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RE: Most promoted posts aren't profitable
I very much hope that promoted posts are never profitable. The ideal case for the promoted feature is to add value from external to the system, and not be a circle-jerk way to fight over the same rewards that are already here. For example, the other day the top promoted post was a thinly-veiled advertisement for a financial advisor. They wanted to buy visibility here and access to our eyeballs. The post itself had little valuable content and should not have been upvoted or rewards (and it mostly wasn't). I'm happy to see all this.
Not everyone looks at promotion in this way. @dollarvigilante almost always trends, has the most followers on steemit (2809), and still promotes his content, pricing everyone else out of the top spot. I can only assume he wants maximum coverage on each post to maximise its profit. He certainly doesn't need more eye-balls.
Minnows that don't have a lot to invest also might need to make a profit on the post. They struggle to get any kind of recognition for their work, which is why movements like the @robinhoodwhale and #curie exist.
If promoted content is all about eye-balls, we need a feature to show clicks on posts so we can determine if it's profitable. At the moment, there are few ways to check and then it comes down to feeling and guess-work, which is murky. I promoted this post after one hour and I've gained two followers; maybe I would have gained them anyway. If I could see the clicks, I could see the effect of promotion.
I actually agree that promotion isn't just about profitability of the post being promoted. This post was just to correct the conclusion in @furion's post, which everyone was happy to upvote. My feeling is his post was upvoted because it was positive about post promotion. Mine is negative, so now I face the wrath of the whale. It's this kind of behaviour that leads to circle-jerk. I could have easily faked the data and made it appear the promoted posts are the best thing since sliced bread. I bet that would have been upvoted to the moon.
I would suggest his solid rewards are not due to the promotion they are independent of it. He consistently got high rewards before the promotion feature was introduced. He still gets them. Not much has changed.
I suspect he just wants maximum exposure for himself, his personal brand, and the products that he sells, so in addition to rewards and trending, he pays to put his name on the top of promoted too. Good for him, I thank him and I hope for the sake of Steem's advertising revenue numbers that he continues.
From what I've heard @dollarvigilante brought a lot of users to steemit, which is great. If it sounded like I was judging him, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. My point was that it doesn't appear he needs to promote his brand further, but you disagree and that's fine. What's difficult is we can only make assumptions. All of this is hard to prove either way.
For sure he doesn't need to, but he wants to. Even if it is nothing more than vanity (and I see him as a smarter businessman than that), he's still our customer as long as he's paying for promotion, and I thank him for it.
Interesting and important questions can certainly be asked if this is still a novelty that hasn't worn off yet and if therefore the future means less promotion revenue for the platform. (Of course more users -- in other words, more eyeballs -- could increase the value of promotion.) I really don't know, but it will be interesting to see what happens