Great Steemit’s Drama – Dan VS Ned/Whales VS Whales VS the Rest and What it Means for Steem
Steem’s soap opera
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I recently realized that Steem is a very fun to watch soap opera. It’s only natural that on social platforms people socialize right? Well and when people socialize, they from time to time disagree with each other. When one disagrees with an employer he can go fuck and fuck himself. When one disagrees with the way the democratic system is going he can cast near to useless vote and basically do the very same thing. When though disagreement happens on Steem, shit gets interesting. Don’t get me wrong. This article will not be only about making fun of it all. I will (as always) try to create a constructive feedback/criticism. I can’t tell now what the outcome of the text will be really…
Dan vs Ned
![DQmNn22vuGT3p3jqgSrTGZ4GReY3q4gCqbbmJxEwUaK6KSr_1680x8400.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmdtpcW6NkdtbJYGXf9nukD6zrdSCAESTaF3aWHVBJatb3/DQmNn22vuGT3p3jqgSrTGZ4GReY3q4gCqbbmJxEwUaK6KSr_1680x8400.png)
I pledge that I will try NOT TO aggrandize. I might say fun things, I might say stupid bullshit from time to time, but I will try my best not to aggrandize, since it recently became very valid reason for flagging and my aim is to get filthy rich here, not downvoted to hell of course.
Guys I have no idea what has happened behind the curtain. No one actually does. All the information that reaches us are only bits and piece of the truth. This is though what I made out from it all. None of them has been able to say “Ok guys I fucked up by doing this”, while both of them had done some questionable moves. I do not take sides lightly…
Dan
![DQmTPqNkuwc56tJmGCEVdgs8WX9Ss9LTwrTyJ2X2Vr5531c.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPfAgE4GuPXxHLnRxGQWTLEjSpsuU1RWQszTq8zFrz7Rf/DQmTPqNkuwc56tJmGCEVdgs8WX9Ss9LTwrTyJ2X2Vr5531c.jpg)
Dan
- Hasn’t done any “visible” mistake
- Ned claims that he has plenty of “evil” stuff he has done in his records and Ned currently plans to reveal them upon his death (please do not be way too curious:)…)
- He’s left Steem because he’s believed there were some unfixable problems
- Currently uses his stake to support comments on his posts and posts about EOS promotion
- Never fears to criticize algorithm of any given platform his creations compete with
- He is now full time committed to EOS which is for sure a technological powerhouse.
Ned
- Currently controls over 51% of Steem thanks to Dan and is ACTIVELY USING IT
- He delegated a lot to @dtube, @dmania, @dlive, traveling sweetie… (probably even to other platforms and users…can anyone update?)
- He is using the rest to vote and flag on will (well known for self-voting his own comment to 2k bucks and flagging post that has declined payout)
- Claims that Dan is not as righteous as he pretends to be, but provides very vague arguments in support of his claims
So basically Dan is more or less minding his own business, working on EOS trash-talking different algorithms (in a scientific way…he provides a strong arguments for his statements, it’s just my knowledge is a bit too vague to make an educated opinion about that.
On the other hand Ned is obviously trying to help the Steem in numerous ways. He has contributed a lot of power to streaming and YouTube-like platforms. @dlive for their services though demand your posting key (which is a valuable commodity for those that don’t realize it). That leads to situations that can be deemed as centralization or plain abuse. Traveling sweetie is then selling votes that are strong due to the delegated power. At least @dmania supports creation of memes - I have plenty of them at my disposal and I will not be afraid to use them. At the same time he upvotes himself to a value that most of the users will never be able to reach on the platform and is flagging votes that declined rewards, or @berniesanders who is right now one of the only whales that fucking cares about the reward pool (will get there soon). I do believe that he means to do good for Steem, I truly do! I don’t think that he has thought out the impacts of his actions well…But I may be very well wrong. Got an opinion Steemians? Share it!
Whales VS the rest
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And now onto the other matter of the Steem’s soap opera. I have been a member for about a year, and this has been an evergreen ever since then (probably even prior my entrance really). “Whales have too much power”, “We don’t receive anything for our hard work” etc. Everyone here knows it well I guess. Now let me tell you what I think about it.
This is fuckin biology, life, game theory…call it how you will. It is impossible to create system where the distribution would be so “fair” to give everyone significant portion (would it even be fair? I don’t think so). Every non-socialistic/communist system will have wealthy and poor members. That simply is life. We should look at the greater good here. It is because of those evil whales that poor users can profit from the system. The system wouldn’t have any value whatsoever, if there were not millions of dollars flowing in. And guess who can afford to make such a huge contribution to the system. Well of course the whales. And for that they definitely deserve to have bigger power than all of us that only bring content to the table. Content is nice, important etc., but without the money flowing in, it would be content worth of few cents. The mere existence of whales is not evil. Actions of some of them are…
![U5dsAJTjASwunBD7Adw3DtmQAmPpbB8_1680x8400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmYq9Bor4pQn13DRzSNUtiiE26G62ayeA8zvnfeqpzP9ip/U5dsAJTjASwunBD7Adw3DtmQAmPpbB8_1680x8400.jpg)
Whales VS Whales
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There are sort of good and sort of bad whales. Let me elaborate. There are whales heavily concentrated on short-term business plan and then there are those that are heavily concentrated on long-term business plan. Short-term means multiplication of tokens as much as possible and long-term means sacrifice the ability to multiply the tokens more in an effort to increase overall value of the platform (therefore the value of the tokens).
The problem is that concentrating heavily on multiplication of tokens usually goes hand in hand with “bad” moves for Steem. That is why we see the same users on the trending page and that is why we see so much reward-pool-raping. It simply is profitable. It does make the new tokens go in your way.
The good whales then concentrate mainly on rewarding poor users (looking at you @sdnbox :P). That is super important of course, but we also need to adress those that are gaming the system. The flagging whales are then mainly punishing non-whale users. It is a good strategy because minnows and dolphins are not capable of returning fire, but it is not what the platform needs.
![DQma8LABJe8ScbJBbkT4SR6hGosUPMm68w2JK8Vg6Fesskm.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQma8LABJe8ScbJBbkT4SR6hGosUPMm68w2JK8Vg6Fesskm/DQma8LABJe8ScbJBbkT4SR6hGosUPMm68w2JK8Vg6Fesskm.jpg)
The Steem is broken and awesome at the same time. Users like our greatest crypto analysts can wreak havoc on the platform. They can plainly steal thousands of dollars DAILY while no one, but the whales can do anything about that. Well the wealthiest whales are fighting their own battle (minding their own business or upvoting their comment to 2k bucks, while none of them is “pure evil” type of whale) while most of other whales are busy seeking the best multiplication-of-tokens-method. That leaves @berinesanders and @transisto (maybe even some others, but they definitely don’t really try to make their moves visible) to battle horrendous amount of whales that are damaging Steem by their actions or mere inactions. At the same time SMT is coming, so many physical and virtual projects are being created thanks to Steem Blockchain (and @sndbox...check us out!). So many good articles are being created every day and Steem has become one of my main information sources out there because of that.
![U5drEcq7kLDp8vMzvRrRHp13wY1NmLi_1680x8400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQWxm5EeTNJYT4xvTpr21eyMHu6o9J9vfjFoJpQWYs3M7/U5drEcq7kLDp8vMzvRrRHp13wY1NmLi_1680x8400.jpg)
We need the Whales to address abusage of other whales. We NEED the whale-wars, because no one else can stop the abuse of whales anyway. Linear rewards are great and pain in the ass at the same time. They do allow easy reward pool rape and that can ONLY BE STOPPED BY FLAGS. The strength of flags count though. Please whales, address the abuse and let us – the poor ones – choose our battles and fight spam and shitposts.
![U5drTC5fmfpp1ZyMyJGkjo512c4FLLy_1680x8400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQma9gTG2jq1mpQjWoFuEh1QvGe3weAx3JPLwF66MHbKNeA/U5drTC5fmfpp1ZyMyJGkjo512c4FLLy_1680x8400.jpg)
Conclusion
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Steem in its current form (linear rewards) is IN DESPERATE NEED OF FLAGS. We don’t need Ned and Dan to fight their own war. We don’t need whales concentrating only on puny accounts that are trying to earn few dollars here and there by spamming or copy-pasta posts. We need to choose the battles wisely. Ordinary users need to battle abuse of ordinary users and whales need to address the abuse of whales. We should not blindly believe that everything is love and roses here. The platform can very well collapse (meaning its market value) when the Altcoin bubble falls off. We shouldn’t think that Steem has reached a perfect form or anything like that. We shouldn’t rest on ones laurel’s since Steem is close to its ATH. The job is FAAR from complete. If we want Steem to work and prosper, we should at least think about what I have just said. If you have done just that and disagree with me please do share your arguments? Don’t fear to argument in comments. Will definitely not flag you for that:D.
![U5dtbLWrGxCQUP1YSBNAbSACqMvZR7i_1680x8400.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmPgam8vk9e33NaFysYLgpCRSDEqNAbqN39EKhUvA9CbdW/U5dtbLWrGxCQUP1YSBNAbSACqMvZR7i_1680x8400.jpg)
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmP5UjMYs2Etq5LHZni4QASouDxH6cCSTHTFuLJr6Tvtzx/follow_fingersik.gif)
Ok... you lost me, when you wrote that the BS guy is helping the blockchain. Sorry, but how is it possible to see it this way? Writing posts with no content and just swearing and calling people names, while indulging in flag wars and buying horrendous amounts of upvotes through bots to promote the swear posts, shutting other users up by threatening and flagging them, is helping STEEM in which way exactly?
Do you also believe, that Kim Jong Un is helping the people in North Korea?
Agreed. I never said that I do like the way he is addressing the problem. I merely tried to convey the fact that he is ONE OF THE ONLY ONES that actually do so. He has saved TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS from being raped by various users.
What you are missing though is that he has already sacrificed tens of thousands of dollars himself in order to do it. I don’t find the fact that he wants at least some short-term profit so disturbing.
I have never said that i support all his moves and that I like the way he acts. The truth is though that he guards the reward pool from abusers. I also was not afraid to speak up against him when i thought it was important and I never was flagged. I guess it depends on more factors than just "you are against you’ll get destroyed". Maybe it’s about the attitude the users display.
You kinda showed that you tend to look at things as black or white. You could try to think about that bias and maybe try to remove it. Have you even finished the article? Might be you are missing an essential point:)
What I'm missing is the proof of this claim, that BS has saved thousands of $ from reward pool rape without causing the same amount of damage otherwise.
For me, getting upvotes on flame posts without content is the definition of reward pool rape.
What I'm seeing is censorship and the inability of communicating without threatening people and flagging them. What I'm seeing is reward pool rape through power plays in it's purest form.
Please enlighten me and show me the white side of this behaviour, that I couldn't find over the past weeks. Yes, I understand game theory and the possibility of a system to self-correct and self-heal.
I only think, that you are treating the virus as the healer.
(...and I'm not taking sides here - because in my opinion, it's not the flag wars that will save this platform, but starving the viruses to death through taking away attention from them and putting it on things that are healthy - and yes, in this spirit, I have already written too much about these viruses and should focus on other things instead...)
One final thing: I am totally aware, that you were not endorsing and following anyone blindly and have your own thoughts and deeper reflections on things. That's why I'm talking to you here and not to BS or any other of these cyber bullies. I know, that this is only one part of your post, that is triggering me. ...and hey, for the rest: great job! 😀
Understood. I won’t dig for proofs in the Blockchain. I’ll try to objectively sum up what has happened in last few months.
SB can remove roughly around 200 dollar upvote from a post at highest strength, which is approximately 400 dollars on average (due to SBD) during the time since I keep myself updated.
I will only mention the 2 biggest ones because i want to go and play some Atlas:P.
He has crushed someone called earthnation who has been selfvoting himself 2-3 times per day with 150 dollar vote. SB has been downvoting him for 2 weeks before earthantion stopped. That was around 6 300 bucks saved (NO SBD pump back then) + the amount taht would be stolen if he allowed earthnation to continue.
SB has been downvoting our analysts every post for about 2 months during the biggest pump of the Steem and SBD ever. BS has saved roughly around 7 500 dollars DAILY (counting in the SBD). well... do your math:P
On the other hand he has censured some anti-vaccination posts (did not agree with that regardless of what I think), and he has had some problems with some minnowbooster folks and has been heavily punishing them. I remember techslut in particular who has written a response that very much sounded like "you are retarded and doing a terrible mistake" (not accurate of course) which has led to complete stomp.
From my point of view she was the perfect example of "how not to behave with BS". That is why I said in the article that one has to choose his battles wisely and if talking with BS use only highly logical argument and no plain offensive moves. She did not deserve to be stomped that much but at the same time crying to everyone after saying something that could have been very much understood in the way I outlined is simply mistake. Knowing BS he has definitely taken it as an offensive act.
Overall as I said I hardly support all of his actions, but the guys that got stomped would hardly ever be able to create so much value for Steem as has been saved by his flags (this is just an assumption, but the amount of money taken away from analyst is just SOOO HUGE MAN...SOOO HUGE). No other whale has done that, because they knew that the analyst is firing back…BS didn’t give single fuck.
Thus said "virus” is a bad metaphor. "Bacteria" would be better. Some bacteria are causing damage, but at the same time they are very much needed. I think that every whale that would fight with flags would be considered as "virus" by huge amount of users that wouldn’t want to seek what has actually happened.
I think that starving the viruses will not work, since viruses are some whales, and they are the ones ignoring us while accumulating as much Steem as possible...ignoring them means given them space to game more rewards from the system.
Anyway this is it for me…Toooo much writing today:) I need to wind up, but at the same time I didn’t want to disappoint you by ignoring you:P.
Still, is one of the few people who takes action against the abusers. How he does it might not be the best way, but it's a lot better than taking no action.
Probably the longest article I've ever read on Steemit, the one which has the most truth nuggets, and the one who gives you a pretty fair amount of hope and then crushes all of that times and times again.
I feel like we are all outside the casino where the whales play and relax all day. It's the same thing as in life, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Not trying to complain, just trying to point out that this old truth is true in Steemit's case again.
Thank you for your work @fingersik. Our only hope is to see Dan's platform launch and hopefully that will spark the need to take action from some big important players around here.
Thanks I’m glad you gave it the time it needed and shared the love with me:)
Very interesting metaphor! But yes since Steemit is based on a Game theory (and therefore evolution) and capitalism, it cannot go any other way. We just need to make peace with it and find our places where we can bring additional value and increase the stake of everyone else...or the very opposite?:)
I for one would like to see action prior to the rise of the competition for the sake of my stake:D
If that happens before Dan's launch Steemit might have a chance. If it doesn't we might see massive movement to his new one. BTW is there a launch date announced? I couldn't find anything about it
Agreed. No not yet. As far as I know he has just recently decided to create a direct competition of Steemit. It was supposed to be moved to EOS just few months ago.
Lol it's amazing how funny and serious this post is at the same time. I think the best stance I've found so far on @ned and @dan is, guys sweep aside your differences. And a little competition never hurts anyone. But then again from the look of things EOS isn't a little competition, is it?
Hehe thanks I take that as a compliment :P. You are very correct it is a HUGE competition. Steem still has time to make necessary changes in algorithm and behaviour though in order to compete with EOS at least on some parts. We after all do not need to compete with the WHOLE EOS right? Just the blogging platform that will be created there by dan.
Exactly. Maybe EOS a bit over Steem, and Steemit a bit over whatever platform dan's working on.
yes excatly that
Oh, I am happy that my vote is still counted even though it came so late. I had so busy days lately that I could not give the article a full read until now. It is indeed a good article, congrats!
I was curious, @ned said that he will take back his 2k vote, didn't he took it back?
Yop so have I.
I was told by someone not long ago that he has already removed those delegations yes (i didntt searchfor proof). The fact that the delegation was there and was abused remains whatever the reality is now though.
I do think there are some issues on this platform, and only whales and witnesses are the ones that can fix them. But since all of this is very new, I suppose some people are still analyzing this and deciding what are the best actions giving the circumstances. I think that for this platform to succeed the abuse must be stopped or at least highly reduced, which will probably happen eventually. But as you say, this is something that must be done by whales, not by smaller users.
Don't forget all of this is still in beta, and the development of steem is probably advancing like crazy.
Sure no worries I’m aware of the fact that we are still in BETA. Crypto though is a very adaptive environment. Being stubborn and not evolving can mean instant loss of value due to rising competition:) But you’re are very tight that deciding what the best actions are is rather tricky.
I FLAG YOU. dont worry , it is a fum. ha ha ha
Well I still am awaiting the day when Ill be flagged for the very first time:P Lets hope it will not happen anytime soon:D
Ooh no the drama :0
See guys this the truth you have been posting great things and nobody is liking your post,steemit is more than posting we have to work together i like your post you like mine lets grow together add me up@nehemiah9
See guys this the truth you have been posting great things and nobody is liking your post,steemit is more than posting we have to work together i like your post you like mine lets grow together add me up@nehemiah9