The distribution-monetary rewards tradeoff and a proposal to accelerate the disruption of incumbent social networks
Problem: One of the biggest challenges that the Steemit community has in growing the platform is that there's existing content-based social networks that have huge network effects already in place.
It's historically proven to be extremely difficult for newcomers to displace the incumbent network effect businesses on the Internet. UI/UX and other technological innovations generally are not enough (if it were enough, Craigslist, Reddit, & Ebay would not still have such a large market share of their respective categories). Business innovation is how incumbents are typically disrupted and the business model innovation that Steemit has is what gives it a chance to displace Medium, Twitter, and Reddit and find it's place in the mindshare of the hundreds of millions of users already using content-based social networks.
For me as a user on Steem, the monetary reward potential has already forced me to shift some of my time spent on Medium, Twitter, and Reddit to Steemit. I've spent years building my reputation on those platforms though so it's not an easy change of behavior. As a result of time spent on those platforms, I've now got 2,944 Twitter followers, 1,300 Medium followers and 3,946 Reddit Karma and get lots of engagement and distribution. I've discovered that new Steemers face a tradeoff between the distribution benefit of existing networks and the monetary rewards benefit of Steemit.
When I post on Steemit, I'm giving up all of that good-will I've built up for the past 5 years outside of Steem. The idea though is that what I'm sacrificing in engagement and distribution from a high caliber network that I've built up, I'm gaining in monetary rewards. There's a monetary reward-per-time invested at which I'm willing to make that sacrifice (see to the right of the breakeven point in the chart below). There's also a point at which the sacrifice is not worth it to me (to the left of the break-even point).
Proposal: Steem users that provide social credentials on existing platforms (Twitter, Medium, and Reddit) should receive more Steem Power for their contributions, and the increase should be relative to their social reach.
When someone like Neil Strauss posts on Steemit and shares it with his 118K Twitter followers for the first time, that is much more valuable to the network than when I join Steemit and share it with my Twitter followers. The incremental value of that post should be reflected at the protocol level, because as this thing grows the community is inevitabilty going to miss high-value content. When high-value influencers balance the tradeoff between distribution and monetary incentives, I believe most will simply drop off unless this is reflected at the protocol level.
Implementation could be something like:
- User connects their Twitter to their Steemit account (could add Medium, Reddit, and others as well)
- User must have 2 years of posts and could check for other heuristics to prevent spam accounts from gaming the system
- A "Influencer" number is assigned to every user based on their magnitude of influence. (10 for >50M Twitter followers, 9 for >10M, 8 for >1M, 7 for >100K, 6 for >1K, 5 for >100)
- If 10, multiply STEEM power reward on an ongoing basis by 2. If 9, multiply STEEM power reward by 1.8, etc (not sure exact numbers here but something along these lines). Also, give bonus at the beginning for having that influence
This is better for growth but worse for long-term ecosystem health imo. People should be valued based on what they do on Steem and how effective it is just on Steem. Such influencers can already get outsized rewards by onboarding people, people who will then vote for them, etc. I feel like the incentives are already there and don't need to be further juiced in this direction.
"People should be valued based on what they do on Steem and how effective it is just on Steem."
This seems to me like a philosophical belief rather than a practical one. Steem is not it's own planet and the reality is that lots of external forces are going to need to change for Steem to really sustain itself long-term. This distrubtion-monetary rewards tradeoff could be the one that prevents Steem from growing past the crypto-loving early adopters. Maybe my proposal isn't the best approach, but the platform needs to find ways to address this imo.
It's the philosophy of pragmatism. :)
I really just think this design would effectively be an exploit that would consolidate value and rewards to a select few, which already happens on Steem for other reasons. And I am personally more interested in Steem being its own thing and seeing where the incentives evolve us.
Also in general, the bigger and more inclusive Steem, the better imo, so I'd rather everyone have a stake and see rewards.
The idea wouldn't be to take away rewards from people that don't have big followings elsewhere and I don't think that would happen --there'd still be plenty of opportunities for good content creators who don't have followings elsewhere to rise to the top. The tradeoff for those people is different though; less distribution elsewhere means a lower break-even point to use Steemit (and lower rewards necessary to keep them as a result).
The idea is just to incentivize different types of users differently -- I think Steemit has done a great job so far aligning incentives but always room for improvement (if goal is to make this thing as big as possible).
I strongly agree with @eeks
because we have to appreciate the traffic based on other people.
I had the same thought about the idea of "steemit buttons" that could implemented outside of Steemit on websites to give Steem to the creators. That would bring no benefit to the Steemit platform. The quality content should come to Steemit.
Agree
I agree with @eeks here.
Won't you already be receiving more funds by already having an audience that will upvote your posts? And wouldn't adding a mechanism to pay celebrities more, just create a larger gap between whales and minnows?
It is already hard for minnows to climb the ladder and I feel like this would just make it much harder while increasing the already established revenue stream for bloggers with a history. They are already going to be able to copy their posts here and make a decent amount doing so, IMO giving them more money on top of that will make many users upset.
Essentially wouldn't it tell everyone "hey if you blog elsewhere, come here. But if you are new to blogging, don't bother?"
Just my 2 cent opinion
Jo disco its already about a dollar of oponions!
lol, my comments make more than my posts these days it seems =P
Good point, you raise a valid downside possibility to this approach. The ecosystem could in a sense become less democratic and it becomes harder for the little guy to succeed.
It's a question of what the goal is, I suppose. If the goal is to make this thing as big as possible and disrupt the existing networks, this approach might make sense. If the goal is to keep it as democratic as possible, it likely makes sense to keep the current incentive system as is.
In order to defeat other networks , we need to emulate youtube , then steemit will be huge , and steem will be worth 100$ each , cheers steemers
I like and dislike this idea, I see where you are coming from. You worked really hard getting to where you are on those sites. I personally have 1,500 twitter followers that I can't really bring with me. But at the same time, It would make it a little more difficult for those just starting out, To grow. We would have really popular youtubers, Twitter, and all the other people come here. They would automatically be above everyone because of their past success. It would be so hard for those of us who are lower, To get up.
I think they need to get that "follower" button working, So we can start building our followers on here from scratch. Those people who are already super popular can start at the bottom like everyone else, But because of their writing/video/Drawing skills. They will rapidly move up anyways By curating and posting new and interesting content.
They could also add all our new posts to the "recommended" IN our follower category so we can easily see what our followers are posting, and we can give loyal upvotes. I just don't know if I fully think the people who are really popular should start above those who are newer. Just my constructive opinion :)
This is definitely a good post, and something we should think about. I'm glad you are whiling to make the sacrifices that you did by coming to Steemit, Maybe you can help recruit some people and build up on here instead.
Unfortunately followers don't make you money like Steemit does. I have an email list of 1500 people and I make very little advertising my coloring books to them, I also feel like blogging on other platforms is close to worthless. See the work of "Buck Flogging".
Agreed, a follower stream and recommended follows are essential.
I understand what your saying but how do a lot of users make money on YouTube? Yes there are the super big youtubers, but there are millions making money. In my opinion the bigger and bigger Steemit gets, the more the search will be used to drill down to what interest you. That's the first place I go on YouTube. I don't go to the trending page or featured page, I go to the search and spend hours searching for what interest me. That to me is the key here.
Steemit will have to delvelope a very robust search area, including different ways to find what users are looking for and how to save their favorite topics. The search will become important to the new Steemit users who will want to be found with what ever interest they will be writing about or making videos for... Anyway, I feel, we can continue to grow and all users can still benefit in the future. --- my two cents. (Literally thats all I can give on a up vote) :)
Someone needs to crack the whips on some developers on this idea, pronto :)
Great idea, @ntomaino!
Here are a few points to consider:
I suggest to anyone on Steemit to familiarize themselves with why Steemit has been borne out of creativity, necessity and a vast experience in the crypto world by Dan Larimer.
I have spent most of the time in the last few weeks since I discovered Steem on finding out who Dan is and what his vision is.
Some of what I found I will write about in a post down the road.
People on here should be aware of his foresight in many aspects that make the entire cryptoshpere vulnerable. Those that are part of it since many years know too well what I'm talking about.
However, Steemit is not only a possible tool for market domination wrestling with incumbents - or being another little David that is trying to go into the ring with Goliath - it is much much more than that from my little perspective over here.
Any questions about growth should involve quality vs. quantity issues. Especially in the cryptosphere everybody is aware of the "51% vulnerability" effect for lack of better terms. We are just witnessing in a parallel ecosystem what the Ethereum community is going through. Let us learn from this. Any how many do know Dan's history as far as DAO's are concerned and his thoughts on that.
Influencers: I do not see any reason why a true influencer should need any core code alteration to adjust Steemit to whatever success he/she seeks as an influencer. Especially not if it's tied to monetary goals vs. altruistic goals. Nobody has any problem if an influencer decides to publish on Steemit first and then republish on networks that are not comparatively effective in monetary terms.
Steemit has already a vast range of different types of contributors and community members ranging from tech savys, geeks, intellectuals, alternative lifestyle promotors, investors, traders, anarchists etc. etc. - this is a live experiment that will likely be as successful as the algorithmic or technological framework allows it to be.
The social, psychological, political as well as marketing impact consequences this will have is something we're in the middle of experiencing.
Most people are not used to be surrounded and somewhat affected by bots and especially if they don't even know that there is a "bot-war" going on in the background.
So in conclusion to not turn this comment into a post section I am very appreciative that so many great minds are participating in communications about what kinds of constructive actions could be undertaken while at the same time we all have to be aware that the distributed blockchain allows for the most discrepant philosophies to armwrestle either to the benefit or the detriment of the community.
Nice post. It comes down to being a matter of what the goal is. If the goal is to grow as quickly as possible as fast as possible (as is the case with most startups), this approach makes a lot of sense imo. As many have highlighted in the comments though, that might not be the goal and there are strong arguments for not tweaking and letting this happen organically with existing incentive structure.
I do not think that the goal of the creators of this distributed blockchain platform was to grow with a specific pace in mind. But I will write about that at a later point from what conclusions I have come to from my research. Steemit has the potential to provide mass-adoption to the crypto world while solving many problems that are industry-intrinsic. Do not forget in case you don't know that Dan was not only one of the first people to interact with Satoshi but he also has a history with what Buterin has created via Ethereum - which is now being adopted with billions of dollars from pretty much EVERY bank on the planet in light of the disruption phase they are all in.
Not speaking of all kinds of other segments that are being disrupted. Nobody knows yet who will be the winners after it's all said and done. The people or those that gave us FIAT. Read the previous sentence a few times if you like ;-)
I agree with you, but I believe the way to achieve this is different than what you suggested and which will not be in tension with:
In short, relevance for users of Steem should not suffer for the costs and benefits of onboarding and maintaining professional and highly influential bloggers. The key question is how to design such a protocol. As I alluded, I have a design in mind, but I am keeping it secret for the time being.
Everyone will notice by steemit.
When they will notice post is very valuable, I think the trend of social network will changed.
I like it, it's almost like a decentralized referral system. I'm not sure what I could add to the discussion, but I think the idea is one worth pursuing.
To be frank, this seems like a terrible idea. If you want to leverage your followers on other networks there's nothing stopping you from posting links to your steemit posts on your Reddit, Medium, and Twitter. You shouldn't be doubly rewarded for having an established social network.
I see this exactly the same. Those who are big 'outside' will already have significantly higher chances to become big on Steemit, too.