Delegation and Linear Rewards

Where is STEEM going?

10 months into my journey here on Steem and I have seen a few changes during that time.

I think that that 2 major changes have occurred that have really changed the Steem landscape since I have been interacting here:

Delegation

The first big change I think that has altered the way Steemit had transformed has been the introduction of the ability to delegate Steem to other accounts. I have seen SP delegation used for a number of different things, some of which I believe has enhanced the platform, and some of which has resulted in the platform recognising more poorly created posts than before.
SP delegation has helped some important community accounts to thrive and assist communities to grow. I think this is a positive and have seen it occur across many different communities from the Steemsilvergold community to the TeamAustralia community, among others. Steemcleaners has also benefited from SP delegation which has allowed it to have a greater impact on trying to clean up the content posted on Steemit.

SP delegation has also given rise to some business ventures that facilitate SP leasing. I think this has also built the value of Steem as investors come online to cash in on holding greater amounts of SP.

Probably the biggest negative of SP delegation, I believe, is the rise of the voting bots. It has allowed voting bots to accumulate large amounts of SP through leases, or other means, and ayne with a chunk of SBD can now have their post jump onto the trending page. The biggest change I have seen has been that the majority of posts on the trending page now are there mostly because voting bots were used to get the posts payout high enough to be there.

Linear Rewards

The next biggest change I think has been the move to linear rewards. This has been a great thing in some ways and a not so great thing in other ways. When linear rewards were first introduced through the hardfork I was jumping for joy as, like most minnows, my post payouts skyrocketed. It definitely motivated me to become more active and put more time into blogging and the platform in general and I know others who also felt the same way.
I do believe that the negative aspects of this have been the ability for people to 'rape the reward pool' on a greater scale as less SP is generally needed to get a larger vote. I think the HF enticed more people to invest in Steem, which is what we want to see, but there have also been a lot of side-effects to the increase in rewards, including the increased amount of SBD and STEEM being printed.

These are just some of my thoughts that I like to throw out there from time to time!

Thanks for reading.

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