoy growing twice as fast. Basically we're moving away from rewarding those who create content or are authors of quality comments. Steemit will reward those people less.
My impression is that Steemit is turning into ponzi scheme. Investors will be rewarded for doing really nothing, but pretty much for holding their STEEM (and auto-upvoting any kind of content).
I would love someone to explain to me that I'm wrong and I do not see bigger picture.
BitBots and HF21
Now one more question that is on my head: would HF21 help or destroy bidbots? Most likely demand for their services will still be there and at the same time bidbots will be growing twice as fast as they do right now (after all curation rewards will be doubled).
Am I wrong? I'm badly trying to figure out how HF21 can help but all I can see is "huge opportunities for abuse" of Steemit platform.
IMPORTANT: I read and upvote all interesting comments.
Yours
Piotr
Regards, appreciated @gandhibaba, @crypto.piotr.
Initially we should reflect and ask ourselves: why am I in Steemit?
We will find ambiguous points of view.
If we are content creators, our goal is to promote our work and at the same time obtain economic benefits. But we also have investors who only seek to increase their profits.
The issue is, that in both cases we would be part of the balance.
We need the investors. Investors need content creators.
A 50/50 reward distribution assumes a balance in profits.
We can not ignore that the creators also vote, then somehow they would also receive benefit for this action.
Unquestionably the platform must evolve. If we are here, we must trust the administrators. The only way to introduce significant changes is through HF. Hopefully all the changes (resulting from deep analysis) bring benefits for all.
Greetings. Juan.
You said, "Initially we should reflect and ask ourselves: why am I in Steemit?
We will find ambiguous points of view.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ambiguous
Most of us are quite unequivocal about what we want from Steemit; many of us are downright opinionated. Personally, I want an audience which will pay some attention to my writing, and I want to get paid for my efforts. See? There's nothing ambiguous about that at all.
You said, "A 50/50 reward distribution assumes a balance in profits."
Balance? You know what I get for an average blog entry?
$0.02
That's not what I call very damn balanced.
You said, "If we are here, we must trust the administrators."
Let me just ask you to please share with us the chain of logical reasoning which led you to this conclusion, because it is by no means apparent to me. Why in the name of all that's holy would you think that we "must" trust them?
But worst of all is the way you keep talking about "investors" when what you mean are whales. This ignores the fact that I too have invested in Steemit, not just money but over a year of my time and much unrewarded effort, as have hundreds of other minnows and redfish!
Well, I see that you've left sadly.
You were here longer than me even when you were active though..
I just want to say it is NOT the fault of any hardfork or anything to do with Steemit about your author rewards being so low.
I've made 35 posts in about 4 months of being active.
Without bots, I average about $1.00 per post. Some of my posts have made a heck of a lot more, some made less..
But everyday I grow! and hey, I'm newb to blogging, and I'm pretty fucking boring if you ask me, there is nothing special about me and I'm not any better than you...
But there must be something I am better at which explains why I get some more rewards, and if I'd have to guess I'd say it's networking.
Networking is a lot of work, sometimes it takes more work than creating a new post, but the payoff is pretty even - the work you put in to networking is manifested almost 1:1 with account growth and rewards..
Thanks @juanmolina. Your excellent contributions to this discourse summarizes the controversies here and strikes a balance. I agree with your witty, vital points. Thanks.
Friends @gandhibaba, @crypto.piotr, @juanmolina
For many of us who are doing interaction inside and probably outside the platform, we are here because we like to do what we do, it is a way to release our own experiences and additionally we do what we like and that is why we receive something monetary.
Many times the changes are not favorable in the short term, everything will depend on the behavior and how they accept the changes
But I'm sure of something, I like to do interaction in steemit and I know I'm going to be inside because I feel that if it's worth it to be inside steemit, and I always know everyone about our platform about all my students.
Steemit is here to stay and it will be up to everyone to accept the changes.
I send you a big hug from Venezuela.
Dear @lanzjoseg
very true. However I believe that this change is great in short term, but looking long term it's a complete disaster.
Just watch all new STEEM being redistributed in a way, that would benefit wealthy ones and pretty much ignore everyone else. Slowly and steadily most available STEEM will end up completely in hands of very few. Is that healthy? I hardly doubt so.
This system can only work if so called Whales would actually start delegating their Steem Power to quality curators. That would indeed allow those curators to be rewarded for their work and benefit entire platoform.
I'm simply afraid, that this will not happen. That at the end most whales will continue auto-upvoting publications of very few people, with their powerful votes and without putting any effort they will start earning x2 more than they did so far.
It surely would encourage them to slow down with powering down, which in effect would most likely bring up the price of STEEM. But that is the only positive outcome. And what would happen year from now, when those "whales" would start dumping this easily earned STEEM?
Yours
Piotr
I fully agree with your conclusion, that we have to allow the platform to evolve. And let's hope that the developers work to improve the platform. I believe they realize that their future success relies on the platform's future success, and that they are not about to shoot themselves in the foot. Cheers!
I also agree with @juanmolina's contributions. They are well received.
That is my hope also. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing your view @majes.tytyty
Let's pray for that.
Yours,
Piotr
@majes.tytyty -> take a hammer, a nail, and break a small hole in the wall of the steemit. water pressure will do the rest of the 'evolving' work.
bwa haha
Dear @juanmolina
Thank you for this amazing comment and your time. I'm guessing that you support HF21 changes and we're seeing them differently.
Personally I'm not sure if I agree that 50/50 is balanced split of reward. It does surely sound fair.
However I cannot think of many businesses out there, where 50% of company profit ends up as a divident distributed to investors.
Question is: will this platform evolve only because it will reward current investors/stakeholders with double paychecks? Just wait until all those stakeholders will grow (and they will grow much faster now). We will witness centralization of power and New STEEM will be handed over mostly to those very few.
This system can only work if so called Whales would actually start delegating their Steem Power to quality curators. That would indeed allow those curators to be rewarded for their work and benefit entire platoform.
I'm simply afraid, that this will not happen. That at the end most whales will continue auto-upvoting publications of very few people, with their powerful votes and without putting any effort they will start earning x2 more than they did so far.
It surely would encourage them to slow down with powering down, which in effect would most likely bring up the price of STEEM. But that is the only positive outcome. And what would happen year from now, when those "whales" would start dumping this easily earned STEEM?
So again: 50% rewards for bringing value to blocklchain (creating content, commenting etc.) and 50% for just holding coin? It actually sounds like a recipe for upcoming disaster.
Yours
Piotr
@juanmolina,
50-50 is not enough. absolutely no go.
"The poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows...' (c) Cohen
Hard not to agree with your comment @qwerrie
but the decision-makers do not agree, @crypto.piotr.
all discussions show that people dont vote for it,
all predict harsh consequences and further ship-sinking
everybody knows - that s the way it goes.
Here are some facts:
Here are my opinions:
All the extra stuff about how people behave is moot. Many people, across different communities, have different beliefs of what is the best for Steem.
You have folks who believe bid bots are the true incentives for people buying Steem while many feel they are destroying it. I won't get into the details of those fallacies. Economics is definitely not most people's strong suite around here. I would read everything with a grain of salt.
Curation rewards take time to liquidate. Expect services that will provide liquidity. In fact, they already exist. One that already exists is @likwid.
The fundamental issue with Steem is that one can easily do well by playing solitaire. It can be with your own stake or through bots. There are plenty of people whose posts have only bot comments on them, but what do they care? They continue to create for nobody and vote for nobody but themselves.
I would bet anything that most people have no idea some of the tactics used by people to reach ROI around here. One great example is someone continually babbling about the
15-min wait. Nobody waits for that. More and more people vote around 8-10 minute mark to accrue some potential losses in exchange of actually earning curation.Thanks for the input and your clarification re the various points above. While I find much of this entire HF discussion far above my head, it's good to read well-reasoned comments such as yours.
Thanks for the compliment.
We won't know until we get there. I think we can all agree on that the status quo isn't working.
Whilst I was cracking my head wondering how to comment given the so many unknowns, I came across your well reasoned comment. This is probably the most sensible comment.
The investors and the authors+curators group are in a symbiotic relationship feeding each other here. If one of them benefit excessively at the expense of the other, that will be the beginning of the end of the steem blockchain.
However, I think the investors have more to lose than the other group should steem flounder.
Let's get one thing straight: Everyone (I repeat) EVERYONE who contributes here is an investor of some sort.
Do you see up-votes on your posts by any whales on a regular basis? I can't say that I do any more. So what does that mean?
It means that I don't rely on whale votes. I'm here and earning my little bit from the little fish like myself. Does it make any difference at all if all the whales leave? I really don't know! I expect the price of Steem to drop as they pull out, but eventually it will return to something stable from the value of all the OTHER investors besides the whales. Those doing statistics have already shown that the middle class is growing and whales are becoming less relevant as far as SP goes.
Will a 50/50 split hurt me? I don't know that either. I cast votes and I receive votes, so one may balance out the other.
Do I think changing to a 50/50 split will solve Steem's problems? Not at all. The goal-posts will have been moved, but the rules of the game are still pretty much the same and those who game the system will continue to do so; they will just find new ways to do it. What it will do is to disrupt all the calculations of programs like SBI and other less-known programs. MANY people have invested into these programs (note the word, 'invested') and could end up being badly hurt by the change. HOW MANY PEOPLE need to be badly hurt before they stop messing with the rewards system? What will the whales do if everyone else pulls out because they keep getting hurt here? Do you think Steem will survive with just whales attempting to outwit each other to grab the biggest piece of the pie?
+100. man. your deduction is so clear. @happyme
Thanks.
As far as I can tell, Steem NEEDS the small investors as much as it needs the big ones; perhaps even more. Can you imagine what Steem would be like with just a dozen people making content?
Love that comment. Very well said @happyme
I completely agree with @happyme, in any community it is necessary the participation of all, large, medium and small, but we must think about helping the youngest ones grow, if they grow, we all grow and we have the satisfaction of contributing and build a better future for everyone.
Problem is, many people don’t have an investor’s mindset. They have the speculator’s. Hence why everyone feels “stacking coins” is the most important and profitable thing to do at all times.
Dear @enforcer48
What an amazing comment. One of the best I've read so far.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on that particular issue.
ps. thx for introducing me to @likwid
Yours,
Piotr
You've made some fine contributions here, friend. Your points are well received. Thanks for stopping by.
As a rather hard-working content creator, I see your point. Or course, I'd love to maintain my current level of rewards.
However, I believe the long-term growth and stability of the platform is of utmost importance. I don't really care about short-term profits. I'd rather have a situation in which my income drops 50%, but the price of Steem rises 100%, or 500% – or 2000%, to its previous high.
As for the abuse of the system, I agree it's a concern, but I believe it might be a minor concern. In any system / organization, there is plenty abuse and inefficiency and incompetence and worse.
In many cases, the system survives. It may not be working at 100% efficiency, but it plods onwards, and sometimes keeps doing quite well.
As @enforcer48 said, there are many factors in play. I'll just continue doing what I do, and hoping that it continues to add value to the platform. And I hope that the developers and witnesses do what they have to do on their end to also add value.
Dear @majes.tytyty
Thank you for accepting my invitation.
I realized just now that I never actually thanked you for your amazing comment. I appreciate your time :)
Have a great monday.
Piotr
First and foremost, thanks for your comments and for promoting this work to your audience and even placing a bounty on it. You're marvellous!
Now to your comments:
I fear that this may not necessarily be the case. A ponzi scheme is a scheme where earlier investors are paid with the money of the later investors. As long as people still earn money on Steemit without having to invest in Steem, Steemit isn't a ponzi.
One more point, I don't think investors are rewarded wrongly because they chose to hold their SP. Have you noticed the crashing price of Steem lately? The main reason behind the price action is that many people here are dumping their Steem on the exchanges. If investors are incentivized to hold SP, I think it is worthwhile because the price of Steem depends on their actions.
You're right that bid bot owners will earn more with a 50/50 curation reward. However, you seem to ignore the fact that a 50/50 model will leave the bid bot user in great negative ROI. Therefore, only a cretin will use bid bots after hf21 because such actions will only fetch nothing but losses.
Thanks for your contributions. You made some key points.
Dear @gandhibaba
Of course I'm marvellous :) Somehow everyone sees it except of my own wife hehehe :)
I hope you will manage to reply to some of those valuable comments.
Ehm, I think this definition is a bit outdated. Masternodes are mostly ponzi and they "in theory" do not fit your description.
That's correct and I do agree with you fully. Investors will have reasons to hold SP and probably powering down will slow down a lot right now.
But those who actually bring value and create content + engage with comments will suffer. Eventually we will end up with huge speculative bubble, with very few authors, bidbots bigger than ever before and with hardly any traffic. Not to mention that if price of STEEM will grow then this place will turn into ghost town (new users will not be willing to spend 100-200usd just to power up to 50SP -> min necessary amount to be able to "test" Steemit without hiting Resource Credit limitations right away).
I ignore this fact because it will be VERY EASY for bidbot owners to adjust. Little math, few small changes and bidbots will be running again. This change will only force those programmers behind bidbots to implement some updates.
I really wish to have your optimism. I believe that short term this change will indeed bring up the price of STEEM, but in long run I see it as a huge opportunity for abuse. Those who are rich will easily get richer (bringing no value to STEEM blockchain) and content creators will struggle more than ever before.
Yours
Piotr
Any new changes MUST give us content creators and manual curators something worthwhile. I'm just not seeing taht in the HF21 proposals. Finding a way to curb bid bot abuse is far more important in the long-term than is tweaking the reward calculations. As for the numbers game, switching to 50/50 is a HUGE change, and if any changes are to be made, it should be a gentler adjustment to see how it all pans out there first. I have seen others propose something like 67% author, 33% curator to test the waters.
The last HUGE changes from a creator viewpoint were the change from 1day/30day payouts to a single 7d payout, and tweaks to the reward curve. The former gave content creators a better single window for getting eyes on their content. The latter seems to have cut down on votebots. These were overall for the best, I think. How will HF21 help us fight the deluge of spam and bid-bots? That is what I need to know. The platform needs to be sound before STEEM can gain in value for the overall market. Until the platform is better policed, I don't foresee any hope beyond altcoin speculation as Bitcoin gets volatile again. Perhaps a separate downvote pool would help. Maybe spending extra RC instead of vote power for flagging bad content could do something, since I now rarely make any measurable dent in my RC reserves.
[/rant]
Oh, and thanks for sending a memo that wasn't another BS bid bot or resteem offer.
Thank you for this your comment @jacobtothe
I only just realized that I never thanked you. Have a great monday ahead :)
Absolutely :) My pleasure.
Yours
Piotr
Hard Fork 21 contradicting Hard Fork 20.
You wrote about "the crashing price of steem." But I'd hardly say that it's crashing.
For the most part, the price has moved along with all other cryptos this past year and a half. That implies that the issue is not with Steem, but with the overall crypto market.
As of last February, the Steem price was still in the $0.20s. Now it's up over 50%. While we would all love it to regain its momentum of late 2017, that probably wont happen, at least not for a while.
I agree that some of the price action might be due to people moving there Steem out of their wallets and to exchanges, but I don't agree that it's a major cause for concern.
Cheers!
A year ago, STEEM wasn't ranked 65th at CoinMarketCap ... Many other cryptos have performed way better, and you get much more STEEM for one BTC than some months ago.
Hi @majes.tytyty,
I totally agrees with you and It’s my major concern about Steem, it’s so dependent of BTC price (and this would extend to the whole crypto coin world).
I think we need to find the way to detach Steem from that main stream, how?, I think the key lays on Content and how it’s accessible and used... dapps, SMT and communities may be the way.
It’s only my humble user side opinion as major technical aspects scape to my knowledge.
Cheers
As Bitcoin and the other major cryptos rise (along with gold and silver), even the smaller cryptos such as Steem will tag along for the upward swing.
And to be clear, it's not just that cryptos will simply become more valuable. The price of all fiat currencies are far above their true values, so those rates will drop. Consequently, cryptos will gain in relative value.
It's just a matter of when.
...And that’s the “trap” for Steem. Whe need to gain “independence” and keep our “content” aside of it’s influence. Whe have this as our main weapon and our great advantage. We are full of real humans willing to share human things and feelings, something that greedy coins and assets can’t provide.
We should find a way to empower our values over this crazy economic model.
Yep. For my part, I'll just keep producing quality content, and supporting the community whenever I can and in whatever way I can.
Onwards!
Another brilliant analysis. When the boss speaks, I listen.
Yes, Steem is not really crashing just as you have asserted. The overall bear market affected all cryptos but some suffered more than the rest. And Steem seems to have suffered far more than many promising cryptos out there. There was a time Steem ranked 3 now it's 65 or so. We need a radical approach because price is key for our survival in the long run. Thanks for sharing your views.
I tell people that all the time!
A year ago, STEEM wasn't ranked 65th at CoinMarketCap ... Many other cryptos have performed way better, and you get much more STEEM for one BTC than some months ago.
Keep telling them!
You would be surprised how many cretins are on the server.
These cretins like their spam and plagiarism, too. No wonder they rely on bidbots for support.
I agree. I don't think the change is a good idea. It certainly won't fix the "problem" of authors voting for their own content. In my view this is not a problems at all. At least these people are creating content.
This is a lot more work than just voting. (curating)
Dear @apshamilton
I'm glad to see that you accepted my invitation and you enjoyed this publication.
I only just realized that I never thanked you for your comment. Appreciate it.
Piotr
I was not a fan of this change until I really spent some time to think about what it will do here. So let me go over what I think it will do an why I am now okay with the idea.
I myself use the TIPU service. I don't buy big votes I use it as a way to power up my account. It might seem silly but I saw no reason to turn sbd into steem and power up when I could send the SBD to TIPU get a vote get a token to earn back payments and be able to repeat pretty much forever. As each post always gets back some funds in SBD. I am not sure if people approve of growing my account that way but it pushed me past 2k SP in a little over a year and I only bought maybe 300. What this change will do to TIPU is make it much harder to use. Same with all bots. To stay open they will need to give you 201% your payment or you lose ROI. Sometimes people are okay to lose ROI but they are promoting a post with real content or ideas. I feel those people will still use a bid bot at as low as 190%. Still, this means the bots will get way smaller payments and be able to give out way fewer votes. The adjust they can man is to offer to pay you out part of the curation but that is harder. As half of it will become SP they will be forced to wait for power-downs to send payouts. All of it will be much harder to manage so I feel more of the bots will just quit.
Now for the 50/50 for normal users. Here is what it is going to do to me. I have over 2000 SP but I only vote with a 1000 SP vote. Why because it is way more profitable to delegated my steem power away to services. Some of mine I give away to support friends but a good 800 is out there earning. But after 50/50 I would stop doing that. If I get half my vote back I want my vote to be as big as possible. This to me is a good thing.
I will also point out that the people who are here just for themselves buy votes for-profit and voting each other will still try to do that stuff. But if they join a curation trail and just collect at least they won't be powering up silly posts. We shouldn't see as many two line post earning 200 dollars. Instead, we will see curation bots running around powering up what I hope is good content. I hope this helps a bit for you to see what I see happening. Let junk post bid up means more quality stuff makes it to trending. If we start to payout good post with big numbers higher quality content creators will come. Users like myself will stop lending out our SP for self votes and start voting for more content that is good.
Hello friend, thanks for stopping by and dropping this fine comments that support (not only support but give detailed arguments) how HF21 will mark the end of Bid bots or at least leave the bot owners in serious trouble. This is one of the best comments I have read in this regard. I sincerely appreciate your point of view.
Dear @stever82
Thx for taking the time to share your opinion with us. Amazing comment buddy.
Perhaps you're right. I think bot owners will take into consideration the fact that their bots will be growing twice faster now and they only need to adopt their current algorythm to new situation.
Seriously it's not going to be that difficult. It's just playing around with numbers a little bit.
Interesting point. Something to think about.
Proposed system can only work if so called Whales would actually start delegating their Steem Power to quality curators. That would indeed allow those curators to be rewarded for their work and benefit entire platoform.
I'm simply afraid, that this will not happen. That at the end most whales will continue auto-upvoting publications of very few people, with their powerful votes and without putting any effort they will start earning x2 more than they did so far.
It surely would encourage them to slow down with powering down, which in effect would most likely bring up the price of STEEM. But that is the only positive outcome. And what would happen year from now, when those "whales" would start dumping this easily earned STEEM?
I wonder if you would agree with me on this one.
Yours
Piotr
I am not so sure the whales will get as much as you think. I know most of them to have more than one account. So they can self vote without it looking like it. Now they have to share those votes with anyone else voting for them. Also, the downvote pool will help to avoid stuff like that if used correctly. It will make much more sense to have all you SP in once place and go and hunt for a good post to vote for. In that case, if you vote early you get a big piece of that 50% I am not a whale at all so I can't know for sure what they will do but I fell like it is harder to abuse a 50/50 set up than a 75/25 set up.
This just reflects life really. When you play in the big boys sand pit you must expect to play by their rules,
Why would the people at the top want to help the people at the bottom.
We vote for witnesses like we do for politicians, then they all do as they please to fill their own pockets.
HF 21 is going to happen so get used to it.
As with everything in life we will find other ways to help ourselves to the crumbs that are left.
When you leave the sand pit check your pockets, a few grains every day soon add up.😁😎
Posted using Partiko Android
Hahaha I find your comments funny, pragmatic and interesting too. This is just the reality of life.
Dear @andyjem
Any idea when will HF21 take place?
Cheers, Piotr
This change is shit. It actually encourages self-voting in all scenarios. I can already get more from curation than from self-voting, but now I might as well not curate anymore, seeking other ways to reward content creators instead.
Circlejerking whales will never have it any easier than HF21. Fuck that.
Please read the comments of @stever82. It is not as bad as you think. Thanks for your comments, anyway.
Nothing new there. This change is shit.
Here's my tuppence -ha'penny worth...
Whilst I could technically understand what goes on with Steem under the hood, I just don't have them time and this applies to most REAL people who just aren't interested in mechanics.
I want to post stuff and it is fantastic to see it accrue value. However the values are wildly disperate unless you catch the eye of a whale.
The biggest problem I have on Steem is that there isn't very much interesting content (that I'm finding) about anything other than Steem or crypto.
I just don't have the spare mental capacity to figure out what this or that algorithmic change will make but I do know that Steem should do everything it can to encourage actual real content over nonsense spamming.
Thank you for this your comment @brianoflondon
I only just realized that I never thanked you. Have a great monday ahead :)
Yours
Piotr
Thanks for inviting me reading this comment, @crypto.piotr!
It may be that the 50-50 rewarding regime will not solve the self-voting circles and the bid-bots, but we'll see!
Meanwhile, several tokens that reward interactivity among users, such as MSTK by @fedesox, are growing well: have you already created your own on @steem-engine?
🐶 HARF HARF! 🐾
Dear @holydog
I'm glad to see that you accepted my invitation and you enjoyed this publication.
I only just realized that I never thanked you for your comment. Appreciate it.
ps. what is harf harf?
Yours
Piotr