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RE: BlockTrades beginning development of Steem Proposal System
I do agree that funding from outside Steem should be considered, but feel that SPS will be intended to produce capital gains, which directly inure to stake. The authority to decide which proposals to fund is directly based on stake.
The funding should be therefore also directly based on stake.
Making our retention problem worse, or driving more witnesses away, are both existentially problematic for Steem.
Tapping stake across the board does not decrease incentives rewards are intended to provide for necessary and beneficial provision of value to Steem.
All rewards are funded by a "tax" (i.e. inflation) on stake. I'm not sure where else you think they come from.
Unless you are proposing to further increase the already-high 8.5% inflation (in which case the answer is very likely to be a hard no from nearly all stakeholders), then the only way this can be done is by reallocating existing inflation-funded rewards. For various mathematical reasons starting with the Willie Sutton Rule ("because that's where the money is") most or all of this reallocation has to come from author rewards.
I can respect if people think that author rewards specifically are inherently more important and valuable to Steem then a flexible budget system for funding proposals, though I disagree. Author rewards IMO are one way of adding value to Steem by attracting a user base and supporting engagement, but not even remotely the only way. I'd rather have a budgeting proposal system which can decide among competing priorities in how to spend the budget to best help Steem. That could, conceivably include giving the funds right back to authors, if stakeholders (i.e. the ones paying for ALL of the rewards) really believe that is the very best possible use, or it may include other things (marketing, development, promotions, referral programs, etc.), some or all of which could and likely would directly benefit users, including authors, albeit in different ways than direct monetary payment. I would contend we have been sorely lacking in the latter even while more than generously funding the former.
There is more that needs to be done for Steem to be a success than just paying out most of the inflation budget to authors, otherwise it would already be doing what needs to be done and would be on a clear path to success. But I don't believe that to be the case, and I doubt too many other people believe it either.
Finally I would reiterate what was said in the original post: that a significant portion of "author" rewards are currently being used to reward various ongoing projects, community groups, development work, initiatives, apps, etc. and rightfully so. But to the extent those things can shift over to getting longer-term funding via a proposal system, that removes those costs from the regular reward pool, leaving more for regular "authors". I seriously doubt that the net reduction to these "regular authors" would be anything close to 20%.
I know much of this response was not directed at my question, but I still found it incredibly helpful. The main goal we should focus on is increasing the value of steem. When that happens EVERY group benefits. 40% of a pool based on $10 steem is a hell of a lot better than 50% of .25 steem that is for sure. I agree that author rewards are not even close to the only way to attract and retain people (I happen to be partial to games myself). That is why I am a huge fan of the idea of funding development of projects that can help increase the price.
I understand that this is not actually going to be a 20% reduction in content rewards (provided people don't double dip). I was just wondering if the cost reduction to run servers coupled with a new way to reward witnesses for the projects they are running would have the same effect as the shifting of content rewards. If it did, then perhaps a portion could come from witness rewards. But based on quite a few comments I have read, it seems like that may not be wise. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in.