RE: Hard Fork 21: A Case For the 50/50 Curation Reward Model
Far, far from an expert across this, but I suspect HF21 will work at first…for some.
For those who it doesn’t they may find themselves pushed aside quietly by matter of no comments or limited votes of worth and/or hidden comments. While it will represent a small hit to freedom on the platform it may be enough to show positive results if we are using immediate price of Steem as our only measurement of success.
It's important to note - I don't believe this will address the governance issues, it just shuffles and disperses it a bit. It will be a positive effect though I think.
My guess at the problems and what will happen
It’s likely those powerful holders behind the scenes will increase the upvote they are giving to whom they think are good content creators, so the people they deem good people won’t even notice the move to 50/50. Authors will still end up getting paid what they do today (odds favor it will actually be even more). It may have already started, anyone noticed your upvote starting to creep up (and I’m not talking $ value, I’m talking the amount of SP/SBD).
So based on that I think we can say it will be received mostly as a win.
This is moving the power from one or two perceived bad whales running bidbots, to a group of people whom truly believe they can send the price up by ensuring valuable content – in their view. Notably it also shifts the reward to them 50/50 encourages the bad whale bot operators to join them in the ‘not so much but still significant profit taking’ that comes from being a significant share holder that can impact your own dividend (upvote). I’m sure they will just automate the upvote process anyways, but the decision making will be made somewhat up front or delegated and manual .i.e. you won’t be able to use a blind bid bod like you can today.
The issue is one of governance.
This is because of the inherent conflict of interest. Whales, who are Witnesses, who are App creators, who are workers, who are consumers.
There are better ways I think, but those in the inner circle have to want it to be fixed - I just can't think of anyway that doesn't weaken their personal benefit.
I think its important to understand there are no wicked or wrong people of Steem, just people behaving as humans do - trying to make a buck or in some cases as much of a buck as possible. A good governance system disarms this by reducing conflict of interest.
I wish us all luck and hope for the best for Steem.
Cheers
Dear @lordnigel
Appreciate your comment.
Intersting point of view. The problem is that PRICE of token should not be measurement of success of any social media platform (Steemit in this case).
Why would anyone believe that current powerful stakeholders will change their upvoting behaviours?
Proposed system can only work if so called Whales would actually start delegating their Steem Power to quality curators. That would indeed allow those curators to be rewarded for their work and benefit entire platoform.
I'm simply afraid, that this will not happen. That at the end most whales will continue auto-upvoting publications of very few people, with their powerful votes and without putting any effort they will start earning x2 more than they did so far.
It surely would encourage them to slow down with powering down, which in effect would most likely bring up the price of STEEM. But that is the only positive outcome. And what would happen year from now, when those "whales" would start dumping this easily earned STEEM?
I wonder if you would agree with me on this one.
Yours
Piotr
Hi Piotr
I do agree with you - mostly
I'm trying to stay a bit positive - - In all of this we must recognize there are a number of good whales, Steemians & witnesses who are trying to do something to help Steem - allot of hours have gone into 'thinking this up' with good intentions. Effectively consulting with large groups of varied stake holders is a tough job really, most organisation's just chat to the 'key mover and shakers' hence it comes out in the wash bad.
I don't want to be too critical as many people do other good things for STeem as well, many are technical engineers or entrepreneurs who are very good at what they do.....just not good at creating a proper governance model though I'm afraid.
The thing is i just don't see any one who has cracked the governance nut here...and HF21 doesn't seem close to me, but I am noticing some changes I like.
Cool to see more interaction in posts like this (it's some consultation at least).
Starting to recognise and call out their own conflicts of interest (creating more transparent environment in a hope to build trust) - this is a very positive step. With enough good whales and self reflection there is some hope for STeem yet (but it will come from a governance system that reduces the conflict of interest and ability to influence the benefits)
Maybe HF21 will be the one which makes them see all the best intent in the world cannot prevents humans scheming for themselves - conflict of interest....tweaking technical things and putting in down-votes (which I am firmly against) etc isn't going to do it in my book, but its not just about me - you never know with a few other influences it might come out in the wash brighter.
...As I said they will upvote whom they think are good content creators. the people they deem good. I didn't say how they might make that decision (yes it's likely they will decide to make it themselves or alias accounts etc - whatever ensures they make the max buck).
The problem I have is I can't for the life of me find a perfect solution when I search my mind, so it's hard - - I have two key ideas, each has issues, but perhaps combined could produce a new source of governance. But what is being created here has never been done before - Very hard, especially now it's not greenfields.
Cheers
@Lordnigel