Non linear reward is fundamentally unfair
I want to write this as a direct response to this post: https://steemit.com/steem/@teamsteem/why-i-advice-against-linear-reward and the very direct question that is asked:
Teamsteem, first off thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think as a big holder of SP you probably have seen many of the effects you describe first hand.
I do not agree with the statement. It may not be wrong but I don't think it is the most relevant question.
I do not think steem can be fixed by removing the linear reward curve.
The problem of the money distribution is that is too concentrated, in my opinion. In order to have network effect we need many users.
Yes!
The hardest thing to do for a cryptocurrency is to distribute its supply among many users in a fair way that generates value. That to me seems the relevant question. This is generic question any blockchain project must solve. And I don't think it has been solved effectively yet.
Clearly we suck at that. As a result we have a situation where all of the wealth is super concentrated. Out of a million users not even 300 reallly matter and if we had 10 million more that won't actually change.
The other relevant question that is specific for steem in my eyes is also how do we generate great content and support and attract content producers. Since we want to be a content platform.
But what you address first and foremost addresses distribution.
So since the problem we have right now is that SP is too concentrated among few users. I mean 0.1% hold all the relevant SP. If we have nonlinear distribution than those %0.1 just get even more power than they already hold.
How does that solve anything!?? Self voting and vote selling is not actually the problem. Just because everything thinks it is does not make it so.
I think that self voting is totally fine according to the design of the steem right now. I am not saying that self voting is a desired feature, but it is a feature by design at this time. If you hold X amount of SP you simply have the right to distribute X amount of reward. That is fair. It is simple proof of stake in that regard. Any time a user does not self vote they simply are kind and reward others by choice. So what you propose simply creates an unfair system for the rich and as a result becomes bad for everyone but the richest users. Yes it will dis-incentice self voting a bit, but won't actually solve it (still better to give yourself something vs lots to others) and create a huge problem on top of it: more concentration and unfairness for the reward distribution.
I believe that if you want to prevent self voting and vote selling than you would have to redesign steem fundamentally, such as by implementing an ID system so this could properly implemented. Today ID is not possible or has not been implemented by any other party than Goverments.
So the most imporant aspect is to have fair distribution and then we would need good distribution. But we cannot have good distribution without it being fair. As a result I believe what you are calling for is counterproductive. What I mean is that solving self voting may be good, but we cannot do it at the cost of unfair distribution. Fair distribution is far more important that not being able to accrue interest for your holdings.
The reason why content is not rewarded right now is because we have not actually built a platform for content, but at least the linear distribution of rewards is fair in a sense.
If we want to reward content we need to build on having a system that focus more on content discovery and rewarding good content. Simply making distribution less fair is not going to turn this platform in a content platform.
So in summary I am on your side and feel the need to make steem better and particularly make it so that more coins get distributed among users that create great content. I do feel we need a different solution than non-linear distribution as it makes the reward system fundamentally unfair.
This "un-fairness" is quite obvious and as such won't be accepted.
What are your thoughts?
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If plankton or minnows think they have it bad now, wait till they experience the horrors of going back to an n-type model. I remember how I felt when my stake of 10,000SP finally garnered a one cent vote! Some actual value! I was ecstatic at the time, but now just see it as a glaring unwelcome tear in the fabric of Steem's economy. Even dolphins will find their stake to have been rendered useless by its implementation. Going back would be a total nightmare and that's putting it mildly. Linear is easy to understand and compatible with upcoming development projects. Working in perfect synergy with SMT's too, no doubt! To me, it's a no-brainer.
And in regards to "user equality", the amount of steem earned by a select few back then versus the amount of posts taken to earn it, will literally blow your mind. If there are in fact issues with the linear reward curve, I believe they will be quadrupled if we revert back to the old system. Those users newer to the platform would not have seen the old model in action to make a balanced assessment or comparison.
It's good we can all discuss this like adults, but I hope I can breath a sigh of relief when this whole movement is quashed. Again, just my humble opinions on the matter.
In all of these discussions I think there has been a little too much focus on how malevolent actors can work around attempts to improve the system and not enough focus on the potential to improve the average user experience. People will continue to engage in multi-account self-voting and buying votes no matter what changes are implemented, but if we can improve the average user experience a little bit without damaging the current system then it can contribute to more success.
I'm not familiar enough with the math behind linear reward system to have an opinion on it but I agree with your points about the distribution of the currency. Steem will be a much better platform when 1 million people buy 50 STEEM each instead of 50 people buying 1 million STEEM. But how do we distribute the currency in a manner that benefits the group when collecting the most currency for oneself is viewed as the logical advantageous behavior? Unfortunately I think the answer is to set limits to curb behavior that is beneficial to the individual but detrimental to the group.
This issue reminds me of some major legal battles in my local geography over access to water. Corporations want to pump large amounts of water from underground aquifers to sell to populations in different areas. Until recently they had the legal right to pump and sell so much water that it destroyed the ability for small land owners to use water wells for domestic use. Average homeowners were only able to recover use of their water wells by forming legal jurisdictions to prevent excessive pumping. This is a similar issue to the concentration of STEEM POWER used to steer the majority of rewards to relatively few large stakeholders. Concentration of power ultimately leads to degradation of any system that is meant to work for large populations.
I think the solution to the STEEM POWER issue will be similar in that we will need to create rules/laws that prevent self promoting behavior that is detrimental to the larger group of stakeholders. Most will agree but the technical details of the proposed solutions are difficult to understand and predict.
My initial thoughts are to manage rewards distribution in a way that provides small investors with a better ROI than larger investors with some type of diminishing returns formula. The particular levels can be argued, but my belief is that if we prevent the concentration of too much wealth on this platform and reward the smallest level of investors it will help grow the system in a way that benefits everyone including the largest stakeholders.
I have an idea:
Why not set the maximum voting value to lets say 10$ and at the same time set the number of votes to a higher level if someone has more SP.
If you have now a voting value of 100$, set it to 10$ and increase the votes to 100 times an 100% vote. This can be done by an easy calculation. It will be shown as if you have 1000% voting power with 100% as maximum to vote.
The result will be that a lot of content gets more valuable votes.
The curation should be the same in the result, so no loss for bigger holders.
I love this idea, but it will create new problems. It doesn't necessarily mean that their VP will get more spread out as a result. Big accounts will now simply make more accounts and delegate a portion to lots of new accounts that they control. This way they can still upvote their own posts by the same amount as before. Sure, it will be a lot more difficult for them to selfvote effectively, but I am sure that after a few weeks someone will come up with a bot who just accesses all your multiple accounts and autovotes on your posts...
(I know that there are many whales who make it their number one priority to spread out their VP as much as they can, but of course not all of them do...)
My proposal is this:
That's the point.
One person can a lot of accounts in steemit.
I think that's why steem blockchain allows self-voting.
It looks very interesting...
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Sounds like great idea but I can't agree with you.
It has a critical loophole.
Whales who don't like that kind of restriction can avoid it simply by creating steem accounts as many as they need.
It can't be fundamenatl solution.
Dear Knircky i completely agree with your answer to him, (thats why you are driving steem-bounty with success):
[-]knircky (69)Human · 11 ore fa
I do not understand how it encourages curation.
If we have nonlinear rewards my upvotes are worthless unless I upvote the most popular content. So it supresses curation even more so, as my voice is suppressed unless I follow the crowd.
Right now my vote as an example is worth $2. I get to give this to anyone I like. Much easier for me to actually curate and reward what I find valuable.
one of the problems is that there is no way for the people that can make the big payouts to actually SEE everyone's posts; I don't think that the amount of spam actually matters in this, btw. It's simply a matter of how fast content moves in and out of attention here.
Which leads to what I consider the greater problem...rewarding curators for finding good content based upon how popular the post becomes...combine this with the limited payout ROI, and there is simply no reason for anyone trying to curate for ROI to spend any time looking at content over an hour old
My suggestion would be to "reset" the payout period for each post every week (with a new reward pool), giving curators another chance to "win" on posts they would actually find to be quality if it were profitable for them
this would be better for creators for sure, but I think it would satisfy curators looking to curate for profit AND for platform value
Very well said @knircky I've been saying that the two biggest problems with STEEM is the initial distribution (Ninja Mine) and the broken promotion feature. I've been wriing about this since ages ago:
https://steemit.com/news/@vimukthi/the-initial-token-distribution-problem-of-steem-and-dan-talking-about-steem-2-0-on-eos-telegram-q-and-a
https://steemit.com/steem/@vimukthi/steem-improvement-proposal-a-different-kind-of-promotional-tool-to-help-gain-exposure-without-using-bid-bots
If STEEM was just Steemit, I'd be cool with a n^1.1 or maybe even n^1.2 But STEEM is the world's first social media specialized smart contract platform. We need to keep the rewards linear. We only really have few large accounts and some frustrated small accounts screaming for non-linear. It's just a vocal majority with misguided ideas.
I'd actually say that it will turn STEEM into Twitter filled with bots and voting collusion. Non-linear will certainly and absolutely will be getting this platform sibyl attacked unless there is an ID system. Then again that would mean the platform will be inviting self-censorship and China's social credit style data-mining.
Simple solutions are always the best. Accept the Occam's razor and support projects like @fundition or @steemhunt which has the best account based voting system for their bot vote. I even gave @steemhunt my witness vote because they fixed the reward distribution problem to a considerable degree without bitching about it or giving into some collectivist collusion voting schemes (which is the absolute inevitability of highly non-linear rewards)
We also have too many people complaining about whales or @steem or @ned powering down. The reality is this is exactly what we need.
When 80% of the STEEM is distributed between at least 20% of the accounts, I'd say we'll be fine. For the short term I'd say @steem should be delegating to more project like @steem-ua @fundition @steemhunt @dlike and other community projects. That's a better fix than going non-linear.
Dear @vimukthi, you are always very detailed in your comment, thats why your reputation is so high, but i think you missed in the list of project who deserve to get delegation @steem-bounty, if i am still in Steemit after HF20 is because of their service, am i wrong?
@steem-bounty certainly deserve at least a Top 50 witness position. But delegations are given to upvote people. To my knowledge there is no voting bot or curation project from @steem-bounty That's why I didn't mention it in my list.
If https://steem-bounty.com/services/forever starts a voting project for old undervalued articles, then that would certainly be something that deserve a delegation from Steemit,Inc
Clearly we suck at that. As a result we have a situation where all of the wealth is super concentrated. Out of a million users not even 300 reallly matter and if we had 10 million more that won't actually change.
The other relevant question that is specific for steem in my eyes is also how do we generate great content and support and attract content producers. Since we want to be a content platform.
We need more tech wizzard people thinking like you.
Life is unfair.
And non-linear.
We'll see what can be done using Oracles. Oracles coupled with an SMT can perhaps work better as it might be possible to build an ID system using an Oracle. Who knows what kind of value an effective content discovery token using Oracles could have.
How would an oracle solve ID?
You could use a face recognition system. If that's a privacy problem, then that can be solved by calculating a suitable hash function with the unique face information as the input.