A scammers paradise?
Instead of "Livin' in the gangsta's paradise" like the Coolio song from the 90s, we're "Livin' in the scamma's paradise" it seems.
Anyone can come into Steem, and do whatever they want, including scam the reward pool. The only thing stopping them is others. Unless people act, Steem is a scammers paradise. When it's those with more SP, stopping them is hard, almost impossible. Only money (SP) can combat money (SP) on the platform. The money holds the real power on the platform.
We've seen how someone can buy Steem, power it up, and then shitpost 10 posts per day and reward themselves with their high SP influence, rather than vote for others, or be voted on by others.
But this original purpose of the community deciding to upvote others and reward others seems to be ignored by many. I'm talking about another scam of buying and selling votes. You don't have to have tons of SP to reward yourself, as you can just buy votes and climb to the top without the community putting you there.
This goes to show that those who claim to care about the community while fostering this type of functionality, are not being honest with themselves or others. They are bypassing and going against the community-led influence that Steem can and should be.
And there are all these older account, people who have been here for over two years, who used to be popular, and now just scam the reward pool with vote-rings on single-picture or few word posts. They are just in it for the money now, not the platform or community.
The community is being bypassed in these cases. This is self-centered use of the platform, not community-centered receipt of attention and rewards.
Rep has also become meaningless, as the ultra rich accounts can just vote themselves to the highest rep, and those who buy votes can just buy themselves into the highest reps. The honest work of getting recognition and being evaluated by others in proof-of-brain that would bring long-term real value to the platform is being stepped on and spat on in favor of short-term gains by those who use money to get ahead at the expense of everyone else who is doing the honest work to engage on the platform.
Is there a way out? How do the community caring counter those who just want to buy their way ahead, who just want to bypass the community purpose that Steem was originally meant to embody and express?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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Okay, so this is a proof-of-brain perspective. When one looks at Steem from a DPOS perspective it is working amazingly.
Many people look to our inflation and think it's too high. Anyone who buys in is getting devalued. 8% inflation is a lot.
However, when one realizes they control 90% of the inflation now their stake is only getting devalued by 0.8%. This is a crazy low inflation rate, and it can only happen that way if the stake-holders are getting upvoted an amount equal to their own vote strength.
People like us make the argument that big accounts should accept the higher inflation devaluation and make up for it by upvoting people who bring value to the platform. This argument is a sound one. The value of Steem would increase far more than 8% per year if proof-of-brain was in full effect.
The problem here is that Steem value is already increasing far more than than our inflation rate, so many whales just figure they'll scoop up those short-term gains and not worry about it.
The bottom line is that we don't yet have the infrastructure set up to enforce proof-of-brain, and that's fine. It's not ideal, but it's also not the end of the world like many people think it is.
Anyone can bring their money here with the full knowledge that our currency can never hyper-inflate. Anyone can control inflation without running a node or buying mining equipment. This is a huge deal, and even though the system isn't working like the whitepaper says it should, it's still working very well.
Thank you for you educated response. As a dolphin and a holder of Steem this is makes a lot of sense to me and very assuring. What you described here is the definition of hard money. Low inflation with zero chance of hyperinflation.
Posted using Partiko Android
Indeed, but it's also smart-money, and our smart-money is attempting to lower the bar of development allow anyone in the community to participate. Show me another coin doing the same. Tron claims they're going to, but I'm not seeing results. Same for EOS.
Regardless, there is no competition and anything we make they can copy and anything they make we can copy.
Yup, it's a better system than the current one. If only the greed could be mitigated to allow the platform to enrich those who do the work of making it a place with content.
Hopefully this will happen naturally with amazing ui and user friendly ideas. I don't think we can fundemantally change human behavior.
But there should be more incentive to curate good content.
Posted using Partiko Android
Makes a lot of sense.
The thing is, I don't think they ever meant for there to be a community as the central theme of Steem. They believed (is my feeling) that coders would rush to build apps on the chain and cause the chain to inflate from the supply and demand costs to run the apps. I get the impression Ned and those who may be silent partners had pictured themselves living the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" lives by now, and for whatever reason those who build apps never came.
I think it is obvious that they never planned long term on sustaining the costs associated with a growing database of posts/comments, nor the costs of a staff to handle the growing structures. There is no doubt in my mind this is why they have always limited new account signups and have almost shut them down now according to posts I have been reading.
Sadly, they still seem to be overlooking what could be a huge commodity for them, which is this very community they never valued when they began all of this. I see so many volunteering to help, wanting to save things. And they are ignored.
Even more sadly, so many in the community don't seem to get the hard reality that what they believe is the purpose of Steem, this community, was never the purpose of the creators. This was a showcase, the light to draw the moths in. But those moths didn't come.
I guess outsiders seeing dApps developed makes them think it's worth something and want to buy into it for speculation?
I agree, the community is only propped up as lip service, but not listened to. Many simple changes could have made the platform better, like changing the trending page, adding comment tab to view the newest comments... The community minded have been duped, it's mostly about money and ruling with money to make more money. Community is an after thought for many of the rich rulers.
Like any anarchist village, one day the bad guys turn up and nobody can do a thing...
I find it hard to come up with any real solution. It has to do with how a community is made and how it protects itself against corruption and abuse. I think one of the things that could make a difference is already here - a committed community. Many fascinating institutions have evolved spontaneously creating what was not there. Steemcleaners, Curie, the bot-counter initiatives etc. But sadly the bones where made from the faulty libertarian belief that the richest guy should decide.
If only we could build some of the democracy into the code, like a constitution - get ways the majority could deal with the gangsters - then it might become interesting. Maybe: a better reputation system. The witness system has votes, why not the rep system. Making bad rep = lower income.
I don't know. It has been two very interesting years, but some heavy experiments that might upset the large stockholders is necessary.
indeed, we need to band together to battle the rich who can swipe us to the ground with their power of steem. Yeah, the richest guys deciding is always flawed. Plutocracy is never the answer. The rich usually get to be there for a reason.
People can buy rep. Rep is shit now. Everything on the platform is based on money power. Always been a problem.
I understand your frustration but until they change the rules of the game people are going to do what is in their best interest. Some are just more greedy than others. It's a sad fact of life but people with the most money make the rules.
It’s just an unfortunate reality of when money is involved in anything. So many people are indoctrinated, are too focused on monetary values and gains no matter what to care about other stuff, an unfortunate product of the banking system.
Welcome to the new system, slightly better but very much the same as the old system :/
You could try looking at my most recent post about trying to get new blood in here with twitter. I do not see much of any whales and value the community I find here. Maybe mute those people who a bothering you and check out the thousands lower down who are trying daily.
Ignoring scammers doesn't make them go away or resolve the issues.
If it comes to scammers, this is the age of scammers and you will find them everywhere. Men, women are bothered by fb, twitter, etc. Most new friends turn out to be scammers and just see you as an easy way to make an income. Steemit is just one of these ways. I would simply ignore these people and go my own way. Vote, comment or resteem what you like and give a good example. I agree there is a lot written I would not call "original and good content" at all, but it seems to be a part of Steemit as well.
Posted using Partiko Android
Yup, we should just ignore scams in the world, because that will just magically make it better...
Perhaps this sort of thing is inevitable. Not sure what the solution is. Maybe proof of work coins whatever that is. Maybe there shouldn't be the option to vote for your own posts. But lets not get down. Talking about it is good. There could be any number of solutions. The main thing that really needs to be driven home is that the love of money is the root of all evil. There is a great need of money, but one must be careful not to let it consume them.
Love of money yes, that sacrifices principled living and the better way to do things, just to make money.
I dont shun away from how I treat Steemit.. Steemit was a system that could be easily abused since the very beginning. As soon as the idea of upvoting yourself and earning from that came around, it was destined to fail. Not only that but Steemit puts a major focus on how much a post has earned, and not many times does the value of a post convert to "real world value"... Memes are outcompeting against thoughtful and inspiring artists and bloggers, its always been this way unless some whales break out of their shell..
I shit post, but I never really invested money into Steemit. Its a cool project, but I feel like Steemit was destined to stay a lower coin because of its emphasis on making SBD instead of actually producing quality content. Its an echochamber, trying not to be an echochamber, by rewarding people who promote their echochamber...
Steemit is still very valuable for a lot of us, and even for me, a shit poster, but I definitely see the abuse but its engraved in how the site 'works'.
which is why I shitpost and instead bring my thoughtful comments in the comment section (unless I actually feel like making a decent post)... I comment far more than I post blogs on Steemit.
Some good points, but a sad admission of how to keep it being shitty by just shitting around everywhere... Individual actions need to change for the overall aggregate to change.
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