Decentralized rewarding - the cost of freedom

Friday night. Dead. But since I have no life, here I am. Steemlife. Anyway, enough about that, moving right along. Last night I was chatting with someone who mentioned how other platforms are rewarding and one can earn more and it can be more stable. Yep, this is likely true, for some users at least. For most? It would be interesting to see a depth of reward on the other platforms I think.

Like the sign up splash image says, get paid for good content which is great but, what many people seem to minimize here is the other side of that equation. On nearly all other large content platforms, the users are unable to directly reward content producers, at least not in the way Steem operates.

Of course, one has to have Steem Power in order to reward but, it doesn't actually cost to reward other content producers although, most factor in the opportunity cost of rewarding themselves. A lot. However, when one votes on someone's content it is not actually coming out of their own pocket, it just isn't putting more into their own pocket. Yeah, lots of ways to look at this but, not for this post.

40,000,000 rewarded in two years and despite all of the problems with the distribution of those rewards, for the majority, it has been the community who has done it, users who have stake and pull and can if they choose, reward other users. It hasn't run anywhere near perfectly but, I think many don't fully understand the implications of this. No centralized authority choosing who does and doesn't receive and, no advertising manipulators using mindfuck techniques for user attention and behavioural nudging.

As shit as the Trending page always has been, there were no algorithms to sort it to make it so. It is shit because we choose it to be shit, one way or another. However, it isn't the way it is because the drive for advertising revenue has altered the algorithms to drive centralised authority-chosen content and users to the front page like it does on every other platform. It is users who control where their vote goes here which means, it is users who control who gets rewarded. Of course, this means some maximize their own reward by selling their vote but, it is the user who chooses to do so.

On that splash page it says "Your voice is worth something" which people take to mean the content one posts can be rewarded but, it also implies that your vote is worth something. We often phrase this as influence but it can also be reframed as your voice, and your ability to add it to affect the value of something you like, or dislike if you choose to flag.

The way it is framed in the advertising material is all about the reward for the individual user joining up, not for the value and effect their voice has within this community. Many do not realise that their votes have directly affected the lives and well-being of other users. On Facebook, people give a thumbs up or change their profile picture in support of something, whereas here we can actually add real-world value to something. Rather than passive empathy, it is active compassion.

Of course, this isn't a charity though but if you consider on a platform like Youtube, how much effect does a single user have over the rewards that a content producer has there? Let's say you find some brilliant content that you believe is high value but has very low views, what can you really do about rewarding the poster? Patreon closes this gap to some extent by being able to reward directly but, it is literally directly, straight from the credit card.

Steem has a pool and owning Steem Power to reward, no matter the real world value doesn't need to be sold or given away to reward other users, it draws from the pool. Unfortunately this also means that it can be used in purely selfish ways too but, slowly, slowly and through various means still to come, distribution will spread and in time, there may be a large collective of active users who raise voice to choose what is worth their vote.

Yeah, I know, I know, there are a lot of problems with the ways this all works but again, it comes down to the users here, not the actual code. This is a cost of decentralization and empowering users because human behaviour comes into play rather than the organised and controlling wishes of the centralized authority. The whole idea of a decentralized community is very idealistic, but if we ever want to be able to actually have decision making power over our own lives, necessary. This takes responsibility.

More and more we trust others to tailor our world view for us by choosing what we see in our feed without thinking about whether this is what actually has value. We get it fed to us for free and think we are getting a good deal but, nothing is free. What we are paying with is our changed behaviours.

What this means is that we give our time, we feed the system, content is chosen for us that we consume and then, we buy, we act, move, vote, something. We don't feel the manipulation but it is most certainly there. The content and the people producing it aren't actually the focus, they are just the hook and are disposable if they don't deliver, if they aren't good enough bait to sell whatever the real product is and buy what the authority wants, our attention.

Yes, we are the product as it is our data, content and attention that is sold to the real customer, the advertisers who use it to then create the changes in our behaviour to meet their goals, whatever they may be. Change is the core product, our change. There is nothing wrong with change but when we do not even realise how affected we are by their manipulations, where will it lead us?

Steem takes out middlemen, the intermediaries between provider and client and creates a direct relationship between not only the content but, the reward of that content. In essence, it is a honest trade where one has something the other wants and is wiling to pay for it. Sure, one can consume without paying but if they want to keep getting it, they best support the creator so they can keep providing.

I don't watch many TV series anymore and one of the major reasons is that I might find a show I like but after a season or two, it is pulled. Not because it is a bad show necessarily but, it doesn't appeal to the demographic the advertisers are wanting to target. If it is a show that doesn't pull in consumers, it doesn't attract ad revenue. If a show isn't a vehicle to drive advertising revenue, it is useless to a centralized space seller.

Would this change if users could directly fund it? Yes, at least sometimes as we have seen with a few high profile mass funded projects but, it isn't the norm. The internet has been set up to be consumed for free and driven by ad revenue which means the average user has to rely on the average users to affect what survives or not. Although many think free is a good deal, the price is actually much higher than we would pay otherwise. There is a reason that billion and trillion dollar companies are built upon the sale of our information.

On Steem we have a chance to build a system that puts the value back on content producers of all kinds and empower ourselves to be the ones who choose to reward them, rather than some company who has sold a position to an advertiser. We get to choose what remains free for everyone by supporting some content while we get to choose who is a star without them being put their and shilled through deceptive measures to place products in our eye line. We get to choose how much responsibility we take and how much we are willing to invest into the world we create.

On Steem, where we put our attention is our choosing. You'd be surprised how rare that actually is on the internet. Information is not free, there is always a cost. And if you aren't paying it directly, it is being extracted by other means.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]