Why Do We Bother To Create Content At All? Better To Abuse.
Can anyone make an argument that those of us attempting to follow good-faith social norms, and create quality content on this platform, are not simply suckers acting as an ATM for certain abusers and whales? Particularly, those of us dumb enough to have traded Bitcoin for Steem?
Because absent a good one, I'm running out of reasons not to simply post numbered comments and self-vote them rather than spend hours a day working on researching and composing quality content. I would actually make MORE money that way, doing no work, than I am now.
I'm deadly serious about this. My next 10 posts might be "placeholder." (This is not satire.)
In the following image/post, there is several times more money than I've made in 6 months of full-time work (at least 40 hours/week) and 6500 "posts" on my blog, and I actually bought a lot of Steem to boost my influence ("it was the style at the time.")
Those are worth about $900 each, given SBD were $11.33 at the time.
A few good faith witnesses are wasting using their voting power, that could be building the community, to try and stop some of this - but it's like catching water in a colander.
STINC sits by with enough stake to neuter both this and the hateful flagging wars without breaking a sweat, yet instead chooses to tacitly endorse it as an accomplice by doing nothing.
Why should we bother to create any original content, when we can simply cut and paste someone else's content from YouTube (or wherever), slam it with a $500+ bot vote immediately after posting with a bid at the last second, and profit off of all the other bidder's losses, despite no views?
Hell, let's skip even making the content. Why don't we just abuse a bug in the bot voting logic to steal votes from curation guilds!
Has it taken only 24 hours for me to owe Transisto an apology? Is he simply more jaded than I and therefore ahead of the game on this topic? Is he right?
Why would anyone bother to use their VP to responsibly curate, or prevent abuse, on this platform when we could simply-vote ourselves for 10x the gain or more?
Transisto, perhaps on this topic, I owe you an apology after all.
If you see me lowering myself to this level, and I'm going to tell you, I am this <-> fucking close, remember this post before you decide who is most deserving of your ROI donation, self-harming prisoner's-dilemma, logic-failure, flag.
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 5000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: @Droucil
Copyright: 50 Shades Of Whatever
I'm not sure what people are supposed to do here honestly. That placeholder one kills me though. Just the post that I counted amounts to at least half of my salary as a Special Education Teacher in California.
If I could do that a couple hundred time I would certainly speed up retirement out of my position. However, the abuse is so blatant that it makes me sick. I'm not sure I'd be able to show my face to my students again if I did something like that.
Although, I feel like using bots or having connections is needed, at least at the beginning. Otherwise, I feel like much of what gets put on to SteemIt gets swept into a deep abyss to never be seen again by anybody.
Retire a day early on me. Or like, 3 hours. Shit.
I'll take 3 hours gladly! That's almost half a work day not counting all the after hours I work!
However, thank you for bringing more light the problems here. I hope that this will bring some corrections here due to public awareness. I think it will but I believe it will be a slow, slow process.
A very relevant meme. I heart you.
imagine a public daily list of rewards and flags per user to double check if such things happen
There is a tool that helps you see some of this (I forget the link), but the fact is visibility is not the problem. Control of the "abuse" is.
" I hope that this will bring some corrections here due to public awareness. I think it will but I believe it will be a slow, slow process."
I hope your optimism proves to be warranted. Things seem to have only gotten worse in the last month...
everyone gets a day
lol @dzboston33 that was too funny. Not laughing at you though. Laughing with you. I am guessing you are from Massachusetts, based off of your steemit name. Yes its expensive living in Mass. I would be happy if I can even retire at 65 ;)
@mawit07 Haha. Nope. Last name, I live in Southern California though and it is quite expensive here! My wife and I, hope to retire before 65. Haha. But we will see!
Well anyway cool last name. California is not cheap either. Lets both hope our dream of retiring at 65 happens ;)
I wish I could give you a day, one day I'll be able to give you that day. Just you watch!
I'm sure you'll pay it forward at some point. I can't remember what your rep was a month ago, but I think it was lower than this! You must be doing something right.
I, in particular, appreciate your regular generosity.
Sorry for you reaching this <-> close state
This is not going to change (sadly) and will increase by the increase in SBD and steem values.
People are becoming even more daring with their abuse now. Place Holder, eh?
Shakes head!
Aww, thanks to your new avatar, I barely noticed you!
I'm glad to see you're still posting. Taking a month break and only tending to my comment backlog has done me good. I think I'll be posting again shortly.
I hope the drama has subsided.
Steemit is not about retiring early. It’s about truth and honest discussion. Let’s talk about something real. Or if you wanna talk about the flaws of steemit, let’s talk solutions.
If the masses are upset about the “fairness” of steemit, that’ll be resolved in due time via software updates. If not, you, I, or someone else will set up a competing site that solves the worries of the marketplace. Steemit will have to compete at the end of the day. There’s no way they’ll have any type of power or monopoly over the decentralized social media industry.
The first people that get into any crypto that takes off, like steemit has, get rich. So calm down, post good content, have thoughtful discussion, and carry on. If the fairness of payouts is a concern to you, rack your brain for a solution.
"Steemit is not about retiring early"
We'll take the authority of your 0 blog posts, 31 followers, and under 1k sp under due consideration when determining how much of an authority you are.
The more you figure things out, the less optimistic you will be.
" If not, you, I, or someone else will set up a competing site that solves the worries of the marketplace."
Oh, great, I guess my over 100K is perfectly fine at Steem then. Why am I even calling attention to the crippling disasters that are going to destroy this platform at all?
We'll just tell the investors, like myself, paying for these abusive rewards that it's "the freemarket (aka oligarchy enforced by insta-mined and flash-mined distribution, or the opposite of a free market)"
This is a sad but true vision these days unfortunately...
I can't tell if things are getting better, or worse. Loading the trending page has become painful.
You don't like the trending page lately?
First off, kudos to what you do for a living. I have a couple of friends who teach Special Ed. From what I hear, it's hard and frustrating at times, but rewarding. Somebody needs to make a difference in these kids lives!
Now regarding the bit about "using bots or having connections" to succeed at the onset... well... now that's the problem isn't it? The fundamental idea of Steemit's user curated content is terrific, but the inherent lack of centralization is also what's killing it. So the idea of "if you can't beat em'... join em'" comes to mind here. Anybody who's has a significant amount of Steem, as a rational economic player, should be expected to work in their self interest to succeed one the platform. And if the means are through self upvoting placeholder content or using a connection to a steem whale or using a voting bot... well, it's hard to discern if one methodology of success is more egregious than another. Arguments made that using connections or bots is just as artificial as self upvoting. So we're presented with a sad, but true, race to the bottom where people are forced to something people may deem "unethical" to succeed.
So going back to your first point, i regrettably agree with you. I'm also not sure what people are supposed to do on here. LOL. It's a strange moral dilemma mixed with economic incentive and lack of oversight which makes the Steemit situation "unique". Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it's just one large social experiment?
we need to have a public daily list of rewards and flags per user to double check if such things happen
This information is already visible via several tools, but alone it is of very little use. That's kinda my point - there is no will to fix the issue.
" the inherent lack of centralization is also what's killing it"
This is an ironic outcome for a crypto-based social media site.
Reddit is a propaganda tool now, but at least they have moderators.
There appears to be no good middle solution.
Look were i found him: https://steemfollower.com/top.php. Saying the price of 1 SBD is $11.33 he made $3882.057949.
Yeah, that sounds "about right." Ugh.
Completely agree with you. I am a football coach and I work with kids each day of the week. One month of my salary as a coach is approximately 70 SBD. Looking at posts like ones in the article is discouraging. At least for me.
It is, but at this point for us minnows there isn't much we can do. I have faith in the platform so I'll grind and invest a bit when I can and turn this into something awesome!
I'll try to do the same.
Using Steemit as a purely time-investment, rather than money, platform is a viable way for many of us to "keep a toe in."
I think the best solution may be to grind without investing your own money, beyond an acceptable amount to start. Don't overbuy like I did.
I feel the same.. I teach art and piano and gets around 52 SBD monthly (when it costs 11 usd). art is a thing I work hard on almost every day and Im so happy I can get some more reward for it here on steemit. last month I made more money here than at work.. in one way it is a big motivation.. on the other hand when I see what kind of posts or comments swallow the reward pool it makes me sick..
"last month I made more money here than at work.. in one way it is a big motivation.. on the other hand when I see what kind of posts or comments swallow the reward pool it makes me sick.."
It's a real rollercoaster, isn't it?
If the above is true, don't get discouraged. You're living the dream, almost, and may be able to do this almost full-time. Keep working at it.
It is for me, too. My day job used to make less in a month than those posters make in 20 clicks.
Glad you will be able to retire 3hrs early
Not sure about bid bots though. With people like "placeholder" and @icedrum who will bid a beating amount of SBD to win on the expense of everyone, I say it is better to hold on onto your job for another extra 3hrs and use the extra salary in something that could benefit you instead.
Sigh!
Well, placeholder as far as I can tell was not a bot just a whale upvoting himself like crazy.
This is correct. Two different forms of roughly the same problem.
", I say it is better to hold on onto your job for another extra 3hrs and use the extra salary in something that could benefit you instead."
Have to agree there. The bid-bot game is no longer recommended by yours truly.
Dammit @lexiconical, your level of salt is rising, and I'm right there with you. I saw that same post from 'checkthisout' with all that junk upvoting crap in there, and he/she made more money in that post than ALL my 6 months of hard work of writing and posting and photography and editing and comments and replies.
While I'm happy with how I've done, those gaming the system make me feel like...I should be gaming the system. Am I a dumbass for not? Are the clever people taking advantage, and I'm missing the boat? Should I not be trying to do things 'the right way'?
I shouldn't have to think this way on a social platform, and yet I am.
Whenever money is involved, this will happen, and that's why I'm afraid of this whole push to monetize and tokenize every facet of our online existence.
"I shouldn't have to think this way on a social platform, and yet I am."
QFT, friend.
I'm off for a
brine-soakshower.I agree with you, when you monitize something, people will find a way to take advantage of it if they can. At this point, I have taken to using upvote bots myself when my posts reach day 5. I figure at that point, anyone who was going to see it and upvote has already done so. At that point, I am trying to increase my own investment. Unless you have a bunch of SP (which I don't), there is not a lot you can do to influence the community unless you are a developer.
"At that point, I am trying to increase my own investment."
This also really helps your voters, as they get a higher curation cut.
That doesn't stop GrumpyCatFascist from taking down anyone who does what you said...with the 3.5 day limit "rule".
Steemit is a world-wide platform. Character flaws aren't specific to demographics.
The fact that developers aren't rushing to change things is symbolic of a potential Gomer Pyle-like "surprise, surprise, surprise" in the making.
Peace.
"The fact that developers aren't rushing to change things is symbolic of a potential Gomer Pyle-like "surprise, surprise, surprise" in the making."
I can't tell if this would be a good thing or a bad thing.
STEEM's market cap is under $1B for first time in a while.
Interesting.
I'm noticing a lot of investors backing out of several Steem-supported projects; so, at this point optimism is a choice. ;+)
Best regards.
Peace.
This is pretty fricking crazy.
Dayum..
Well, I'm not surprised. If you read my last post, you'd see how I compared Steem to the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary period
I think the politics of Steem are that of plutocracy...
Yeah, there are for sure some crumbs to be found around this website, but the vast amount of the platform's resources are just being re-absorbed by the
"landed gentry""vests"...They have the most amount of Steem, just like the early american landed gentlemen controlled most of the land and controlled the trade...
At the end of the day, the minnows are just a way to legitimize the platform and draw in some investment and pool more resources in, no?
Unless the minnows organize and demand some change, I don't see how this is gonna change.
I think many of the whales on this platform don't care about the platform, they just wanna use us to collect massive rewards and make it look like it's "fair".
Lol, while everybody is screaming how Bitconnect is a ponzie, it's articles like this one that make you realize a clever rip-off can come in many shapes and sizes! 🙉 🙊🙈
We need to organize a revolution @lexiconical
Stage some kind of revolt...
We let America go to shit because of greed and complacency and acceptance of the status quo
Let's not let repeat that mistake with Steemit
"Well, I'm not surprised. If you read my last post, you'd see how I compared Steem to the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary period"
I did this in a recent post with this image:
"Unless the minnows organize and demand some change, I don't see how this is gonna change."
Doesn't really matter if they/we do, as it is STAKE rules, not majority rules. Those who benefit from the status quo most are those with the stake to change it (or, are conspicuously silent.)
This is what the abusers are counting on. The level of Whale apathy to reward abuse is incredible. Okay, we're decentralized, but at some point the accounts with the most power must act to correct a broken system. STInc controls the accounts with the most SP, so it is STInc which will eventually have to step forward to protect the product.
"The level of Whale apathy to reward abuse is incredible."
It makes sense when you consider most of them are, themselves, "abusers" in terms of taking a lot of rewards and not providing any quality content.
Have you got any ideas Yung Crypto Ben Frank ?
LMAO good one!
I have been talking with witnesses about implementing a mass vote system so when users like this get caught out then the witnesses can initiate a vote
Would this effectively be a black-listing process? If so, it would represent centralization and probably get complaints...
Not centralized because it is the community who votes for the abusing member to be put on notice. Then the witnesses can evaluate the situation and vote amongst themselves. It's perfect because the centralized platforms have a ban hammer- this effectively puts the ban hammer in the hands of the community. The thing is, right now we don't have ANY solution for those looking to cheat and scam the community...We are effectively helpless, we need a method, and a decentralized one to defend our community
Hah, did you reply to yourself?
Dude how is responding to this now relevant! Where the Hell have you been xD
I miss you bro
There are always going to be users who take advantage of the rewards pool at the expense of everyone else. Despite the fact that a lot of users are doing it, it is still only a small portion of the overall rewards pool going towards it. There are still many users (myself included) who use their voting power to reward quality contributions.
IMO the solution to the problem is more downvoting. I wrote an article about it last night, and that is what I am going to keep pushing towards.
Indeed.
Have you considered this option?
https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/279
FWIW, the "opposition" (the same opposition threatening to go back and re-upvote the Grumpycat votes after flagging) knows it will stop their ability to abuse, and is against it:
nextgencrypto commented on Aug 16, 2016 • edited
This is nothing but another method for Dan to control who he wants to see earn and who he doesn't. I expect we'll see him and his inner circle stifling whales they wish to see stop earning as soon as this is released.
Just a reminder, this is being implemented because of the feelings of 1 person who will use his control over the witnesses to push through anything he wishes. Don't let it be disguised as fixing voting, he's trying to suppress accounts he doesn't agree with.
I’ve discussed it in other channels, but the main problem is that what will most likely happen if an account is blocked this way is it will power down. They will either cash out all of their STEEM, or power up a new account and turn it into a ‘wack-a-mole’ game.
For the most part, the same effect can be accomplished using downvoting, except it is easier to target specific behavior (rather than the whole account) and stop the downvoting if the bad behavior stops.
So, wouldn't it be better to half-screw them for 13 weeks continuously, than to do nothing at all? How is adding another hoop to jump through, and forcing them to go through power-down cycles not a good thing?
Why not just downvote?
As a user who has returned after several months of being away from the platform, I totally relate to your frustrations with the way rewards are distributed. I have written extensively on the subject of steem's value relative to other cryptocurrencies in recent posts and I am convinced at this juncture that the disarray the platform finds itself in has contributed to the lagging performance of steem despite the epic bull run witnessed in the broader crypto market.
Ned recently tweeted that steem should be a Top 10 crypto. To me this is wishful thinking if one considers steemit as it exists today. I agree only on the basis of the platform's inherent potential, but the potential to me is squandered by the lackadaisical execution. And your post points that out clearly. If this isn't raising concerns among those that have an ability to effect constructive change, then I don't know what will.
Yes, I would say top 10 is quite a joke at this point. Assuming, of course, that Steemit is any part of this equation.
If this is all a dress-rehearsal to "tokenize the web" and nobody actually gives a fuck about community, blogging, meritocracy, reward distribution etc. then perhaps he's right.
After all, Ripple, premined garbage was #2 market cap briefly today.
Agreed. I think the value of steem is inextricably tied to the perception of the value of this platform. And with all of steemit's deficiencies, I simply am dumbfounded by Ned's assertion that it warrants a Top 10 valuation in the global crypto space. I would agree with such a valuation IF the execution of the underlying idea behind steemit (reward for quality content) was done correctly. The entire ecosystem of voting bots proves that this is simply not the case. If you have a chance to comment, I would appreciate your insights on a post I recently published entitled "Reflecting on the Value of Steem - Part II".
"Agreed. I think the value of steem is inextricably tied to the perception of the value of this platform. And with all of steemit's deficiencies, I simply am dumbfounded by Ned's assertion that it warrants a Top 10 valuation in the global crypto space."
He fundamentally disagrees with your premise. He thinks the value proposition here is almost entirely SMTs, because he's going to "tokenize the web". (lol)
Pretty nefarious things are going on for sure :(
I'm not sure what steps are necessary to create something abusive like that, which yields that much return (how does it work? does it require a big investment on their part to get started, or what?). But when I googled for ways to auto-upvote @qurator, on the first page of the google search results I came across a BitcoinTalk thread where the OP was selling 4 accounts on Steemit pre-setup to yield $100 a day each. The post was several months old. In other words: abuse is widespread and 'common' or even popular?
And it's no surprise really... We all know it's easy to abuse Steemit, it happens all the time on a small scale, so of course it happens on a grand scale. If you can make 1 bot that can yield $100 a day (6 months ago), why not make 10 bots? 100 bots?
I never understood how the money distribution really works on Steemit, anyway. There's something really strange going on when I can give someone $1 and in return they give me $1.50, and still somehow make a profit off of that. In all my months on Steemit I still have not been able to figure out how in god's name that can be sustainable. If it's profitable for me, and for the upvote bot.. well, what if both parties were me? even more profits? wtf?
And where are the devs in all of this? Or where are they at all for that matter? Other than the release of SMT's I have no idea what has been happening with regards to Steemit development. Communities are apparently coming, great. But these abuse issues have been known for a very long time now.. what's the solution those running the show are thinking of? Do they have one?
Additional 'shower thought': What if this widescale abuse is somehow tied in with the unexplainably high SBD price? If you've got a money printing machine, you can pump any coin you like, even SBD?
"I never understood how the money distribution really works on Steemit, anyway. "
If you can even say it "works", it works very slowly. I believe 94% of Steem is in the hands of 1% of users still, but do your own due diligence on that as it's from memory.
"Do they have one?"
Flag new users for tag misuse, perhaps? There's 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon between those two somewhere.
" What if this widescale abuse is somehow tied in with the unexplainably high SBD price? If you've got a money printing machine, you can pump any coin you like, even SBD?"
The plot thickens. You have your next post. Prepare to do more research than the reward will be worth.
I wish I had the blockchain analysis skills to research this. If I did, I could probably make a living out of it selling my services. Unfortunately, I don't :-/
I do think that where there's smoke, there's usually fire though.
Wouldn't it be funny if with the Tether-scare, it turned out it wasn't Tether pumping up the price of crypto, but SBD ? Unlikely, but entertaining thought ;)
"Unlikely, but entertaining thought ;)"
It would be a good story, but mathematically impossible due to SBD's tiny market cap.
I'm genuinely glad you posted this. I understand the frustration and was having a similar conversation (argument) over this not too long ago. Thank you for going into detail to show those giving what litttle they have to those who are strictly here to benefit themselves a reason to now know who they think are well. This is really great and thank you again..you're awesome.
Your positive attitude is a light at the end of the tunnel.
As is your honesty 😌
Thank you for posting this. It needs to be said, although it does make me really sad. With SBD being high lately, I've at least been able to make decent enough money to put some time in, but when it's lower, that is much harder.
Is there a way to change it? Things like this are points against the common idea here of anarchist utopia: power always corrupts. Just because that power comes in the form of wealth and tech knowledge rather than governmental power doesn't mean it will be any better. If it's this unjust just on a virtual platform, what would the world look like?
This all said.. in the end, I'm so grateful for Steemit, as imperfect as some of this apparently is. I'm a singer-sgonwriter and writer (some videos up on my blog if interested, but zero pressure) and have been slugging it for a long time, and this is the first time I've been making any kind of supportable income so far. It's a ray of hope after some really hard years.
So.. I hope it improves! I appreciate your efforts. Thanks. xx, Kay
It is refreshing to hear you are living a success story. Congratulations.
Yes, but it was opposed by the same people who benefit most from the status quo:
https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/279
Dan Larimer, Creator Of Bitshares/Steem/EOS: "bytemaster commented on Dec 27, 2016
I still think that the first principles are right on this concept. Unfortunately, having logical first principles and appealing to the masses are two entirely different things."
Not sure how I missed this response! Just looking at it now.. a good capture of what you are talking about, for sure. And "success story" might be a bit of a stretch just yet, but it is certainly making a difference for me. It was a difficult run for a lot of years as a musician and writer!
Well.. happy new year, nonetheless! Let me sing a new year's song for you to welcome 2018 - hoping it's a better year with some changes to the platform that may curtail some of the worst abuses.. maybe I'm super naive, but fingers crossed! xx, Kay
"Not sure how I missed this response! Just looking at it now.."
No worries...I am currently committing an even worse offense!
Steemit is a vortex. We all get a little lost! Lately I've been trying to look at/upvote (where deserved) the blogs of people who upvote and comment my posts, which is great, but now I'm slower and missing out on posting on things like this/keeping up on threads.
And keeping up with posting a song or article every day or so is already lots! lol. Always just a lot..
Hope you're well!
I recommend slowing your pace, or down-sizing the length of your posts, any time you feel overwhelmed. Really helps with burnout.
I wish there were a way to embrace that some people want to self vote with spam, what if they could create a certain amount of value if the clearly state it is spam or if they dont and try to pass off substandard stuff as higher quality they get in trouble. I think Milton Friedman had some good ideas about trying to manage systems and actors' incentives.
I don't really care what we do, as long as whatever it is is equally enforced on Minnow and Monster alike.
Impossible without centralization?
That checkthisout comment voting kills me.
If only I receive that money, I can build a new house for myself here.
When I first joined steemit, I thought this is a place where good content gets good rewards but that was not the case.
As long as this abuse is there, we will not see a growing steemit.
And no matter how hard users(with less fame) work, especially minnows, they will never make it to the trending page(not without the vote from bots).
"If only I receive that money, I can build a new house for myself here."
I know what you mean. Makes it almost impossible to keep posting in good faith.