Why Inequality on Steemit is NOT so Good Thing!
Answering to @pachenko 's post: Why Inequality on Steemit is a Good Thing!
First of all Steemit is a community. Wealth as well as income distribution can be described through Gini coefficient in any community. A Gini coefficient of zero expresses perfect equality, where everyone has equal capital. A Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) expresses maximal inequality among people.
Like it was calculated in @jcweiss's post Steemit have Gini coefficient of 0.998 or 99.8% at the moment.
Is it big, small or normal? Well, let's compare it with countries!
As you can see, current wealth distribution on Steemit is way more inequal than in poorest countries of Africa!
So, in my opinion for better growth of the community we need that current wealth distribution become much more even like it is in well developed modern countries. I hope that we can achive that in near future.
I've upvoted this because I think you're on the right track.
But remember - people in the green areas are nowhere near equal either - some of us have too much, others have too little, and some, are living like those in the picture you see above (but only a very, very, very small amount)
Let's make the "world" a better place for everyone? Yes? :)
Definitely! In heavily inequal systems amount of transactions between people is declining due to crisis of trust. We want many transactions for Steemit because it proves that system is live and its community is growing.
Let's make a thought experiment. Suppose all bitcoins, eth, steem are divided equally in the cryptocommunity. What do you think will happen next?
The answer is that there is a fundamental equilibrium problem in the fiat and asset world. Meaning that due to some people having way more fiat money or assets, and some having almost nothing at all, there are some priority issues: The wealthy want to invest their excess and the poor want to cash-out their reserves to meet their day-to-day affairs.
So, even if we had crypto-equality, we'd then have a situation where the poor would quickly cash out and the wealthy would quickly buy everything dumped. And then the poor would again argue that crypto-wealth is distributed unequally.
You can't hold "steem" if you live in conditions like the above photo. 100 steem for these people may be a years worth of work that can buy them real life necessities. They'd have no incentive to hold, but a lot of incentive to cash-out. Which again would make the percentages come back to "the rich have all the wealth" levels.
So the problem is not at the crypto-level. It's at the fiat and asset level which provides a "substrate" for inequality in everything else.
I'm not saying that all steem power should be divided equally among users. I am saying about more healthy distribution like in modern countries. And I am not suggesting to get this distribution by force.
The thought experiment just takes it one step further than what you propose and shows that even with more distribution than your proposal, power/money consolidation will still be an issue. Consolidation will inevitably happen due to the underlying dynamics in the fiat/asset world.
In other words, a more fair distribution is a short to mid-term condition and never stays that way in the long run.
Ok, so how to solve this problem? Or you don't think it is a problem at all?
By the way, two years earlier I've written this concept: https://steemit.com/steemit/@everythink/my-old-concept-2014-of-cryptocurrency-with-low-volatility-fair-distribution-and-high-capitalization#@everythink/re-everythink-my-old-concept-2014-of-cryptocurrency-with-low-volatility-fair-distribution-and-high-capitalization-20160727t212827361z
I don't think it can be solved without solving the problems in fiat and asset inequalities. If you have serious real life needs, you will cash out because you need the fiat to pay the rent, the loans, your food, etc. If you have more money than you can spend, you will buy more cryptocurrency than others can afford - because your reserve will be considered "investment money".
It can't really happen as the world operates. It's the same with everything, whether it is stocks, real estate, gold, etc. The wealthy 1% and owns >50% of the global wealth.
Here is my take on it. How can we as a community grow, if only let says .2% of the population can truly make changes to the way everyone else grows?
If the community wants to have a lasting impact, we will need more people to be able to vote (where the vote matters) so that we can make more people who have good content to stay and keep posting.
In any case, the inequality may be good at the beginning and we are still around what 30k members. We need to be around 1mil members. Then maybe inequality will become a bigger problem. Thats when we will need people on deck voting all the time.
As I read somewhere, the whales are early backers of STEEM. They don't have the time maybe to sit through all the content and decide what's good, which is why a lot of good content goes unnoticed. Be honest, we all look at the trending (Which is set as the norm on the steemit website) and see how much the big post get and we read that and say how the F*CK. Anyways, that's my two cents literally.
Yes, I think in future will be able to see that problem with distribution become huge in case that the flow of new users declines.
We will not see new user declines!!!! Not like ever, but we will see tremendous growth. The problem is that we are battling behemoths on the social media platform. The word is hard to get out and from what I been reading, FB is already blocking content about STEEM!
If you know that joining new social network gives you nothing and it has less users than the old ones then you hardly will register in this new network. You have all your friends in Facebook, why would you join other network? If the only chance to get paid by new network is to appeal whales than with user amount of 100k or 1M it would be literally impossible. So there is no difference where to read (consume) interesting stuff, on Steemit or on Facebook.
How did Twitter get big when we had Facebook? How did Facebook get big when we had myspace? I am just saying that eventually people get bored of the same platform. The think about social media network is networking with people. Don't generally have to be the same people. Also, if the masses can see something useful in Steem they will join. Also, there is an incentive here (join and get $10 bucks free).
How so? There are ~7 billion people on the planet. Let us say everyone gets an account withi the next 3 years, and their cat, dog and bot too. Then you have 28 billion users. How is it going to continue growing? Breed more children? Conquer other planets?
What I meant to say is that we won't see new user declines for a very long time, but it won't be forever. :D
...and that, my friends, is called perspective.
Thanks for sharing, everythink.
But one day we shall start a revolution and rob the 0.2 percent of their Voting power, through the power of high quality content and thorough proof reading!
Indeed!
It'll be fine in the long run. Check this post out its explained in a super easy understandable way. Everything will be fine as time goes on it will grow and evolve naturally. https://steemit.com/steemit/@chhayll/why-whales-will-become-dolphins-and-who-will-be-the-future-whales
Maybe, but for the moment we have this:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@everythink/the-number-of-whales-is-rising-richs-get-richer
Yeah, idk I have mixed feelings, on one hand I believe it will grow and evolve, on the other I see the same circle jerk posts that get up voted every day, I'm actually not voting on too many posts anymore because of how lame they all are. Steemit this and steemit that plus travelling. That's all I see so I'm done voting on bullshit like that, it'd be nice if people would stop following whales around upvoting the popular content but hey people are sheep this is nothing new. If minnows let greed run their votes then this site will fail.
The wealth distribution will improve over time but if this is enforced it will destroy the incentive to create wealth in the first place
I am not suggesting to get better distribution by force. Early adopters should be rewarded.
I also have the feeling that the long runners will come to see the fruition of a this "ecosystem" come to a much more balanced equilibrium. This baby, for the whales, needs to be taken care of, grown and then, eventually, be left to its own demise to fly by its own means. then and only then, I think, will we be able to have the full perspective of this domain we have entered. thank you for your important post and your views as well. Namaste :)
You're welcome!
64 votes which is respectable and .50 cents reward. The post you are reflecting on has 376 votes and 3500 reward.
Which type of content do you think people will be more inclined to copy in the future?
It's so obvious that money controls speech here.
Anyway, keep up the good fight, though to be honest, you are wasting your time. There will be no whale willing to support comments that they perceive take value away from Steemit.com since if a contrary opinion post is successful, others will be inspired to write something similar.
Seriously, you'll make more money by just ignoring whatever you think is wrong and just fluff up what is right. I implore you, my friend, to heed my advice. Just go with the flow of the other sheep, I mean fish.
Once you are successful by playing the game, you can start to say what you really want to say and what needs to be said.
Hopefully, it won't be too late by then.
Does the gay community have a voice on here?