What if Curators Actually Got the Majority of the Post Rewards?

So, a thought occurred to me the other day. And this will never happen. But just to theorize and play around with an idea.

What if the majority of post rewards went to the curators?"

Most would say no, but hear me out.

Curation on Steemit isn't very profitable - at least not when compared to alternative means such as delegating to bots. This has caused a lot of stakeholders to simply give up on curation altogether since it's easier to make passive income simply by renting STEEM power to the bots. This is nothing new, we all know this.

I'm not here to argue whether that's a good or a bad thing. Let's not argue about that now.

I think one of the roadblocks for Steemit is that it offers very little for content consumers. It absolutely serves content creators.

However.

The vast, vast, vast majority of internet users, and social media users, are content consumers, not creators.

Steemit offers them very little, in my opinion. And I'm talking the average Joe, not someone who is going to put in hundreds of thousands of dollars right off the bat.

There's enjoyable stuff on Steemit, but it's tough to find - and curation rewards, as opposed to author rewards, are laughable unless you're a whale.

The incentive for an average user is to make posts, not curate them.

This is probably one of the key reasons for the bad content; on Reddit, Facebook, etc. people post when they're inspired to post something. On Steemit, you come up with an excuse to post just so you can make a payout that day.

The end result is spam and uninspired content. And please: don't take this as some sort of holier than thou asshole thing - I've done it, too. I've posted a quick meme because I knew I was on autovotes. Okay?

What I'm getting at is that big author rewards probably don't correlate with good content. And "good content" is very problematic. We all have our preferences. But I think some kind of a general consensus on content is possible to form.

People who only post for the rewards post to, well, make rewards. That's what the site is.

So, what I'm proposing is smaller author rewards, larger curation rewards.

Let's say, for instance, 25% for the author, 75% for the curators.

I know that a lot of people are now going to say: "But no one would post anymore."

But I beg to differ. People post on other sites for free all the time. Steemit has always been this strange place where you need to bribe people into doing stuff they do for free everywhere else.

If author rewards were lessened, a lot of spammers would leave, yes. But would that be a bad thing? There'd be more room for those who actually post when they want to create something fun. This is how other - more successful - sites operate.

The most important thing: there would be a larger incentive to join and use one's stake for the average internet users who are not content creators. This is the majority of people online.

People who like to write, take photos, videos, whatever, will do so because they like doing so. We're a minority, but we exist. The money is a bonus. Like I said, I think the consumer is who Steemit should try to cater to more.

Stakeholders could be motivated to curate again with larger curation rewards, and non-shitpost authors could have a chance to earn again. Yes, we'd take a hit at first, but it could return Steemit back to the original intent: authors competing for human votes with their content.

So, in a nutshell:

• The authors who would stick around would likely be the better ones;
• A lot of the bad actors would find another scam to put their time into, cleaning up the site;
• There would be a larger incentive to curate with one's own stake again;

I have no doubt that we'd run into some of the pre-HF19 problems where the same people would be trending, but maybe it's rose-colored glasses, but those days do seem better than today in comparison.

Steemit will never shake off the "It's not what you know, it's who you know" thing because that's not just Steemit, it's how real world works, as well. I think we should stop being so afraid of it, though. In the old days, it was still very much possible for good, thought-out stuff to escape through the cracks and make its way to the trending page with the STEEM Guild guys.