Hard Fork 19 may have just saved Steemit from being a victim of it's own success.

The recent changes to the coding on the blockchain has just leveled the playing field and quite possibly put Steemit on a path to permanence.

A few days ago, I wasn't so sure.

Let me explain.

I've been trying to wrap my brain around the recent fad of whales, or consortium's of whales and dolphins, in selling their upvotes for some quick Steem Backed Dollars (SBD). The more I thought about it, the more I saw this flaw as Steemit's Achilles heel.

I fear, if left unchecked, the whole platform of Steemit will go from being a "meritocracy" where quality content matters to just another infomercial with paid advertising. In the end, a few making some quick bucks at the cost of the greater community will cause Steemit to collapse under the weight of yet another "pump and dump" cryptocurrency.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, I COULD BE WRONG, but what if I'm not? Are we willing to allow short-sightedness to destroy something that is, quite frankly, going to revolutionize the world? I certainly hope not. I hope we all can see the bigger picture and strive for doing what is right by the community and not just what is right for us right now.

The whole purpose of curation is to ensure that the best content posted gets the greatest esteem. Hence, the meaning behind the name of Steemit.

Curation power is divvied up between Whales, Dolphins and Minnows. It's no coincidence that the power of their respective upvotes is proportionate to their relative real life size. I believe the concept of distributed weight of voting power is one of genius. Ideally, those with more vested interests(whales, then dolphins) will tend to care for the quality of the community more than those who have just shown up to the party (minnows.) So, when a whale upvotes your post, it should mean that you have written something that brings great value to the Steemit community. At the least, the whales should have personally found your post to be of value. The same standard goes for dolphins, though their "opinion" doesn't matter as much as their larger mammalia cousins. Lastly, the minnows. Their opinion on what constitutes quality content carries as much weight as their size suggests.

The upvote should mean something.

It should let others know that your post is worth investigating. If upvotes can be bought regardless of it's content, then the whole system can come unraveled. The following is what the co-founder of Steemit thought in regards to what kind of behavior should be rewarded:

We all want Steem to succeed and that means recognizing everyone's contributions and rewarding the behaviors that maximize the value of the platform. These are the behaviors that we want to reward:

1. Showing up every day
2. Identifying quality content first
3. Quality Discussions on high payout posts
4. Building Reputation on a Single Account
   In addition to rewarding these behaviors we want the interaction with Steem to be fun. Dan Latimer

I even used one of the upvote services myself, trying to understand how it works. Now that I've wrapped my mind around it a little more, I don't think it's a good idea in the long run.

Not that I'm against the free market. Nor am I against people using their own resources to make better lives for themselves. That's all fine and dandy. What I am against is people in positions of authority, people entrusted with those positions of authority, using those positions to benefit themselves at the expense of the community as a whole. As a side note, I don't in anyway insinuate that those who are getting paid for their upvotes are intentionally trying to harm anyone. I just think they are not thinking about the "big picture."

A good analogy would be the United States political system. Politicians are elected by their constituents to represent them and their interests in Washington, D.C. Once they get there, however, they get bought off by Lobbyists. Lobbyists pay the politicians to cast their votes for the programs that will directly benefit them. The politician knows which hand is feeding him/her more and will act in the interests of those lobbyists, even when it hurts the people that put him/her there in the first place. In essence, they are given authority and responsibility to do good on behalf of their constituents, but end up doing well for themselves. At the end of the day, the whole society suffers from this behavior.

Is automatic upvotes and paid voting services doing the same thing? I think in some ways, yes, they are. What do my fellow Steemians think?

Back to my initial point: How has Hard Fork 19 leveled the playing field?

Minnows are now able to gain meaningful payouts without the previously essential upvotes of their more powerful Steemians. Less influential users who were once willing to pay for upvotes in order to gain some immediate tangible success may no longer feel the need to do so.

I could be wrong (and often am) but I believe HF19 will eventually relegate the use of these pay-for-upvote services obsolete.

What say you?

Thanks for reading!

As Always,