The Steemit PARADOX - Making: ¿Valuable Content Vs. Making Money?
I see a huge paradox on Steemit: feels like making valuable content, and making money, in terms of incentives, goes in opposite directions. Ill explain: Platform is made to be played in rounds: I post, i gain. I post, i gain, and there are two kind of players: whales and minnows. So players post eveyday /week / month in order to gain money.
So the paradox can be analyzed in rounds:
First round:
- The whale has strong incentives to post to make money, so he makes content knowing he will win.
- The minnow has strong incentives to post to make money, so he makes quality content expecting to win.
Second round (t +1, after publishing):
- The whale won more power and more money, now he needs less effort to gain the same amount in the next round. (The more steem power the more visible someone is)
- The minnow gained little or nothing after publishing, so he has less incentives to give same effort in the next round, hence, he makes poorer content.
Third round (t + 2, after re-publishing)
- The whale gained even more so he needs even less to gain the same amount in the next round.
- The minnow gains little or nothing again, so he have incentives chase whales content expecting to get some upvotes.
Fourth round (t +3)
- The whale gains even more (now that another little minnow is following him, commenting, etc.) knowing that it doesnt really matter the quality of his content... cus minnows will post and comment expecting his upvotes...
- The minnow luckily got something from the whale, so now he has no or very little incentives to create more of his own and original content.
Results:
Poorer and poorer content being rewarded in the platform, and no incentives to do great as a minnow.
So basiclly, Steemit incentives are not alligned into making valuable content, but into acummulating power.
I know there are whales making amazing content, but im talking about incentives (in general), and trying to explain myself what i see happening on the platform.
Am i wrong?
@ned, PLEASE TELL ME IM WRONG!!!!
Peace!
:)
This is interesting, I've been wondering the same thing about the incentives for quality content. In the faq there's a great emphasis on curation reward and relating it to quality. But I wonder how many people are voting out of a sense of good curation? It seems a lot more people are self voting, at least if they have a high SP. How can self-voting ever be seen as curation? I'm beginning to understand the math behind why people self-vote, but I would like to know the logic?
Yep, i dont know... Steem seems like a happy enthusiastic, friendly-based, giveme money community... For example, the two people below me: both agreed of what i said, they made an excelent comment, and they didint upvote my post... Why? Somehow people investing in Steem is not ready to be critique about Steem, and i understand, the more confidence and general approbe, the more it grows, the more money we make... But, without power, great content doesnt have a chance... and thats something worth to be fixed...
My vote seems pretty dusty I know, but it think it's important to vote for the content we interact with unless we completely disagree with it. Anyway, great to read your posts, I'll keep doing that! Happy New Year!
Same, man. Thanks and lets keep up :)
I follow your logic... This is indeed a very real paradox, so it seems... As active users that want good content, we need to be thoughtful in who we follow, who we reward and I believe even more important, interacting through comments (and of course upvotes when appropriate). I value the comments and interaction immensely. Even if I don't make anything off of a post (which I still don't as I am very new) if people comment I at least know that they are reading and value it enough to take the time to write back. The interactions keep me coming back, incentivize me to work on quality content and will hopefully keep me around long enough to make a little money on the side. So I say, it is up to those of us who want quality content to keep those posting it interested in do so
Yes... i think what Steemit really tries to attract is time... time people spends on platform. For that reason, people must find quality content in orden to give his time, incentives, and more filters, so people can really find cool accounts out there making something valueble for his following, thougthful comments (As you mention), nice advibe... Well, this is still on BETA, i hope many things will improve and i hope to keep finding nice and smart thougths like this!
Cheers!
Daniel.
True, but it doesn’t necessarily stop content creation in any way, And may even leave open a more open door for it. Much Harder for anyone without money starting Out, to make a living from it in any short time scale, but one can still just focus and be themselves. Most people can’t get paid to entertain/educate obviously. In a totally fair system, everyone that wants to make $100 a day, needs 100 people who are paying out an extra $100 per day. Steemit increases this because it’s a growing platform, but yeah, it’s an issue still, absolutely. Alx
https://steemit.com/steem/@alxgraham/good-content-i-s-n-o-t-w-i-n-n-i-ng
True and thanks for reading, Alx!
Hope creators find a way to give minnow's effort a better chance, and whales more incentive to keep up good work and, specially, curation.