RE: Vote buying EOS eosDAC and How It All Relates – Discussion with @lukestokes
We are having the conversation at last so I don’t really mind that you missed it at first.
I’ve read all the linked articles and the reply started to make sense at the end of the last one. This probably is the very first time when I encountered a situation where Czech language falls flat compared to English when describing something. Czech happens to have the same word for expectation and expectancy. Now I understand why it was understood incorrectly, for I meant expectancy and you heard (correctly lol) expectation.
I believe that biology has proved, that people in general are selfish. That isn’t neither good, nor bad. As you (I think rightly) stated, there is no objective definition for good or bad in your last brainstorm. I for example live out of crypto only and I need to get rewarded in order to survive. I do not EXPECT from you, nor anyone else to upvote me. I rather have an expectancy that I could get rewarded on this system for my contribution, for I believe that I am creating more value than I’m extracting, but that doesn’t make anyone obliged to actually do cast that upvote. In you case I rather had an expectancy of a good conversation about matters connected to cryptosphere (which is really hard to find even on Steem to be honest) and luckily one can have that even after the one week window on Steem:).
I understood that the vote buying you described is only a bribe. I tried to argue that such a definition doesn’t cut it in Information age, because it only counts with money being exchanged for the vote as this passage proves:
"Voters would be compensated with cash or the covering of one’s house/tax payment." (for the vote)
I tried to argue, that in the Information age the matter is much more complicated. It can be illustrated on those examples. The only important thing that Information age brings to the table is information economy and the fact that any kind of information that has value to someone is a commodity. The problem starts when one of those commodities is a vote.
Group of people gather in a coffee shop to study reinforced learning. They all possess bits of knowledge and they share it with each other. They all want to give the knowledge and they have an expectancy that others will share their parts - the effect would be much more knowledgeable group.
One guy has some knowledge of reinforced learning and writes a post about it on Steemit. He has a complacency that either some1 else who could extend his knowledge would appear, or that he receives an upvote.
Both of those examples are sort of gift economy. The second example though is also a form of vote buying.
I guess that when the British earls went around the city and were buying the upvotes, they expected to get them for the money spent, but there actually was no real contract. If they didn’t receive the upvote, they would just go and use power to express that people better not be taking money and not vote as they were supposed to.
Another example could be Sndbox. We were also accused of being a vote buying system, and I believe that we are, just not the harmful one.
In a nutshell Sndbox provides advisorship (does that even exist?:D), and support for all imaginable projects, while they have want a membership fee. They support those projects (apart from the knowledge, promo, etc.) by upvotes. That is clear vote buying right?
Stewards do not need to pay the membership fee anymore while maintaining certain amount of upvotes (with all the other commodities we receive). Does that suddenly stop being a vote buying system? I argue that it does not. Sndbox just wants different commodities for their support from me. It used to be SBD, now it is (apart from the rest) for example brainstorming for our future growth. That though is information (knowledge). For them it is a commodity and they are buying it also for the upvotes.
Do you see what I’m trying to say? I think that saying that extending the matter of vote buying to an information age is a stretch is a bit ignorant. It clearly is not an easy topic.
Or is it? Do I miss something important? I really don’t know. I just think that the definition you presented in both your brainstorm and now in the comment doesn’t cut it. I’m not trying to present the truth, I rather am trying to seek it in a discussion with you. That’s why I engaged with you in the first place...you seem like you are also willing to seek the truth in a respectful manner:).
Thank you for the clarifications. They are very helpful. And yes, what you described about Sndbox is clearly vote buying because the value transfer is directly related to whether or not the vote happens. That's vote buying. The medium of the value used doesn't matter.
Creating value with no direct connection to a vote of any kind is not vote buying. If we call it vote buying then every relational interaction between humans would be a form of vote buying up to and including kisses from my children. I think it's important to protect words and what they are intended to mean. Vote buying has a clear meaning. Giving out value with a hope of receiving something in return (but with no guarantee at all) is more like a gift economy or an entrepreneur taking a calculated risk that the market will appreciate their efforts with certificates of appreciation.
If the medium doesn’t matter and you say that both Sndbox examples are a form of vote buying, then could you explain to me the difference between the last 2 examples and eosDAC as you see it? For in my case, I’m creating value independently on the votes. Sndbox can choose whether it even deserves the upvote and if yes, then how big. They are free to stop providing all the advises (etc.) and kick me out of our slack channel at any time - stop the collaboration. It’s not like I paid something and the votes are bound to happen.
In eosDAC you work hard in order to provide a good block producing service. You are going to reward eosDAC holders with spare EOS you manage to get. You also are creating value independently on our votes, but it of course is your aim, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to actually provide the value at all. As far as I know you simply can’t provide the value if you’re not approved as a block producer by the votes. You are therefore aiming to create good value in exchange for the votes from EOS holders (without them you can’t right?) and you incentives users to hold even eosDAC as to those you will distribute the spare EOS. How your work is not directly connected to the votes? How are you not "buying” them with the "abstract" value + the spare tokens? You need them in order to make the value "real" from the "abstract" form. Or am I mistaken somewhere in my thought processes?
The children are bad example...there is clearly no connection to voting. Whereas in cryptosphere (namely Steem) almost everything is connected to voting that’s why the topic is so problematic. My intention truly is not to relativize everything (even though you might have that feeling). The meaning of words and their definition changes in time with the development of aspects that the term is connected to.
I must not understand how Sndbox works. Is it a "If you upvote us, then we'll help you" model or not? If it is, that's vote buying. If they provide value and then pick and choose who they want to upvote, then it's not (IMO).
Yes, we certainly can as we demonstrated today with being the first major project to distribute tokens on the EOS network while open sourcing all the tools we used to do so. In the future, we may also be block producers for multiple chains that wish to use the EOS software. We may additionally have consulting income and other forms of revenue not yet considered. As to how (or if) any of those tokens will be left over for any form of distribution is up to the token holders and the custodians they vote in to run the DAC.