RE: STEEM WHISTLEBLOWER: "Hidden Gem" & "Featured" Post Makers May be CROOKS!
To me the issue is more on mutual consent for both parties. As long as both sides are very upfront on how things are split, are agreed to, and followed through on, the terms themselves are moot in my opinion.
Beyond this I see it back to the whale bot author list issue, like you touched on. We all know that this on some small level is a social game and rules are driven by the what is and is not permitted in the code.
From a 'minnow' point of view, it only makes sense to look at the featured with the current state of whale bots; make at best $5-$10 payout posting it myself, or toss something in front of a whale bot and hopefully others, to garner a minimum of $75 SD in my cut.
Even though it's not the sole driver, we all know that money is the ultimate metric, especially for those who are excited to be content creators. We can all say it's not, but if you get less than 10 cents on a post indefinitely, it's going to take something MASSIVE from the community to offset demotivation.
While certain instances may not be the case, I can't agree on the side that minnows shouldn't be submitting posts to be featured. There are people who market market market market, can even garner minnow attention, and not break a dollar. To those minnows especially, I can't blame them for submitting to be featured by a person on a whale bot list, it isn't a negative, it's smart. (This was in comments, not your post)
Apologies for wall of text.
I agree 100%. There seems to be a misperception here. I am not being exploited. I won't speak for anyone else because I have not spoken to them personally. Has anyone asked the other "featured" authors to see if they feel exploited?
While this contract is for mutual benefit of two parties, it comes at the expense of the platform as a whole. The tragedy of commons, as it were. Steemit is suffering from high centralization of voting power. Such arrangements only serve to centralize the power further at the expense of everyone else. While it is beneficial in the short term, it is destructive in the long. Initiatives like project Curie, Robinhood Whale and your own Steemprentice, among others are much better for the platform.
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+To a large degree I am on the same page with you.%0A%0A%3E
While this c
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-While it is beneficial in the short term, it is destructive in the long. Initiatives like project Curie, Robinhood Whale and your own Steemprentice, among others are much better for the platform
+%0A%0AThis is a multi-fold issue in my eyes. Just by me submitting to be featured doesn't necessarily hurt the community. I completely agree that the whale voting patterns that follow some who feature people is an issue that seems to be slowly dissipating with RHW, curie, etc. %0A%0ATo me the point of a featured author is to ACTUALLY give exposure to new, good quality authors. While some who feature others seems to keep this in mind, it's not always the case. I don't see the benefit of featuring the same author a dozen times, nor feature those who are established. However, there ARE a number of good quality authors that stuck around because of the ability to be featured once or twice.%0A%0AThere's always some trade off, but I don't see featuring inherently to be a problem, especially until whales change their voting patterns (which I am not one to tell them how to vote.) It's more a matter of how it's being used. In my opinion, if a person who is featuring others isn't able to find new, good authors, they just shouldn't post that day.%0A%0AI've not followed others, but I've personally seen Knozaki2015 focus on new or unestablished authors, especially those that are german speakers. This is a great way to fill out under served area like non-english categories
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Yeah, I know that, and the good thung is that the pattern is changing. I mean check that latest post by @gavvet, about the end of hidden gems. :-) Exciting times are upon us.