RE: Whale Tip! Only YOU Can Save NewSTEEM
While I partly agree with your concerns, I think we need to put a bit of a perspective on that.
The bull market brought a lot of people, and ever since the bears have taken over it goes down. A lot of people jumping in back then lost money, and faith in crypto in general. The graph shows a steep drop with the last HF, as does the price chart. Engagement in generall seems to follow price more than anything.
Manual curation actually has gone up. How many people struggled to get over a dollar before the fork? Most who stuck around are better off now. Maybe not with recurring content like contests or automated statistics - except they have autovoters piling up on them, which I ranted about a few weeks ago getting a lot of backlash - but artists and writers and travelers generally have improved.
Even axeman isn't doing too bad. He can't expect to post a single photo 5+ times a day and make $10+ on each. Expectations have to be managed - $10 are 70 STEEM!
Also, not everyone busy with downvotes doesn't have time for curation any more. Look at @curangel - with its trail it seems to be responsible for 1% of the total votes (which I just realized looking at those charts, and it frightens me quite a bit...). We're far from having 1% of the active stake :D But with that project as an example I also can't confirm your issue with the curation rewards. We're doing pretty well, voting consistently on small posts.
I actually hoped that more people would use curation services like curangel with newsteem to spread their votes, but obviously that didn't happen to the extent that might have been desirable. The good thing about less votes being cast is that each one is worth more ;)
So yes - whales piling up on a few people are a huge problem, as that lowers rewards of everyone else. But it's never been much different. Rewards are lower than people are used to across the board. But were not seeing payouts in the hundreds for the top any more, as it was before (with similar or even lower prices). It's spreading slowly, but it's spreading.
The vast majority of auto-votes I get now are at 95%+ vp if not 100%. This is because they have no one else to vote for. I win contests and bounties all day long because no one else enters.
The difference is the reward curve, @pharesim. Contest runners and other who used to get a dollar or two per post now get 50 cents. No one in minnow world where I work was ever getting 100's on a post or even looks at the people who do.
You are right about bigs not getting on trails. I am begging them to autovote for something and they will not. If they cannot vote for their friends or delegate, they want to spend all day handpicking. This lasts a few hours and then they give up. My blogs all did much better in the few weeks after the fork and now it dies off.
It's not about axeman's photo posts. It's about the many weekly contests he just cancelled. Where are the people who swim in now going to be able to post? We know the bigs are not going to vote for a "mass onboarding" bunch of 45 rep fish, if they will not vote for who is here now.
I did not see your rant:
Are you wanting people to do this for free? Most of them basically are. They curate the results and give out prizes from their own money.
We cannot only have 250 bigs talking among themselves , but it seems that is where we are going.
And in the last week we have gained 22 minnows and 7 dolphins.
I know what the graphs show. Less votes means the active userbase goes down. To be expected with lower prices.
I don't know if anyone who uses their downvotes but not their upvotes.
Contests are less popular - because a 5 steem reward in the past was more than a dollar. Again, related more to price than anything else.
The changes of the hardfork are working, it just needed some time. Yes, some people left because of fud beforehand. Those kids out on the better opportunities now. Curangel alone supports 100 authors a day with votes between $1 and $3. Our voting power is consistently around 99%. Not because we wouldn't use them, but because we use them efficiently to give as much as possible to authors.
The distribution improved a lot, the upper end gets less and the lower end gets more. You haven't been on the lower end when you didn't have to fight to get over a few cents obviously.
It's all a matter of perspective.
I am in the trenches with minnows and see the carnage. But if the bigs are happy, we are all happy. Loose 600 and gain 22. Woohoo!
I have been here 2.5 years, @pharesim. I only earn by blogging. I have no money to invest. I have three blogs here and work like a dog on minnow tips and trying to help the little guys get a foot hold. I have been living 90% off of steem and steem related money since Dec 2017. I live very cheaply in SE Asia.
I am on the top of the engagement league of @abh12345 weekly, I am at top tipu curator for 0.11 steem a day. I help little fish in comments, email, and discord all day long.
I make almost nothing on most of my posts, but I do not fight for votes. The fighting can stay up top. Down here I teach people how to enter contests, format posts, not worry about 10% down-voters, and a billion other details.
So you confirm that you didn't have posts getting only a few cents.
I'm involved with minnows too. My stake and my project are boosting hundreds of their posts over a dollar every week. Something that didn't happen before the fork.
That project gives a bunch of curators more influence, and lets them earn some steem on top. Around 5 a day, which still isn't much for the work they do, but obviously quite some more than tipu is willing to share.
Besides that I'm fighting for whales and orcas who got used to vote only for their friends to spread their votes too, and we made some serious progress with that the last days. For those who aren't willing, we return parts of their rewards back to the pool, for the minnows.
Yes, there are whales who don't really help the platform. But you throwing all in one bucket and preaching doom and gloom doesn't help either.
Ok - you are my hero, @pharesim. Carry on.
My first six months here were all posts under $1. Then I had some luck, training, and got supporters for my work.
I treasure the one curangel vote I got in the last month, and hope for many more. If you look at my @bxlphabet blog most posts still get under $1 since they are all minnow tips. Hopefully your peeps will take a look at dPolls one day.