[Important] Why Steemit Needs to Change the way Pending Payments are Displayed!
We all want to grow the Steemit community. Attracting quality content producers is one of the primary goals of the site! Attractive big paying payouts is obviously one of the main ways to do this. So what's wrong with the current way of displaying payouts?
DISAPPOINTMENT
Disappointment leads to unhappy users. Disappointment leads to angry rants. Disappointment leads to users leaving the site, and finding somewhere else to post their blog.
Most of us that are here right now are dedicated to the Steemit community. We can handle a little disappointment, because regardless of the size of our payments, we still believe the site is awesome! We are OK that the site is complicated, and that it takes us some time to figure out how it all works. Heck, we are happy to be getting paid anything for our posts! "Ok, so I thought I was going to make $25, but instead I made $19. I still just made $19!!"
As the site continues to grow though, the expectations are going to change. If an average user sees that their post is about to get paid $1,000, they are going to expect $1,000. Anything less than that will lead to disappointment. Disappointment will lead to angry rants and quitting users, and we don't want that!
"But that's the way Steemit works. 75% goes to the poster, and 25% goes to the curators. We can't change that without a complete redesign". True, but you don't have to do a major redesign to fix the issue. You just have to change what gets displayed to the user!
You can still keep the same 75/25 payment split, and just show a different value for the pending payout. Show the user what their 75% portion of the payment will be, with the 25% already taken out. We should be able to tell people 'what you see, is what you get'. "That user who's post is sitting at $5,300 is about to get paid $5,300 as soon as the timer runs out." That is how you recruit people to the site!
"But what if the curator bonus doesn't pay out the entire 25%? What happens to the part that is leftover?" Add it back as a bonus payment to the poster at the end! It would be so much more rewarding for the user to end up with even more money at the end, than to always have some taken away. The users will be watching anxiously to see how much their total jumps up, instead of watching with dread and worry to see how far it falls down.
Again, none of this requires any changes to the math or formula behind the payment system. The only thing that changes is how the data is presented to the user, and what their perception is. Think about it - which would you rather see? The amount you are going to get paid for the post, or the amount that is going to drop by up to 25% once the timer ends?
Please help get the word out on this post! We keep getting new members each day, and it is vital that they enjoy their experience, keep coming back, and spread the news to all their friends!
They will for sure fix it! it is a known issue...
https://github.com/steemit/steemit.com/issues/87
Very cool, thanks!!!
Does the fact that there is an issue open there mean it will get fixed?
I agree. A simple calculation can remove any disappointment.
Nice @timcliff
Shot you an Upvote :)
Thanks!
I would certainly support changing the display of your post to reflect the 75% payout. I agree with @poias who says you get used to it but I think it's that first "big" post people get where they are left with a salty taste in their mouth based on the payout.
I had my first "big" post this week (big for me) that reached $330. Take out the 25%, then the 50% goes to steem power... the $330 was really like $120 cash/$120 SP. What disappointed me further was that I took $100 of the $120 out via a transfer to poloniex and by the time it got into my account my polo account was displaying it at $88.xx vs. $100 because of liquidity. So really if you multiply that back from the beginning what started as $330 in my eyes actually put $105 in my back via steem dollars. On one side you could say it was "free" money but on the other I had probably already invested 30 hours into the website creating content. So I'd have a hard time calling it free ;)
Yep, exactly!
Upvoted
Thanks!
It's very basic math you can do in your head. I understand what you are saying about the whole "visual expectations" but, it's very easy math to perform. Eventually most people will understand the Steemit process.
I have explained Steemit to many of my friends, and the first thing I do is open up the homepage and show them the trending stories on the front page earning thousands of dollars. Their first question is usually something along the lines of "OH MY GOSH, IS THAT PERSON REALLY GETTING PAID $10,000 FOR POSTING AN ARTICLE?!". And my answer is "Basically yes, ..." and then I go into how the the whole payment system works (75/25, then 50/50). They usually respond with something like "oh, well that is still cool though". The fact they are saying still cool is a very important distinction. It shows that the cut getting taken away from the total amount takes away from the excitement of how truly awesome this is! If I could just go into the 50/50 split, and how half of the payment is invested back into Steem Power and 50% is given in Steem Dollars, that would make it sound totally awesome!
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 4.3 and reading ease of 92%. This puts the writing level on par with Ernest Hemingway and Donald Trump.