We are investors, not customers, act like you own it because you do.

in #discussion6 years ago

Hello Fellow Steem Investors,

I call you that, because if you are reading this it is highly likely you hold some amount of Steem.  If you are holding some Steem and not powering down everything you have, you are investing... Locking Steem in the system and having some influence on the site.

If you do not currently like the service you are receiving please file your complaint with customer service department, oh wait..

We do not have a customer service department because:

WE ARE NOT PAYING CUSTOMERS, we are hoping to get paid. We are not Employees, we do not get wages, or have a boss, we don't have to check in and we don't get salaries.   We are here of our own free will, each one of us for different reasons and with different goals.  Some have something to say, some are investors, we have 60k daily active users and 60k active opinions, visions and feelings.  

Oh, so many feelings.  

We Are Responsible For Bringing Value to Steem

This is my opinion:

If you haven't noticed SteemIt, Inc. is focused on SMTs, Communities and scalability.   To be clear, they are not focused on Steemit.com (the site) They are not focused on Community and they are not worried the Trending Page. They are a Blockchain company working on the blockchain, the intent is to attract businesses to build on the Steem Blockchain.  

They are not likely to add our favorite feature, or change the Witness Page Display.  Why not?  Because it is working.  The blockchain is moving every day adding a block about every three seconds it is one of the most active blockchains in the entire industry.  We have enough competition for the Witness spots and back ups. SteemIt.com could use lot's of improving, but it is working.    This is a decentralized community, regardless of how the stake is distributed.  There isn't a centralized authority to solve our problems.  We have to do it ourselves.

If the witness voting page or the Trending Page needs to be upgraded, let's chip in and hire a qualified coder to write it, drop it to Github and ask that it be added to the site.  We have 130 Witnesses and many more investors, so you will have to make a case for why that brings more value than other things we could spend the resources on.  Try to think of this as your business, what changes bring the most value and why? Maybe make a post offering your ideas, a solution and ask for crowdfunding.

If you feel you have enough of a voice to complain, also use your voice to be part of the solution.   Think we need a greeter?  Be a greeter or find one.  This is our community, our investment and our responsibility. 

It isn't perfect and we can talk about problems, but the constant complaining is part of the problem and it is infectious, ineffective and self defeating. The price is down and people in crypto are already tense. 

Some people think the blogging site is where the value is at, and that should be the focus.  That is a valid position.  Some feel the site should be more about Investment and distributing Steem, that is also a valid position.   Nobody is right.  Both sides will have to find a way to live in peace.  Your view of the site, is just that, YOUR VIEW.  60k visions, all slightly different.  No Mom, No Coach, No Boss, we will have to work it out.  We will likely have some debates over it all.  Do you really need to call everything a scam?  Is every post that you don't like really "Raping" the reward pool?  Do you have to attack that Developers product because you don't like memes?

Want to earn more money and feel better about the state of SteemIt?  Do things that add value!  Buy a SteemMonster Pack, Power Up your Steem, use one of the new platforms being built on Steem, engage with end users.  Find something or someone you can support and support it.   The best way to raise our earnings is to raise the price.  Feel retention is bad? What are you doing to contribute to making new users feel valued? How many posts do you manually curate?  How is your engagement with the rest of the users?  

We are responsible.  Sorry it was nearly a rant.  Just a mood and an opinion.

@whatsup

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In one of my posts I used the phrase "Who died and made you Sheriff?"
Referring to those who want to tell others to behave as they think they should behave. haha That ain't happening. This is the closest thing to anarchy I've ever encountered.

I also did a post that those people that are "raping the reward pool" really aren't. They are simply using their influence as they best see fit.

  • What I'm saying is...
    Your post is spot on.
    You hit the nail right on the head.
    • Don't think you can tell me what to do. Go do what you think is best and if I see it working and think I can do have the same success as you, I will copycat your ideas.
      • I really think we will see some great competition once SMTs are released. That will be great. Some will fail, some will be good and I'm pretty sure a few will be great!

Very accurate view point @whatsup. Personally, I try to comment on at least one new person's post every day.

I've found that so many people feel lost when they get here and don't know what to do here or what anything really means. I spent about 30 minutes last week speaking with a lovely Dutch lady who came to Steemit as a way to test out her novel that she's writing. She barely knew what cryptocurrency was and didn't even understand the voting system.

Now she understands the basics of Steemit and knows to keep an eye out for the Dutch community. I also motivated her to publish excerpts of her novel here on the platform.

I was the only person who responded to her post where she called out for help. It was a little sad that no one else responded but I was glad that I was able to help her.

I hope my little effort was enough to keep her here long term.

I hope so also mazzle and it is surprising how little it takes to make a difference when someone feels lost.

I think most people would enjoy SteemIt more if they just accepted it is an imperfect work in progress and success is not based on SteemIt the site, it is Steem the blockchain. Oh well, I'm sure there will be plenty of people complaining tomorrow as well. I just need to start muting. :) I've been getting triggered.

Invest in me! :) lol I could sure use a 20% APR Steem Power loan paid weekly right now although I'll probably be lucky to get a 25% rate.

Absolutely LOVE this blog @whatsup!

Try to think of this as your business, what changes bring the most value and why?

If you feel you have enough of a voice to complain, also use your voice to be part of the solution.

Spot on as far as I'm concerned and left me feeling pleased with my personal contribution so far. 😊

@whatsup very valid points, but I think the issues plaguing Steem cannot be fixed with pull requests. It's all fine and well to say submit a pull request, but the issues with Steemit are Steem issues themselves, fundamental design flaws in the blockchain and approach that place too much trust in people to do the right thing.

It's clear SMT's are the focus for STINC right now. I am still sceptical of the value they'll bring, the ability to run ICO's and build entire applications on Steem sounds great to me as a developer. But I think in the case of Steemit, people need to understand that its purpose for existence is to showcase what SMT's can do.

It became apparent to me a while ago that Steemit is nothing more than a portfolio piece, a shiny example they can throw into the brochure when advertising the benefits of SMT's. They can point to this site and say, "You too can build sites like this" - which means that while Steemit will most likely not really change, SMT's open up new possibilities.

If/when SMT's finally launch, provided they're released as promised by STINC, it'll give the community an option to build their own new Steemit free of STINC, a true reset from zero. While it means that the Steem currencies might not be used, it gives the users of this site a real opportunity to create something better.

Time will tell.

Also a valid position. I respect it. I also hope for SMTs to bring value and I also agree we do not have a track record to point at regarding new development, but surely we can give some credit to the lack of trouble we've had with the blockchain it's self. I'm not convinced, but I am hopeful.

I disagree strongly on fundamental flaws, I think we have culture flaws. If people would curate with up and down votes and eyes on the site, the problems with good vs. bad actors would be minimized. (depending on what flaws you are referring to)

Another thing I agree with is SteemIt is just the flag ship or the firehose. So, why don't we stop fighting about it? If the Steem coin ends up not being a good token money will go to an SMT.

I swear people are so used to wanting to be in charge of a problem they are conflating issues into "fatal flaws". It is a young product in a young industry and many many businesses have failed trying to pay for content.

I appreciate your view very much. Thank you for taking the time to express it.

Elaborating on what I see as flaws in Steem, the way I see it is:

  • Self-upvoting should be worth less than a vote on someone else's post. It's far too easy for whales with heavy upvotes to just upvote their own posts and comments, make a profit and not engage with the community. This leads to widening the wealth gap because the rich can self-sustainably make themselves richer.
  • The fact a whale can easily silence someone lower in reputation is also a flaw. I understand the reasoning, but the flagging system is ripe for abuse and I know quite a few whales abuse the flagging system/brigade people with it. I've been on the receiving end of retaliatory revenge flags before and it's not nice, especially for just expressing an opinion.
  • There should be incentives for heavy-hitter users to participate in the community. At the moment the benefits you gain in curation rewards are outweighed by upvoting your own content. Gives whales an incentive to go out and vote up other peoples content. Throw in checks to make sure whales are spreading out their votes, easily detected by checking if a whale is voting for one user more than anyone else (reduces voting for multiple accounts)

The way I see it, there are cultural issues with Steem as well, but there are flaws in the methodology. The concept of Steem places way too much trust in people doing the right thing, as a developer I find people are the flaw in almost everything.

If these issues were cultural, we could fix them. But the problem is, the very users of this site who can make a change aka the whales are contributing to the problem, quite content to sit there and live of self-upvoting. I strongly believe self-upvoting should be deincentivise by as much as 50%. Make it profitable for whales to profit off of upvoting other people: spread the wealth.

I don't think I would say I've seen people fighting about the issues, more-so passionately putting their emotions into words in the form of Steemit posts. Admittedly, I do get tired of seeing the same issues being regurgitated over and over again, especially when I see some Steemit users writing a post like, "How to fix Steemit", "Issues with Steemit, let's work together" and in the same breath go and spend a few hundred dollars in bid bots to get to the trending page, completely nullfiying their own argument (because you don't see these users declining payments either).

Good chatting with you @whatsup - I love it when someone posts something that really allows me to engage in like this. I am pretty passionate about Steem/Steemit and the way things are here, except most people never really get to hear what I have to say because I am a small-fry around here.

I disagree that all three things are issues. We are achieving more distribution. If you are interested read my post from about a week ago, "Why Steem is Perfectly Fair". I will summarize it here.

srake rewards.jpg

Each user has exactly the influence on the site as the stake that they hold. That is true with witness votes and the reward pool.

If someone wants to buy in and self-upvote, in a Haejin type manner, it is just a wash. It hurts no one else's stake. Some like to call it the community reward pool, but an Investor's Funded Reward Pool would be just as accurate. Self-voting is fine. While I agree it is undesirable from a growth perspective, (probably) It helps the market cap and they are only allocating their own rewards. If it is enough to matter, then they have enough stake to ruin their own investment if they want to.

Everyone else can flag bad behavior as they see fit. All culture issues.

I can only assume that all the different users view the stake differently here. But the ACTUAL reality, beyond all the "shoulds" and "supposed to's" is your stake is just that, yours. You have either bought or earned a portion of the reward pool to do with, whatever you like. Including flagging, so if someone is doing something you don't like, you can flag them. If someone is too big for your flag to matter, then how is this any different from the rest of reality.

The government does stuff I don't like all the time, they're too big for me to flag.

Corporations do things I don't like all the time, they're too big for me to flag.

All the billionaires(whales) in the world could all pool their money together, and probably solve every global problem ever, but I wouldn't hold my breath, more than likely they're going to use their money to make more money, which at our own level is what each of us is trying to do.

Everyone's stake is there own and the rest is lip service.

There is no "Reward Pool Rape" It is simply people using their stake.

Any user can flag or upvote at will. (There might be consequences)

The code is law. The rest is human reaction.

If you're invested in steem and many other avenues, why would preclude you to put more time into the platform to grow your investment?

The idea of an investor is someone who puts money into an idea and then let's the creator increase the value.

In the sake of steem, despite the fact that I've "invested" quite a bit of money into this, I am very busy with all of my other day to day activities such as my career as an engineer.

I really find it hard to believe that the majority of whales have nothing better to do than to sit around and look for posts to upvote so I think the real solution is for hungry minnows to continue to come up with ideas and find ways to target steem investors.

we are now debating "Passive Investment" with stakeholder. Whales rarely do vote and thus have leased their SP out via Delegation. That is a passive investment. It does not take time.

My point is that minnows who do not wish to invest money will have to invest time. It's a long slow climb, I know because I've done it.

If someone at either level. Minnow or Investor has a better deal elsewhere and doesn't wish to speculate on increasing value, they should take it. That is the advice I would give my own adult children.

On the Haejin matter I noticed Thejohalfiles is piling in with a few downvotes, just a heads up in case you hadn't noticed!

That is a good thing, I am for flagging. I am just saying it isn't rape or any of the drama that people talk about. It is using stake, and others can also use their stake. :) It is all a wash!

Thanks for letting me know, I actually hadn't noticed.

I completely agree with you @whatsup! 👍

Should been a post in itself.

What is this? How dare you expect a bunch of people to behave correctly when they feel they are entitled to something!? When everyone feels entitled, only petty conflicts like the ones we are seeing will arise.

People want all the benefits of Steemit being run like Facebook and Reddit with none of the downsides and all of the moneys, but guess what, it ain't happening, because this is the new era of decentralization and we ourselves are responsible for the success of the platform as a whole and petty conflicts and people complaining left and right ain't the proper way to get new investors, at least the tech behind Steem is good and hopefully SMTs gives a ton more of success to the current apps built on the chain to attract new investors, eventually those few and loud annoying minorities will be consigned to oblivion as they should be when Steem is up and running @ 100%

Wow, very nice post! I think that your ideas are very valuable and awakening. I knew how it worked but I hadn't rationalised the meaning of owning a tiny portion of the Steem blockchain. Are our shares becoming smaller by the day whenever the reward pool pours some new Steem?

I don't know where Steemit stands. I suppose that since they are the greatest holders of Steem, they profit from broadening the horizons for the blockchain and the social network in itself is secondary. But at the same time, Steemit's face is their website, so if they don't improve it, they are losing out on potential Steem investors who would increase the value of the shares they hold and who would become users of their website.

I've seen some UI improvement suggestions. Many, actually, but they get buried no matter how many people comment on them and resteem the posts. There are many other alternatives to Steemit, such as Busy.org, but the blockchain itself needs to change in order for the UIs to follow.

As a developer myself, I believe that it would be really hard to create many of the functions that are proposed without according changes to the blockchain. Trending, New and Hot are hardcoded into it. This promotes a specific way and every UI that I know grabs from these easily accessible points and doesn't improve on it for multitag, etc.

In fact, the blockchain doesn't have any ability to order posts by number of comments, number of votes, etc., and there is no way to whitelist low rep users, blacklist/block spammers, etc. (not globally at least).

I think that the improvement has to be made on the blockchain first, is what I'm saying. Otherwise the changes are going to be inconsistent across platforms and they will be much harder to accomplish for each developer who wants to integrate unsupported functionalities.

are our shares getting smaller
All SteemPower holders receive a constant tiny supply of inflation-fighting stake. In addition, the price lets us know. If more people want to sell than buy, the price erodes. So, its a difficult question. In a sense, yes.

Those who power up and hold Steem keep the price up. Those who sell, drive the price down. We also need volume and utility, so it is fine that some do sell.

Steemit's face is their website, so if they don't improve it, they are losing out on potential Steem investors who would increase the value of the shares

This is a guess, but I think they would be more worried about getting business investors than end-user of the site. That is why we have to act like a team and help hold the community together.

_, I believe that it would be really hard to create many of the functions that are proposed without according changes to the blockchain. _
I don't know enough to hold any opinion on this! Interesting perspective.

_ fact, the blockchain doesn't have any ability to order posts by number of comments, number of votes, etc., and there is no way to whitelist low rep users, blacklist/block spammers, etc. (not globally at least)._
I don't know for sure, but I think what they plan on for communities may address some of this. Again, not anything I understand well. :)

It is an interesting thing that we have a chance to participate in becoming stakeholders BEFORE the businesses even come. I think many here are so focused on the blogging site they are missing what is coming.

Lol, in fact I didn't remember that there was a communities thing coming! I'm excited for it, just remembered. :P

I want to develop with Hiveminds if it's what I think it is. It looks very promising. I wonder if the problems with the UI will be easily solvable after these changes come. <3

Steemit.com is just a front so is busy.org and its much better. That's the point though. Anyone can build their own thing on the blockchain. If you don't like how steemit looks then make a new front.

Hi whattsup. You are totally correct. We are all investors on here, or most of us anyway. All looking forward to the day Steem holds some proper value. We have to all pull our weight and drag every one along. Now is the time to be busier than ever while the platform is quiet.

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