Dear Power Peeps, Did You Learn Anything You Would Apply If Given A 2nd Chance?
Dear Power Peeps,
As Steem has now broken sub 20cents, I have some questions for you:
1 Did you learn anything you would apply if you are given a 2nd Chance to make Steem/Steemit successful?
2 Did you learn that speaking to your customers (people that use the system) is important?
3 Did you learn that "the SPAM we got with many customers" was better than "almost no customers but with no spam"?
4 Did you learn that letting people "bully" people into submission will turn many people off and make them leave?
5 Did you learn that people like @fulltimegeek, @abh12345, and @paulag should be supported since they did their best to keep people engaged and feeling part of a community?
6 Did you learn that voting bots that give people limited upside and unlimited downside is a big turnoff, and leads to a terrible message of "greed is good" by the people running the platform (since nothing was done about it for so long)?
7 Did you learn that "circle jerks" should be discouraged and that the big abusers should be reigned in by the people with true "power"?
8 Did you learn that protecting the % of your investment by self-voting and/or donating to a community that does it for you, will keep your percentage of ownership, but bring the whole value of your investment down?
9 Did you learn that the self-righteous laissez-faire attitude that "its ok that everyone can do anything they want, simply because people don't want to "get involved" with policing others", will lead to bad behavior that eventually makes the platform a ghost town as people get sick of the abuses and the lack of power to change anything? IE...with greater power comes greater responsibilities if you want this to succeed.
10 Did you learn that people don't want to pay to make comments on social media? (ie the RC issue that restricted people's ability to comment drove them away)
11 Did you learn that Steem/Steemit is a business like all other businesses and requires a collaboration of not only technology geniuses, but also sales/marketing and customer support/relations?
12 Did you learn that Steem the token has much more value if you have many more people using it via Steemit as a social platform? NOTE: this one is for those idiots that said Steemit was just a test and not important for Steem to have value.
13a Did you learn that if too much power is concentrated at the top, then all the real governance will be skewed to what those at the top want and people will feel they have no say?
13b Did you learn if too much governance is concentrated at the top, then the decision makers lose touch with what the masses are interested in? (Note: the feedback loop gets broken and the king is never told he has no clothes)
14 Did you learn that if you ignore people trying to give you "help" via criticism, you are missing ideas that might actually be doing you a favor and improving the product? (Note: instead of being defensive and dismissive, next time try to embrace ideas from all)
I think some things that Steemit/Steem have accomplished are amazing. I have continued to use it and be a participant since the day I got here. And while I think there are many lessons to learn, I do think there was much done that is very solid too.
I truly hope the people in power take the time to learn these lessons, instead of looking at this as an attack. Most all of these issues have been brought up by me in the past on my posts or comments. After realizing that nobody with any power cared (or weren't listening), I stopped offering tough but constructive advice. I am sure this has also happened to many others and why many have "moved on".
So while this is a critical piece, it is also serious in hopes there is a 2nd chance. We all hope that things will be done differently "next time". I truly hope the Power Peeps learned, and the 2nd chance will lead to something truly fantastic.
Sincerely,
Dave McCoy
I just want to flag bastards.
Its as simple as that for me.
Posting doesnt earn me much, comments neither. The selfvoting i do is once per occasional post.
Hf21 wont do anything. It will make things different but thats it.
Quality creators will leave since the price is steadily going down to the ATL and posting is a waste of time since
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I think that is turning into consensus for sure @lordbutterfly! Thanks for the comment!
I don't follow much of the politics on STEEM but I do believe the above was a massive blunder and at the time of its introduction I voiced my concerns about that.
Steemit is a social media site even though some like to claim it isn't. Today's world offers countless FREE ways to blog and do other activities that social media sites (Like Steemit) provide so expecting users to come here and pay was a little ambitious of those who decided to implement the change.
I do think the pay to play model could work but first Steemit/Steem needs to build its user base allot bigger then it currently is so the blow of user loss doesn't hit as hard once its implemented.
The other big issue I see is advertisement. Why don't I see any adds for STEEMIT anywhere ? I mean even basic grunt work of putting up some physical billboards / road signs .... would be a step in the right direction. I don't see it advertised on any random web-pages either.
This place is hard to find, hard to sign up to and hard to get noticed on. No need in making it hard to participate on as well.
I wish my vote was $200 and not 2 cents... I'd still upvote this 100%. Agree with everything you said @rentmoney. Perfect!!!!!!!!!!!
Well Dave, I come and go as time allows, but I still see that unfortunately not much has changed here. There's also not much I can add to all the comments, except to say that it's nice to see you still trying to improve this platform.
Hope life is treating you well buddy😊❤️
Hey Lynn! Nice to see you, its been way too long... How is the farmgirl in Mexico doing these days? How is Brian doing?
I hope everything is going ok for the both of you and I'm super glad to see that you caught this post! I don't really post much anymore, so I thought that most of my friends have moved on... This is terrific to see a @lynncoyle1 message :)
Aww thanks Dave! I don't post much anymore myself, although I did one a few weeks ago as an update on Brian; check out the details there, but he had a major stroke awhile ago and is doing well now.
I hope you're doing well? ...all steemit stuff aside😊
And it's great hearing from you as well!
checking right now Lynn... and happy to hear he's fine now, and I'm doing ok... not spending as much time here and getting more outside, so that helps my body a bit!
I've totally lessened my time here as well Dave. And yes, outside is way better for both our old-ish bods 😊
There are a lot of good statements in this post that I would love to see addressed. While we might have the best blockchain in terms of technology and use case, we are significantly falling behind in terms of STEEM for real people. While there are lots of apps on the blockchain now compared to just having steemit like in the past, we are still haunted by basic users friendliness.
People being able to sign up instantly, posts and interact without being abused and get their content noticed by other users. I still don't know how i stayed the course over the first six months as I wrote to nobody, earned nothing and had my account attacked by a large stakeholder for calling them out on abuse. But I did and i'm still here because I can see what we could do here. The potential of the STEEM system.
So many users that have left over the past couple of years due to to the same old issues. At least with the tribes some of them are trying to do it right from the start. Have mod accounts to silence the shit posts and curators to push the good ones. If we are going to be successful then it won't have anything to do with steemit.com as a site for users it will be the apps that bring people in. My first task for the proposal system will be to present for a way to onboard people instantly so that all the apps can sign up people straight to their own site and not go anywhere near steemit.com. Join palnet or another site until they get the hang of the system and look into everything else later on.
I think that in the future most people won't even see the STEEM side of things. They will sign up through the different apps, just use those and then have a wallet for STEEM and whatever token they are earning. The won't ever see the side of it that we deal with now. All it will take is the right tools for people to make this happen.
First, thank you for the compliment on the post... And second, I agree with many of your ideas and proposals. I do think the same old issues need to be addressed, but if you're right then the system will bypass the old system and spawn a new one. I can see that as a possibility, but I hope the people at the top actually learn from the past. There are many people here such as yourself that has persevered and truly want to see this be super successful.
Thanks again for replying with such a thoughtful response!
Sad to see that one only needs to take a look at the downvotes on this post to know the answers to your questions.... :0(
Indeed
This is an awesome post on so many levels. I think that in the past people have feared retaliation from the bad elements, but now the price of Steem is so low they've got nothing to lose. People are starting to see through the weak rationalisations applied to toxic behavior by people with more stake than sense.
People are also starting to band together to pressure the change they want to see.
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Thank you very much @joshman!!!
I agree with you on your thoughts too... there is no doubt people didn't want to be downvoted for speaking their minds and now since we have nothing to lose, then there is much less concern. Maybe that is a trend and it would be welcomed in my opinion. I think it would be awesome if many started to speak out (constructively) to let the people in power know how to fix it! After all, you can't fix something if you don't know its broken! ;)
I've been speaking up about things for a while and, like you, have been ignored. No flags on me so far, but with HF21 around the corner and free downvotes I expect that will change soon enough. I believe it will soon come to pass that there will be ZERO dissenting voices on the platform.
yep agree completely. I guess we'll see but I think you're going to be right.
Thanks for speaking out though, the effort to help is recognized by me!!! (too bad I'm not a Power Peep) :P
In this case I wish you were wrong, but unfortunately your are not. Time to rethink the strategy and have a hell of an idea of what this platform wants--and how to get it otherwise the 'moves' at the top are nothing more than for show. Get a clue of the game theory and behavior you want steemit to make up, then go from there. Blindly tossing a 'tokenized social network' out to the sharks to devour and turn into a radioactive garbage heap sure wasn't the answer, but luckily the games and other dapps have come through for you finally and picked up a great deal of slack. This needs to be available to sample for the masses, once they find out about and are given a chance to stay. There is enough creative people in this ecosystem to make it work, but creativity, economic and game theory don't work the greatest under "tyrannical indifference." Many of what you talk about @davemccoy has all happened verbatim how it's described by you in this post. The key is bringing more or better, take that back better creativity and vision to overhaul the platform and become more proactive. Steemit Inc is not at fault for the crypto meltdown but due to prior piss poor management it's getting passed by outright concepts that don't carry a fraction of the practical ability of what has happened recently. So until the public gets wind of what's going on here we sit and watch the tumbleweeds roll through until fresh people replace the defectors and we as a community as a whole do a better job of keeping them around if at all possible.
well said @cryptkeeper17! And I especially like the visualization of us watching the tumbleweeds roll as time passes. There is so much that can be done if they ever decide to seize the opportunity!
Is Steem value low enough yet for a true second chance? Will it not just mostly play out the same way?
Although Steem has been losing to both BTC and USD, including market ranking, I think they is a fundemnetal issue with inflation causing this an not Steem itself since it is better than most blockchains with higher values. I suspect quality content creators just don't think Steem is worth it as this point and we are left with niche content producers that cannot possibly onboard enough new users (myself included).
I think the answer is yes to the first question. It is now to the point that people are not wasting their time posting or doing much on steemit anymore. If this doesn't scare the shit out of anyone with power, then they should have their heads examined.
Inflation is not the issue at all with Steem in my opinion... Inflation is irrelevant when the coin has dropped from $8 to $0.20... The drop is due to the loss of faith in the platform, because they haven't "flooded" the system with tons of coins like other alt coins. There was once a very vibrant funnel of new users onboarding and many communities for them to go to.
They made many mistakes in that process, but the WORST was when they changed the formula to get rid of SPAM. They essentially made it impossible for a free user to make more than a few comments a day, and while it succeeded at eliminating spam, it did so by eliminating users. Now the platform has been on a steady and rapid fall from that point. Its movement determined by the downward spiral that is the opposite of the the virtuous upcycle benefits. Less people = less money = less posting = less people = less money...etc ... I have never sold or powered down any of my Steem Power and today my whole account is worth less $s that it was in my first month here. In other words, had I sold in my first month and went away, I would have more real money than now. The next 20 months of my time has not only yielded NOTHING, but instead has COST me by having faith they would get the right formula.
I'm not complaining to complain, I can frankly live fine if it goes to $0. But if someone looks at that example, then they can realize exactly why people have left the platform. It isn't due to the inflation (that is such a small part of it). Its due to disgust and disenchantment and a general loss of faith that the people in power will FIX their mistakes.
And yes, quality content creators will not come here at this point. I know filmmakers, actors, and political pundits personally and I would never invite them at this point because it is embarrassing with some of the shenanigans I listed above. Until they get serious about having a quality platform, then my guess is the quality content creators will stay away.
I see your point, come to think of it, the inflation argument is fairly weak since it hasn't inflated by 10X and it won't for many years or whatever.
RC makes sense to a certain point, but it doesn't make sense the way it is set up now. New accounts should get a lot more RC, let's say enough for 500 or so interactions a day provided their rep isn't headed down the drain. Maybe even increase it as they do a tutorial or something. In anycase, people do start off with a purpose and it limits them severely. They can be taught to 'behave' after they misbehave. It's shouldn't have been implimented without RC sharing and SMTs at the very least. It seems like they pushed the wrong things forward at the wrong time. Now HF21 may also be poorly timed as well.
In any case, I do think that some sort of floor has been reached however it will be very difficult to turn around the reputation of this place. It may take one or two spin off communities before it is possible.
There is just too much crap making a ton of money and all the big stake holders just vote for themselves or people who endless post about steem which has 0 interest to people who don't own steem.
I remember when I first came here, it was god awful amateur musicians, artists students and people writing about how awesome Steem and EOS were who made all the money. Also, I didn't understand vote selling or buying then, so I would see weird content getting hundreds and even thousands of dollars worth of random votes and just wondering what the hell is this? It's barely changed.
very well said ... all of it...
I particularly like your points elaborating on how the RC SHOULD be handled. Frankly, this was the mistake they made that really really turned me away from trying too hard. My gut told me that it was going to dry up the flow of new people, and while I tried to make the points at the time, nobody with any power seemed to care. Wasting too much of my time on a dying platform was my feeling, so I really have been way less involved than I used to be. Thank goodness for Steemmonsters or I would've probably left completely.
I still have all the steem I've ever made, and I'm sure I'll continue with it until the lights are turned off. I just wish one day you'd see the power peeps take the time to wade through these types of posts (and comments), to really learn how the users feel and the great ideas to make things better!
You know, I saw almost the exact same comments when Steem made it's way down from $5 to 7cents and then those comments went away when it shot up to $8 in the last crypto bull market and people poured in expecting to make the bucks. Then we go into another bear market and we see this all again.
History does repeat itself.
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thanks for the comment... I am guessing you think by your comment that its all a function of the macro market and Steem hasn't done anything to lose any confidence (or it is irrelevant if they did so).... If so, I hope you're right, but of course have my doubts!
the price of Steem is largely market driven. I also find it interesting that you and many others refer to Steem like some entity that has a board meeting to decide what it's going to do next.
The upside to a platform like Steem is the freedom for others to pursue diverse paths on the platform. The downside is identifying and resolving problems with the direction of the platform is slow and takes a collective will. A will that seems to be sporadic at best. Part of that slowness comes from there not being a community wide consensus of what works and what doesn't, even by those who are engaged and interested.
Not everyone agrees self-voting is a problem while some think that even the smallest account self-voting is evil. Some see the use of bid-bots or vote selling the same way. There are those on this platform will zero respect for those who create content or for that matter even realize that the platform needs content in multiple forms.
Our diversity is both our strength and our weakness.
Many like to complain about what they perceive as problems yet don't seek to find ways to contribute toward the solution (speaking generally here). While others will announce that the consequences of their own behaviour is a failing of the platform.
People are messy, community is messier.
I just find it really fascinating that as the markets drop the negative takes on a higher importance than when the markets are higher.
interesting points... I do realize there's no board, but I do believe the top stakeholders communicate among themselves. I may be wrong, but it seems like the power at the top is concentrated and decide who the witnesses are. So if that's the case, you'd think they would be interested in the witnesses policing bad behavior on the platform. (whatever they determine it is)
But I've also heard the theory that everything is just where they want it to be. That if the few at the top keep their power concentrated, then they can move it up and down at their will. I don't know the truth, but happy to have your thoughts on the subject... so thank you for the replies!
not sure that they can move it up and down as they wish ... or they would not be taking the hosing they have been recently. There be some pumping to allow for dumping. That hasn't been happening. Some of those larger stakeholders bought in during the last bull run, so they need to back up.
The larger stakeholders do some communicating but I see no indication that it is in any organized manner that they'd actually reach some consensus .. for the most part there are factions who pursue their own self interests while complaining about others who pursue their self interests
Basically.. people peopling as they always have
lol... love the last point! So true :)
Thoughtful questions that need to be put into consideration. Wish the top gurus will see this.
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Thank you for that @maxwellmarcusart... I too wish they would see it. And not only the post, but the comments like yours too. Its really not as hard as they seem to think it is, it just needs a little common sense and listen to users thoughts, ideas, opinions!
Thanks for the reply as well, its appreciated :)
Exactly! But as the saying goes "common sense is not common". They would hardly adhere to the opinions of the masses.
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