The Future of Trending: Centrally Curated Valuable Posts
Steem is a dynamic platform that is ever changing and only a good observer can see the big behavioural pattern. Steemians are like cells in this one big organism. Everyone seems to be working for their own interest but in the end the whole ecosystem act harmoniously in the same direction.
In this post I will outline the known problems that we are having with the Trending page, I will talk about the three main desires in Steemit, then most importantly I will tell you about my prediction of how the trending page will be in the future.
[Trending Page Issue]
Steemit trending page is very important because it’s the gate for new users. We want quality posts/entertaining posts/valuable content to everyone. What we see however is a lot of poor quality posts, self-promoting posts, ponzi scheme ads, whales chatting to each others and other ones that add no value to Steem.
[Steem Primitive Desires]
Steemians are here first for the monetary incentive. Every Steemian wants to get value from this platform and there's nothing wrong with that. From my understanding there’s three distinct desires that drive Steem users. We can only see them manifest separately when observing the biggest players and the ones with the greatest stake.
Group 1: Get more STEEM
Currently the most profitable way of using your Steem Power is to self upvote or delegate to bid bots. These bots and delegators will NEVER stop what they're doing unless they find another equally or more profitable investment.
They will use their SP however they wish and they have a problem with people who tell them otherwise.
Group 2: Promote content, products or ads
Anyone can promote anything in Trending by simply paying bid bots and if they have a solid product then this can be a solid investment. However, you can get negative ROI from overbidders and you can even lose your spot if whales start flagging your content. People in this group don’t really care about collecting STEEM more than reaching a wider audience and costumers.
Group 3: Increase STEEM value and price
We have another group who look at the long term investment in Steem. They want the platform to be of a high quality and high value. They fight abuse because they ultimately want more adoption, and more users.
They are unhappy with the first and second group because they don’t seem to add value to Steem.
[Regulated Trending is The Solution?]
What will happen in the future is that someone will figure out a win-win situation and will start an initiative to reconcile the three groups in Steem.
They will attempt to fulfil Steemians' three desires at the same time. They will provide the most profitable investment for all parties, they will bring great value to the Trending page, and they will provide a safe haven for serious advertisers.
Introducing The Curoid concept:
Curoid is like @Curie but on steroids. Here the curators are themselves the ones to post. Their job is to produce the highest quality content everyday for the trending page.
They can receive submissions or even hire professional writers to make sure that every post brings more users and value.
They will receive automated upvotes from investors to be pushed into the trending page and in return distribute 100% of the return back to them.
Now the question is how do you pay Curoid operators for their work?
The answer is simple. If most users are willing to contribute to the this project, the trending page will be extremely expensive to reach.
Advertisers will be interested in paying to get featured under each post or get resteemed.
If this concept ever gets implemented, I will happily support it. Who doesn't want amazing content to be in Trending while receiving profit for that?!
If you don't like the idea of a centralised body controlling trending then you should read why I think the centralisation of steemit is part of the economical cycle.
Share with us if you have other solutions or prediction for Trending. I'd love to hear your opinions.
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AH HA!!! I figured out what my problem is. We were having a discussion on TSE today about undesired behavior by whales and how it can hurt the reward pool. I never denied this was an issue, I just haven't seen it. Now I know why. I never click on trending or hot or promoted. That's one of the reasons I got away from mainstream social media. I stick to my feed and those with whom I've developed a relationship via Disocrd. Sucks that there are whales abusing the system, but such is life. Better than 1% hording trillions in fiat and forcing us all into perpetual poverty.
Except that there is something the community can do about it and are doing about it. I don't think we should resign ourselves to merely being better than the status quo. We should always be improving the value of the platform.
But also, trending may not be everything. You also are missing some bad behavior of last minute votes by a whale voting ring. E.g. https://steemit.com/@abusereports . Interesting, looks like it already stopped when it was called out awhile back. But here is a good list of detecting behavior that is clearly not adding value to the platform but reduces the shared reward pool for others.
Do you mind telling me what's the difference between last minute voters and people who delegate to bots?
I think both can get the same reward by different means
and I assume no one is monitoring every post that is upvoted by a bot, so how are the two different when the same outcome is achieved ?
Last minute voting is a vote that cannot be countered by flags at all, but really should be viewed as self voting. The person gets the full value of the vote as rewards.
Delegators to bots.. depends on the bot properties, but usually it's less than half the value of the vote corresponding to the delegation amount. And has the effect of doing that vote once every 2.4 hours.
So whales that delegate to bots still take away a good chunk of the pool from doing so, from the perspective of non bot users vs bot users.
This is a trickier subject because I don't necessarily view it as a problem. The bot vote gets spread out to multiple bidders, so it doesn't seem to be all that bad. The logical conclusion is that we'd reach an equilibrium where everyone uses bots and it's harder for any individual to benefit too much from the bot. Except that delegators to the bot end up getting a much larger cut of the reward than the bot users. Well actually it depends on how full the bot usage is... There's some interesting market dynamics at play here.
You'll notice I focused on whales, but any delegator is contributing to the problem also. But I find it more grey the less power one has, because otherwise we get to the conclusion fairly quickly that self votes should be banned also. And I don't think that question is universally agreed upon.
I may need to lay this out more cleanly with numbers, but the bot problem is more nuanced than most people are letting up.
Me too I like to check my feed first then Discord posts then trending to see any news. My problem with Trending is only that it's the main page for every new visitor that comes to Steemit. I think it should look different to what it is now. I'm not a reward pool warrior, I think if we can fix Trending it will be great. Fighting all other "abuse" may be impossible
When I first started here I always checked the trending page, but recently I just stick to my own feed and community. Every so often I check the newcomers to see if I can help anyone or pull them in, but the trending area seems a bit like a virus at the moment. Not sure what can be done, but will be interesting to see how this platform develops.
haha I like how you compare it to a virus! I only check the trending page to see what's new in Steemit to be honest.
Otherwise, I think @thesteemengine feed is excellent. I should also go to #introduceyourself tag and welcome new users
Btw, nice username. I wonder how long it will take until all three letter account are all taken. That's when I know Steem is winning the race.
I wouldn't welcome a centralized solution because that would be against the values and principles of Steem...
I think the community has to protest against upvote bots and just don't upvote these posts anymore.
Finding a solution will always be centralised because fighting bid bots will require a collaborated effort and eventually we will need to create a bot that automatically flag other bots's upvotes. Thanks for stopping by @wil1liam
Gotta love how loosely the centralization term gets thrown around, also because where it matters loses meaning. This is talking about a consolidation of power by multiple parties banding together in a decentralized platform, and that's completely expected. The beauty of it is that more of the inner workings are transparent than ever before, and the balance of power can shift over time in response to behavior we can see that is undesirable, as this post illustrates.
And that's another thing... We'll never be at the point where everyone will be satisfied. But we can be satisfied with making incremental improvements, whatever our disagreements. Or if the system really is flawed and worthless, we can all leave for greener pastures lol....
I don't understand what's your definition of centralisation. If multiple parties band together and consolidate their power doesn't that also mean they centralised their power?
The blockchain is designed to be decentralised to prevent any double spending or cheating in transactions. All data is secured I can agree with that. No central party can take your STEEM or give you STEEM that doesn't exist.
But the power of giving reward and choosing witnesses is in a few hands even if they don't use it fully to show their power.
I guess that's just Delegated PoS...
I'm not against the idea of centralisation or decentralisation, I think each have their flaws but we can't claim one is fully decentralised when it's not.
http://steemreports.com/witness-voters/
☝️
You are right, but I would argue this matters less than the decentralized protocol that is not owned by one party. That's the most significant property. The fact that wealth tends to be concentrated or that certain parties have more influence is not surprising and arguably not as important. It's not to say it isn't important, because it affects coin perception but I think people are not making this distinction properly.
Also, the fact that multiple parties need to form coalitions to accomplish certain goals means that while it appears centralized, it's significantly different than a single party controlling everything. So I wouldn't judge it the same way. After all, coalitions of multiple parties is a fragile alliance.
That is true, and that is why I love Steem, sometimes blindly ... I think the fact that no one can delete your post or prevent you from creating an account is a huge plus over any other social media out there.
The concentration of wealth and influence is something we have to accept and live with I guess, Chances are if the tables were turned, the complainers won't complain anymore.
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Wow, thank you so much ... I'll read the other posts by today. I appreciate it
Bel post
merci 😊