RE: A Possible Cure For Steem?
"I was thinking about all the small-time users who are just trying to earn a few dollars but are not investors. If they lose hope of ever becoming a whale, they are likely to pull out."
Note that you said "but are not investors." That's typical of small-time users - they usually don't buy into the platform at all. This is partially because they are "lookie-loos", but also partially because that first deposit is by FAR the hardest - you have to, at least, have Bitcoin at the ready.
Even the moderators who chat all day in the Minnow Support Group, post a lot, do contests, etc. Most of these people have 500 SP or 1000 SP.
So, most small users aren't investors. They can't "pull out" because they've put nothing in.
In other words, they can't crash the price of Steem because they, collectively as a group, do not have a significant amount to sell.
Now, between myself and my investor I sold on the merits of Steem as a capital investment, we have put in some $150,000 and hold around 110,000 SP. If we decided to dump it all on an exchange, we could actually move the price. Unlike the minnows.
So, that was sort of the point of my question. Minnows can't really sell out because they never bought in.
"If they lose hope of ever becoming a whale, they are likely to pull out."
I don't think many people think that you can become a whale on Steem without buying in. The window for that is over, unless you treat this like a legitimate full-time job and you have natural writing / communication gifts.
Frankly, if we lose people who are in it only to become a whale with no investment, I doubt we lose much.
"That might scare off the other small-time investors that buy only small amounts of Steem, but because of their numbers, they start a crash."
As noted above, I don't really think there are enough small-time investors with substantial stake to make this an issue.
Bonus - 13 week power down substantially reduces the ability for people to "dump" Steem. It's one of the main reasons I advocated Steem as a crypto investment for non-content creators.
You do have a good point here since 90 % of Steem is held by 1% of the population. When one puts actual figures onto a subject, it becomes much more clear than anecdotal ideas. But that is just our current situation. As Steem goes mainstream, can you see that ratio remaining constant or is it possible for the massive number of new people to actually become a significant portion of the entire value of Steem?
Agreed, that the 13 week power-down is a very smart idea. It also provides some security in case of a breach. I'm beginning to read of cases where people's accounts with other currencies are being emptied in a matter of minutes.
I've seen many posts about newcomers stating how they are dreaming about becoming a whale. If these people are all just dreamers and after realizing their hopes have been smashed, they leave the platform and only the serious investors are left. What happens to the demand for Steem? The serious investors must either have unlimited amounts of fiat money to keep buying Steem, or the demand dies and with it the value of Steem. What keeps the value propped up? In my mind, it needs the mass hysteria of the general population to keep the token in the limelight and create the demand. After all, there is no real inherent value to Steem, it is just a number held on a ledger. It is PERCEIVED value and that is created by belief. Remove the belief and the value is gone. It almost seems like a casino game... many must lose in order for a few to win. Within the Steemit community, who are the many? Probably all those small-time investors.
Thanks again for bringing your perspective into this discussion. It has really broadened my perspective on this token.
By the way, if distribution was more wide, I think it would be better. I also sympathize with what your intentions are regarding making improvements.
I actually have a totally opposite idea that would make all votes generate the same amount of rewards for both the voter and the target. The idea would be to implement a sort of "stake-based universal basic voting income" for Steemit that would remove all incentive to self-vote.
This would hopefully bring that which benefits the community most in line with the optimal game-theoretical choice for applying voting power.
If everyone self-votes by default (we'll call it a stake-dividend for voting participation), then we're back to strong curation making more rewards than "abuse", or self-voting, would.
It would also probably cut down on a lot of spam posts that get self-upvoted...
Thanks again for all your valuable insight. I'm intrigued by your thoughts on voting, but I don't understand how it would work.
If the voter votes on them-self, they are the target and get both halves.
Well, yes, technically speaking. ;)
Of course I was planning to include some simple logic to prevent this:
IF {Vote.Target} = {Self} THEN Forfeit (burn to @null) {Self.Reward}.
This would render self-voting completely pointless, as it will provide fewer net benefits than voting for anyone else. Anyone silly enough to do it, however, will be helping slightly improve the value of Steem by reducing inflation (forfeiting half their voting power).
Finally, the divide between what is in your personal best financial interest, game theoretically, and what is maximally best for the community (quality sharing/curation) will be gone.
The maximally socially beneficial thing (voting on quality posts) will be the maximally beneficial thing on a personal level.
It's like applying the ideas of Capitalism over Communism to Steemit. Communism's problem has always been a kindergartner's understanding of basic human motivation.
Let me see if I understand this correctly:
Your idea is to have everyone self-upvote their own articles automatically on publishing, however if they self-vote their own comments, they lose half to null and it goes back into the reward pool. When they curate someone else with an up-vote, they use the same vote-weight calculation as now, except that half goes to the up-voted person and half goes back to the curator?
In that case, I presume there would no longer be a need for the 75%/25% split between curators and authors? The split would now be 50/50 but without the complications of the half-hour penalty and who voted first?
This does seem to address the self-voting issue and would also possibly provide greater rewards per up-vote (if the slider is removed). However how would flags be treated? Will might still be right? In other words can someone totally destroy someone of lesser SP with just a few powerful flags?
If the slider is still employed, then can everyone expect to see their earnings reduced by that extra 25% that goes back to the curator?
"Your idea is to have everyone self-upvote their own articles automatically on publishing, however if they self-vote their own comments, they lose half to null and it goes back into the reward pool. When they curate someone else with an up-vote, they use the same vote-weight calculation as now, except that half goes to the up-voted person and half goes back to the curator?"
Yes, that's basically it. Every outgoing vote gives the VOTER 50% and the VOTEE (target) 50%. (Although, I am playing with making it 45/45/10 with the 10 boosting curation rewards.)
"In that case, I presume there would no longer be a need for the 75%/25% split between curators and authors? The split would now be 50/50 but without the complications of the half-hour penalty and who voted first?"
Although I am considering adjusting it, I would not change the reward split. I think curation is already not rewarding enough. I want to encourage it more than now, not less. Hence, the possibility of taking 10% of VP and making it a curation boost.
I have a lot of suggestions for changing the curation formula as part of this change (possibly including rep as a factor, etc).
"However how would flags be treated?"
I wouldn't change flags with this change. I'm already messing with VP and curation, that's too much at once. Flags could be changed independently or not, depending on what people like.
"If the slider is still employed, then can everyone expect to see their earnings reduced by that extra 25% that goes back to the curator?"
I would keep the slider and not necessarily change the 25% curation rewards. I don't want to make it so that voting on anyone is equally good. Curation rewards should be higher, not lower.
Thank-you for the clarification. Will this proposal be going to all the witnesses for a vote?
Oh, no, I'm nowhere near that influential. It's simply an idea I'm working up into a post. Best-case, the community likes it and maybe some of the ideas get integrated into a future fork. I'll peg that chance at like...1%.
Far more likely is it gets ignored and makes like $15. I have a feeling people are going to have a tough time seeing it for what it is.
I think rewarding users with stake is fundamentally good, but we've gotten a pretty long ways down the "demonizing economic self-interest" rabbit-hole around here since HF-19. I suspect it will be one of my more controversial, and therefore higher effort / lower reward, posts.