RE: Reflecting on the Value of Steem - Part II
Thanks for the feedback. I think the motto for the site is flawed. "Money talks" is not going to attract serious content contributors who can quickly see that it is not the quality of content that is rewarded, but rather one's established popularity and ability to harness support from whale users. Steemit is essentially a plutocracy - the users that have the most steem power have disproportionate control over what posts trend and hence the visibility of content. Minnows are forced to utilize upvote bots to have any hope at attracting attention to their posts. The bots serve a purpose in that regard, but in reality are a manifestation of an underlying flaw to the reward distribution system itself. I simply don't see this as viable for the long-term, but who knows.
I think this is a very good point. At present, new users effectively have to 'buy in' to get traction. Early investments in Steem Power and SBD for promotion via bidding bots are the most effective ways to gain an audience. Even then, it's hard to get meaningful engagement from that audience. I've all but given up posting on my own page, although I have some long-term projects that I continue to run because I believe in the potential.
I'm optimistic that SMT's will break down some of the plutocracy, especially if they are adopted by existing media companies. Effectively, they would allow web-sites to build their own 'walled gardens' that you have to have their SMT to post on. Steem and SP would still have some impact, but they can follow their own curation and reward logic using the SMT and have their own Trending/Hot or other content-pushing algorithms. Even though the plutocracy would still be there with STEEM, the SMT-driven sites could develop their own communities that are only minimally impacted by the plutocracy.
A lot depends on effective integration/development of SMT and the toolkit that is built to support it, which we have zero visibility into at present.
Thanks for the comment. I have all but given up on posting too. This post and the one preceding it are probably the last ones I'll do for awhile, though I may still comment on occasion. I hardly ever used voting bots before these but it is a night and day difference when one uses them - in fact, for new users without any followings it is the only way to actually capture some value out of this platform.
Twisted, isn't it? It's not about the quality of what you contribute, but rather how many SBDs you preload your account with and your ability to outbid others for bot votes. And yet somehow Ned thinks that such a broken system is worth billions. The market isn't oblivious to the comatose development pace of this site over the past two years and has valued steem accordingly. Shame, really.
Will SMTs uplift the image of the steem blockchain in the broader crypto community? Time will tell. I see it as more of a deflection of accountability - that, or they are admitting that steemit is a hopeless experiment and are trying to repackage steem as having far more utility beyond serving as a foundational basis for a inherently flawed blogging platform that has devolved into multi level marketing and travel photo posts senselessly reaping $100s of SBD and steem.