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RE: Will Steem succeed or commit suicide?
What if Steemit simply didn't show the curation/post rewards. If people didn't know how much a post was worth, would they upvote it anyways?
At that point, it would be more similar to Reddit (except you earn crypto, it's not censored and there are no adds).
Making the curation reward 'blind' would only deprive the general populace of insider information. Cliques of folks currently collude in timing their upvotes to capture the bulk of curation rewards, while sending the post on to the trending page. I have witnessed this happen, in a chatroom, where the timing was discussed.
The clique has to have enough SP to make the post trend in order to profit the most, but, in lesser form, this is exactly what MSP and other bot driven curation trails do.
The blindness only impacts those that are not in communication with the author, or for authors that aren't guaranteed to trend. Your proposal would not work for @sweetsssj's posts, for example, because her every post, no matter what the content, trends.
In order to continue to game the system with @sweetsssj, you only need to be able to curate her posts within the first 30 minutes, and this is relatively easy to do, even without direct colllusion, just by programming a bot to watch for her posts.
Very good points. Do you have any recommendations?
I do. Recently there have been a couple developments that hugely impact Steemit, and the rewards mechanism.
The SEC has announced that they have the authority to regulate cryptos, such as Steem, that are securities. Steem, since it's the basis for voting rewards, as SP, which weights VP, and thus determines how rewards are disbursed, is a security. Also, Steemit now has competition, or is about to, as @elfspice, a former Steemit witness (l0k1) has started Calibrae.
Most of the problems with user dissatisfaction with rewards on Steemit are due to the weighting of VP by SP. This weighting assures that the same factors that influence wealth throughout history (it takes money to make money) influence wealth on Steemit. There are other problems, but some of THEM stem from the influence of SP on voting, as well.
I have recommended that votes be equal, and that investors receive their gains as the price of Steem appreciates, just as they do for BTC, or stocks, bonds, and all other traditional investment vehicles. The mining of the rewards pool needs to end, and rewards need to be distributed to authors that are popular with folks, not just rich folks.
One whale vote can presently be worth more than 10,000 minnow votes. There is no way that the 'masses' will find this a fair system, and they will vote with their feet, since they can't vote with SP.
The reason the SEC matters is that only because VP is weighted by SP does Steem become a security. Were votes equal, or weighted (as I prefer) by reputation, the SEC would not have any authority to regulate - or prosecute - anything on Steemit. Since most of the Steem in existence was mined before Steemit even had users, and then Steem was offered to the public after those huge stakes were mined, those 'investors' may have trouble with the SEC, regarding offering securities to the public.
I don't want that trouble to come to Steemit. I don't think anyone does.
Calibrae is a HF of Steemit, which is designed to eliminate the stakes that derive from mining before Steemit was available to the public, and make some other changes that make it more fair.
It is the first Steemit fork to do so that I am aware of, it is just beginning, but it will not be the last.
Before Calibrae, Steemit really had no competition, and anyone that wanted to get rewards for posts had to come to Steemit, regardless if they thought it was fair or not. Calibrae is competition for that exact space, and either Steemit will be better received by the public, or it won't. There is now a market for this kind of social media, rather than only one choice.
As I said, Calibrae will not be the last Steemit competitor either, and those problems Calibrae fails to fix, someone else will, until we have an optimal platform (according to my basic understanding of economics).
Calibrae yet retains SP (or Juice, as @elfspice calls it) to weight VP, and I think this is a mistake.
However, we'll see.
More excellent points.
For what it's worth, I gave you a full upvote for this.
Likely the best reply I've read since starting steemit.
Ah, now I'm blushing! Thanks for your kind words =)
Great response. I've mentioned much of the same in my own post on the subject, but was told my post "doesn't even make sense" lol.
That would also be a great idea. Currently the platform users focus is making money, so why do you need the read articles - a bot is good. But if you want it to be good content a change is needed.