Saturday Rant!!! (Don't worry, if you miss this one, there will be more)
I have been having a discussion with one of my good Steemit friends, @glenalbrethsen in the comments section of someone's post about rewards, the SBD peg to $1 being broken, and the forcible (and very un-transparent) conversion of your post's SBD rewards to Steem at a rate that is far, far below market value.
To be exact, at the time of writing, Steem was at 1.87, so the conversion is at 53.48% of market value. In other words, approximately 15% of the SBD from ALL of your posts and comments is automatically converted to Steem. You don't have a choice in the matter. This happens even if you choose the 50/50 option at payout. And because of the way it's converted, you lose half of that converted SBD. That's at today's rates. As the market rates change, so do those percentages.
Here's my response to Glen when he asked if I was going to give my rant on transparency. You can find the discussion at it's original location here: Link to Steemit.com conversation <---- If you don't trust me, don't click this link. ;)
Source Unsplash
"This is not my rant [on transparency], these are just some unfiltered thoughts about things. I don't have an issue with the idea of rewards. I think it's a good idea as it is an incentive to produce more content which will draw people to use the site. If they can earn something by using it, they'll use it more. Unfortunately, sometimes people abuse that system, but there's not a lot you can do about that.
My issue is more that so much happens on the back-end and isn't seem by the general public. You pretty much have to have a computer science degree and have been here from the beginning to actually know what's going on. I'm a decently intelligent person who can figure things out, but there are so many special rules in Steemit that even I struggle to keep up. Add in the fact that it's a decentralized system with poor post visibility and even worse communication from the (seemingly disinterested) development team, and I'm wondering how long this thing is going to be viable. Seriously, I wonder.
I'm not giving up on Steem or Steemit, but I call out problems when I see them. Although personally I'm a positive person, I think it's important to call out the things that need to be improved, especially in business. Otherwise, they don't get fixed and everyone loses (well, people other than all of us win). I've said for years that I would much rather have someone tell me I have something in my teeth than have to find out on my own hours later. Id' rather deal with issues before they become huge things that can sink the ship.
Steemit has communication issues, customer service issues, development issues, and management issues. I believe that they need to take a more active role in developing a healthier ecosystem here or it will die. I think it's short-sighted and a disservice to their investors (and all the users) to not create a positive, balanced environment. I'm not saying that everyone should have equal SP, I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to let the fox eat all the hens. Not only will the hens be dead, but the fox will die of starvation too. I think it would be better for Steemit to take a more active, heavy-handed approach that does inhibit some individuals's freedom in the pursuit of a stable system. Once there are a greater number of larger accounts, they'll be able to keep each other in check. As it is, there are too few large accounts, and most of them seem to just be cashing in, not developing the community.
I would like to be on the cutting edge of things. There are a lot of other great options that are starting up. Yes, they're not as established yet, but if they take off, they could be worth a lot in the future. I'd rather spend my time on something that is going somewhere. I think I'm going to need to do more research about the competitors over the next month/two months and see if I can find a more viable option.
All of that being said, I don't really have an issue with getting SP as opposed to Steem. I think it's an intriguing concept to have "vested" Steem, which is what it actually is. They're x vests worth of Steem. It shows that a person is really committed to the community because they're willing to commit it for at least 13 weeks.
I do agree that it would be beneficial to have a larger volume of Steem being traded. That could help the market expand and for it to gain even more legitimacy. Focusing on the price too much is very short-sighted, but focusing on the fundamentals will help build a nice house on a solid foundation.
Having a de-pegged SBD is stupid. If it's not pegged, there's no reason for SBD. Without the peg, SBD is utterly and completely superfluous. Worse than superfluous, it obfuscates the real value of Steem. People equate the two so much together that they've been coupled for the last few months. They've been rising and falling in-step.
I think the witnesses should aggressively strong-arm it [SBD] back to $1 and put policies in place to keep it there, or they should get rid of it and do the rewards in SP and Steem.
It doesn't make sense to overpay people for articles because of the broken peg. It doesn't make sense to rob those same people of SBD to convert it to Steem without even outlining that. To not even show it in the payout portion of the post is wrong, just wrong. If it's telling me I got 10 SBD, I should have gotten 10 SBD, not 8.5 SBD and 0.9 Steem because of the disadvantaged conversion rate.
Post payout says that the reward was 11.69 SBD
Wallet says that payout was 10.013 SBD
Why don't they match?
Yes, math teacher, 1 + 1 = whateverthe$$$$Iwantittobe! And NO, I will NOT show my work!
*I added this part in for the post. Wasn't in the comment.
Ok, so there was a tiny bit of a rant on transparency at the end, but I'm going to leave it for now. I've probably already said enough to make a lot of people mad, so I'll just stop.
tl;dr
- Steem is cool, but needs improvement. Time is getting short as competitors enter the market.
- Steemit needs to be easy to use... without a computer programming degree.
- SBD needs to be pegged, or go away."
There you have it. I had some thoughts and wanted to put them in a more visible location so I'm not hiding my opinions back in some random corner of the Steemit universe.
My intention was not to offend anyone, I'm just getting tired of not knowing what the heck is going on! Hear me on this: "I want Steemit to succeed. I care. That's why I'm saying something, so we can work on fixing things before it's too late."
I'd be happy to hear your thought in the comments section below. You don't have to agree with me to comment. If history is an indication, I'll only get around 3-5 comments, so I doubt many people could get mad anyways. Ha ha
Oh, yeah, I hit 500 followers today. Yay for me.
That's all I have for now. I seriously do enjoy reading your comments, especially the nice ones, so please feel free to leave them below. I might even give you an upvote. Or cake. Or death.
Please enjoy this video from Eddie Izzard
Disclaimer: Were you not entertained? That's what this was for, right? We're all just dancing puppets? No, sorry, please come back for the next show. Your tickets will be comp'd, of course. Thank you for bearing with us. We didn't do this on porpoise. We don't want it to be a bird in the air, I mean burden to bare. Wait, bear. No, that's a fox. Sorry, actually it was just a sheep in fox's clothing. Sorry to so slothful about my comprehension. Did I buffalo my chance to make things better. Well, duck, duck, goose!
The burning question is....what kind of cake? (because you mentioned cake, so now what was all the rest of the article about? haha just kidding). It's unfortunate that there's the usual case of "a few people ruining it for everyone" going on and I'd be sad to see folks bail for the competition--yet it's understandable. I've seen some of the whale war posts, but for the most part I'm here for the community and writing experience (and cake) so I tend to ignore the financial drama. Maybe I ought to take more notice...
Good for you to keep yourself out of it. Especially if you're not here because of any financial implications, you have a lot better chance of "staying pure" of intention. And you don't have to worry about all the other garbage that goes on here. I like numbers, so even if I didn't care, I would still want the numbers to match. It's a quirk. :)
Hmmm, that's a tough call. I don't really discriminate when it comes to cake. I like vanilla, chocolate, cheese, seven layer, marzipan, birthday, wedding, Costco, you-name-it. I'd like to see if someone could come up with a type of cake that I don't like. If you know some obscure, weird ones, let me know and I'll tell you if I'd eat it. :P
Do you eat fruitcake? ;)
You'd better believe it! I can destroy a fruit cake. I can do the same to fruit without the cake. :)
I used to like cake a lot, but now I have a hard time with most frosting being way too rich. I generally like chocolate, as long as it's not triple chocolate where it's just too much chocolate.
I had a red velvet cake once that was the best cake i've ever tasted ever, but since I haven't been able to duplicate it, so I'm not sure what else was in it, but wow was it good.
I haven't had it in a very long time but pineapple upside down cake has been one of my favorites. And it's really hard to beat a fresh strawberry shortcake (as long as pound cake is not used).
I think I would rather eat pies, though. Not that I would choose death instead of cake, mind you. Fortunately, Death by Chocolate was not an option. :)
I get what you mean about it being too rich. I think the sugar content in sugar has gone up. Is that possible? :D
There are many great options with pie. I wouldn't mind pie either. Discussing pie and all of its merits was one of the first things my now-wife and I talked about. :)
"You like pie?"
"Yeah, you?"
"Yes, I do. Speaking of 'I do,' want to get married?"
"I'd love that... almost as much as I love you!"
Ha ha, I guess that's why I write fiction about cowboys and horses, not romance. :P
Maybe they've been measuring out Stevia instead of sugar. One little packet goes a loooooooooong way.
Now I need to know who started this pie conversation. :) In my case, it was my wife, though she denies it went down that way and had nothing to do with pie.
Actually, that's probably some of the best romance writing to ever be written in the history of romance writing.
Something I've never really understood. Why do we need romances? If someone likes them, what is that saying about their spouse, partner, special someone, significant other? I mean, I like watching movies with explosions, but then I don't go home and expect to see explosions. With romance, it's like the reader wants more than what's available. I don't see how it could be an escape and not a reminder of what they come to think they're missing out on.
I don't do artificial sweeteners. They mess with the bacteria in your gut. From what I've heard and read, it's basically steroids for the bad bacteria that want to grow in your gut. I'm pretty ok with plain flavors anyways. I'm a simple kind of man, as they say. ;)
Either one of us could have started that conversation. We both love pie and love each other.
I think romances are like looking at sports cars. Yes, you have a car, but look at how pretty/fast/new that car is. It's not necessarily wrong to dream, but if you're not thankful for what you have, you're always going to be dissatisfied.
Many cracks have formed on this platform, or maybe they were there already and the thin crust of community is wearing off. It seems the platform exists to be exploited however only a few can do so. I do not believe the platform is about community at all; That’s a fallacy. It seems not to be about quality content either. Maybe the community aspect is one which resembles the real world in which certain people excel at the expense of others.
Many cracks. Little transparency and much pool raping.
Seems like you had a much more concise way of saying the same things. I didn't want to get too much into any specific person's actions, but since people are going to act mainly in their own short-sighted selfish interests, at least until there's more of a checks-and-balance system, there needs to be more centralized intervention. Don't think it can happen? Look at all the SP that steemit has! Put some of that to use, and not to delegating to whales, have someone who actually runs the accounts and whose job it is to make sure the platform runs well. It could be their job. Or one of the founders could do it. Regardless, it's $50,000/ day in votes that could be used to help manage the direction of the platform.... even if that's only until it reaches a point of being able to self-manage/self-police. Your brother's Helsing idea is one that has a lot of merit. Haven't seen it getting discussed recently though. Don't think the ones in power want to give that up.
History shows us that those in power are reluctant to relinquish it and those that are on the fringes will do anything to attain it. Greed is intrinsic to human nature unfortunately and it seems to abound in the steemit platform. This is why I hate challenges and competitions so much. They are pitched under the guise of community and in support of lesser users however exist only to gain the organizer followers, votes SBD and eventually power.
If my brother ran the show things would be different however it’s not going to happen.
All you and I (people like us) can do is post, scrape a few SBD together and enjoy the writing experience. I’ve started to become more selective with my voting style in the last month. I also hate vote bots as they dilute the need for good content. I write now because I want to, not for SBD.
The platform is in deep trouble in my opinion. Content is poor with a great percentage of it regurgitated shit about crypto, steemit itself or memes and plagiarized crap and the upper echelon assholes see it as a bounteous harvest whilst the plebs and serfs lick at their boots hoping to taste some crumbs that fell there.
I think there's a place for challenges. I like the ones that get the newbies interacting with each other and learning how to be responsible Steemians. I know what you mean about the B&W "challenges" though. We talked about that before. "Take a B&W picture of a knife being thrown at you." That's a real challenge! ;)
Yeah, I'm not thinking that I'll get rich off of Steem. A friend told me about another platform that supposed to be coming out within the year that is supposed to be more like Facebook than this. Steemit was built as a competitor to Medium, which is a site of higher-quality articles. People have to pay $5/month to be on it, and the voting decides where that $5 goes. I think everyone has the same voting power. So you're likely to have a lot more quality people there.
The BS memes that have infiltrated Steemit are a plague. They can be funny, sure. There's a time and a place for them. I don't think it's here. I think that most of the apps should be kept separate from Steem. They can use the technology or have their own reward pool, but it should be different from Steemit. I don't want to see "tweets" on Steemit. "Going to the store"? I DON'T CARE!
I am taking it as a learning experience to work on my writing. I have discovered that I really enjoy writing stories. I also like getting feedback and even enjoy making money. Hopefully I'll eventually find a medium where that can happen. Until then, I work on my craft and enjoy getting to talk with folks like yourself.
I'd vote for your brother as president of Steem. Maybe that should be a thing. :)
I agree with all you said, and instead of the challenges designed to help new users being called that a more appropriate name could be found?
Anyway, I'm going to check out that site Meduim you mentioned. Sounds interesting. My other brother mentioned something about another site coming up so I'll keep an eye out for that also.
Anyway, thanks for your good reply.
I vote you up, now you follow and vote me steemit friend sir. Many love to you and your work very plenty nice.
:)
Ps. I'm just off to the store...
Having this post to comment on does feel much better than inadvertently commandeering someone else's, and since I was the one who spurred on that commandeering in the first place, I hope you don't receive any backlash on my account.
That said, I enjoy Eddie Izzard comedy clips every time I see them. Though, I've never understood the get up, and now I think I see him more in a traditional suit anyway.
So, I said in my reply to your latest reply on the post where this all started that I might have more to say here, but since a lot of it is what was already said over there, maybe this won't turn out so long. :)
Thanks for adding in the math, though.
The additional payment in Steem has been happening off an on now since the dip (this is the second time now). So, with the math, you're saying that because they're actually carving out another portion from the SBD value into STEEM, we're losing out.
But aren't we not also getting more in SBD, because it's currently valued more than $1 USD? That should hold true when converting to USD, since $1 SBD would be equal to whatever the market price of SBD is, which is currently $1.93 USD, or close to double what the Steemit system recognizes it as (pegged to the $1 USD).
That's how I thought it was explained to me and how I've been trying to explain it to others.
The point I'm trying to make is, if we want SBD to go back to the peg, then we should be less concerned about what's being paid out in SBD from the rewards on our post.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself, but you can tell me if you're understanding my question. :)
I don't think it will be an issue. I don't know that the author gets notifications beyond the first one as subsequent replies are to the other person's "post" and not the author's own. That being said, from what I've seen, Dragos is a standup guy, so shouldn't have an issue with it.
Yes, they're taking a portion of the SBD payout and turning it into Steem while assuming the SBD is valued at $1. I get that we're also getting paid as if SBD were at $1, so if we were due $10 in SBD from the rewards, we really only should get 5.4 or something, so therefore, we're still ahead of the game. The point is that all of this is happening based on assumptions from behind the scenes. It doesn't make sense to an outsider who has come in after all this stuff went crazy. There are patches on patches on patches. It seems like there's a lot of simplification that could take place. If you're going to leave it complicated, then show the math so the people without computer science degrees and 20 years of programming can understand it. If the post says I should get 10 SBD, why would I only get 8.5 SBD. Just spell it out. If you got change at the store and they shorted you $1.50, you'd want to know why the amount you received was different than what was on the receipt, right?
"Yes, we're getting more SBD than we should be. You should just be happy that you're getting extra. The amount you're "losing" is coming from the extra. Stop being greedy and just enjoy that you get any rewards at all." No one has said it yet, but they probably wouldn't be entirely off base if they did. Be grateful for what you do have, not upset about what you don't have. I get it. I try to live it. Sometimes I like the math to add up though.
I'm saying that SBD should go back to the peg, but while it's over the peg, we should still get the "correct" amount of rewards... and it should match the number that it says we're being given.
I think I understand what you're saying. :)
Actually, I think you understood what I was saying better than I understood what I was saying.
Do you follow buggedout? He has a post this evening that talks about SBD and the peg. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth looking at because the two of you are feeling the same vibes.
I'm with you all the way with the transparency thing. I think way too much is taken for granted around here, and I actually do know there's an attitude of, "It's better than what you'll get elsewhere so accept your shorted rewards" because they all but say that word for word anyone complains about the lack of rewards. It's their go to. Not so much from Steemit Inc—those guys prefer silence—but from people who have been here a while, including witnesses.
I just like information. It helps me make better decisions. It helps me organize my time. It helps me know if I'm actually wasting my time. So, the more I know, the better I function.
And I wholeheartedly agree about the patches. There was a comment somewhere else today that basically laid out that since HF 17, things have been rolled back and can pretty much be pointed to as creating a lot of the issues that exist. So instead of starting from the ground floor up, or going through the process of simplifying things, which sounds like it would take forever, especially now, they've just been adding one bandaid on top of the other.
I don't know about any of that. I just know that things could be and should be better. And they have to be if the masses they keep wanting to bring on board are going to make an honest go of it here.
I do follow him, but had been too busy ranting to read his article. I just read it and I think that it's inspired. I wouldn't bet against him, and I think that's the direction that we should be going.
I think there's a general air of superiority from some of those who have been around longer, or who know the inner-workings of Steem better than the average person. They also seem to be louder voices or larger personalities.
Like you, I like information. I like having a basis for my evaluation. Then I can make an informed decision, not just a wild shot in the dark. (It's illegal to hunt in the dark, isn't it?)
At this point, I don't think Steemit (or Busy or anything on the Steem blockchain) will actually be what makes it big. I think that Steem will be the long-term equivalent of AOL. It was sort of what started the whole thing, but now we've moved on to better since AOL wouldn't adapt, wouldn't listen to the customers' needs.
I'm not bailing or jumping ship, I'm just saying that I believe there's still a short window in which Steem can turn things around... but they're going to have to make changes. If those improvements aren't made, I can see some other platform/service reaching critical mass before Steem, and then Steem will fizzle. It could still carry on, but it would be another equivalent of what happened to Myspace. (Apparently that's still around. I've never heard of anyone who uses it though.)
It's definitely tough being first to market, and possibly second or third to market depending on how quickly you rushed in. I don't know how many blockchains are derived from similar, restrictive technology like Bitcoin, but it sounds like there could be more like Bitcoin currently then there are like Steem.
So, beyond what Steemit and the rest of the STEEM ecosystem is able to become, the underlying blockchain technology is faster and can handle more and keep going.
And, because you can build something on it, like Steemit, that creates an instant attention economy, even a basically two-year old beta version of Steemit, along with some fledgling d-apps, some of which aren't all that great yet compared to their established Social media counterparts, the utility is there and there's up to 65,000 of us active on the site daily. (okay, that may include a bot army.)
The way technology in this field is constantly changing and improving, I have no doubt that there will be something that could eclipse STEEM in the not too distant future. The biggest potential rival that I know of is EOS, at least in the short term, because of what it allows all blockchains to do. That said, though, the older blockchain technology isn't going to keep up with STEEM even with something on top of it, and if there's anyway to further improve on STEEMs performance, that will push things down the road even farther.
So, I think the window is probably a year or more, at the shortest, and all kinds of things can happen in that period of time, including hivemind/communities, HF20 and SMTs, all of which are supposed to be, in varying degrees, game changers.
Or, patches on patches on patches. Take your pick. :)
I would probably pay more attention to the situation if I could understand it better - as it is - it's a bit confusing to me - I just keep chuggin along building up my blog with content and hoping that over time I will build up a following readers - I would certainly like to earn more and would like to see a system where more of the rewards go towards my SP - but at the same time , I'm happy to be building up more SP and hoping over time as the price rises it will payoff in the end. Great rant!
Thanks for the feedback. I think a lot of people are in the same boat of just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately, when that happens, the thing that's most likely to stick is baloney slices. (It's clever because baloney is another way of saying garbage.) That's probably one of the reasons we see so much BS (baloney slices) getting thrown around.
Yeah, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep accumulating SP and that at some point it will be worth something. I don't know that I'm going to hold my breath for it. Buying and renting houses like you are is probably a better approach. ;)
really great analogies there .. excellent word play with B.S .. and also your points are spot on. I think rental income is the way to go - I hope to acquire some more rental units in the near future.
Always interesting to read about peoples’ opinion on the platform. Always learn from it and can use it to form my own opinion! I also always wondered why the whole payout sustem is so “vague” with missmatching numbers as you indicated. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and congrats on the 500!
I don't think it's a prize-winning article, but I hope that some people were able to get some perspective on something.
Thanks for the congrats. It's not really an accomplishment. Most of those accounts are bots or inactive people. I'd like to be able to force them to unfollow me (or at least not show as my follower) so that I can clean up the list some. That's ok, life goes on and I'm still getting to eat some delicious chocolate chip cookies, so life can't be all that bad. ;)
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Your rants are some of your best material I have ever read. I love the rawness, openness, and honesty of how things are. Yes changes need to take place to create more liquidity and volume for steem. Some of this seems to be intentional though for some reason because people have been barking about lots of this for many months and nothing has been done.
I'm not saying the team doesn't want things to change but maybe they are being very methodical and experimental with alot of this on purpose to see what sticks to the wall.