Yet Another Post Regarding Unfair Payouts, But This Is A Proposal, Not A Rant
View this post on Hive: Yet Another Post Regarding Unfair Payouts, But This Is A Proposal, Not A Rant
View this post on Hive: Yet Another Post Regarding Unfair Payouts, But This Is A Proposal, Not A Rant
The voting system has been unfair since day one and will continue to be so. This is the main thing that could doom the platform. The platform that has the most potential in the crypto space might not make it unfortunately.
Those in power will always want to REMAIN in Power. Why would the kings want to relinquish their power to the court jesters?
And to be fair the "kings" here have worked their asses off to create something that very few could. Could I create something as complex as Steemit? Noooooooo. Very few can. For those who did.......
Yes, but the "kings" should be smart enough to realize that their baby, the
Despite its brilliance the platform has not expanded at the rate we all thought it would. I blame it to the platform having evolved to a space with a perceived lack of intrinsic fairness in terms of its main bait, rewards.
Coupled with this, having a meaningless reputation system where the present ranking is like a trophy, just for display and not worth much, has rendered it redundant when it could have been the yardstick to measuring a users impact on a post.
As I have mentioned in the post, the reward pool is a creation of the algo and nobody has to contribute to maintain its existence, so why should a users wallet matter in its distribution? Reputation, IMHO, should be "bumped" up from its dormant state now, and it is about time we gave it a thought.
Thank you for your detailed comment.
Yeah I agree that the reputation system should come into play more. Multi-Level Marketing has unbelievable attrition rates. Usually about 75% of the people that were signed up for an MLM don't renew their membership the next year because they wake up and realize that the compensation structures are unworkable. There is unfairness in those systems. Yet people still keep joining them. The difference is that there is a buy in almost always in an MLM. So some money has been brought to the table. With something like Steemit people post once our twice and usually leave because of the unfairness. The droves and droves of people that join MLM aren't knocking at the door because there is no real incentive for people on this platform to try to recruit more people. Why do I want to tell my friends about this when there is a high likely hood that their payout won't be that good?
It is a lot to think about and I don't know all the answers. This is a very interesting system and a very interesting experiment. Only time will tell how successful it will become. The interesting thing now is that there are for sure people who are buying and holding Steem who aren't part of Steemit. With the new economic rules there can be more speculative investors out there. And most of them aren't going to dig down and see these types of posts or really know the struggles of the content creators here. It really doesn't matter to them. So it could get a lot more successful without being a good place to really post. It is very interesting to say the least.
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 29. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $8.56 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 29 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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I'll qualify this by saying I don't have a head for economics or figures. So the particulars of a distribution system are not something I spend much time considering. Having said that.....
From my perspective, art has always needed, and always will need, patronage. Not respecting the patronage of an art lover is not a very wise move.
We can all cry about our reputation, but reputation is an illusion. Character is of more value than reputation, but who can measure character? Reputation can be lost in the name of good character.
I'll conclude with just saying that money makes the system go around. Money is the energy that makes the machine pump. We should be grateful and respectful of the contribution of patrons of our art forms. Some of them might be assholes, sometimes. But they are generous assholes. The majority are thoughtful and considerate people, who see an opportunity to combine a love of art (drawing, writing etc.) with making a bit of money. It's a risky business for them too. There is no guarantee of a return.
Agreed, reputation in the real world is an illusion, but how about online? To evaluate a persons character would be easier in the material world than online IMO.
Regarding patronage, I agree with you but I cannot see a situation where you would agree to an known/anonymous patron who had gargantuan swag and wealth from sources which most would consider illegal, or immoral.
I also agree when you say money makes the system go round, but does it have to be "in-your-face"? In the six months here on steemit, I have noticed it apparently is having the opposite effect, rather than mass adoption.
Insightful
Thanks!
Rewards are based on how individuals add value to the community and i think contributing great content far out weights investing on the platform. I think devs should look into your proposal.
It is indeed logical to say that those with higher reputation have proven themselves as top content creators on Steem; while high SP holding has more to do with mining skills and being early having the foresight before everyone else (or being an employee of Steemit Inc). The content creator's skills would seem more suitable for curation than the miner's. On the other hand, content creators may be at odds with the audience, curating content that may be too esoteric for the masses.
Of course, a few people have powered up a lot, and being able to influence the curation on the site is a motivating factor too. But currently I presume the SP holding for early miners versus organic power ups is still heavily lopsided. This will change, I'm sure, but could take a while.
Dan has hinted about addressing this issue several times, let's wait and see what they have on the roadmap.
You have made some interesting observations, but I still believe a "few will always hold most" into the future, and will always influence the curation process. This could be countered by "reputation" rather then having it just sit there like a trophy, by finding a way to link rep to your voting weight on a post. I do believe we shall have a more level playing field if rep is somehow included in the equation, and not make it a "money" only space.
True, but then the argument would be - why would anyone power up? Already the interest in negligible. If their SP holding matters less on voting, and thus lower curation rewards (which are tied to Rshares), why would they power up?
I am not suggesting that influence of SP be done away with altogether, it just needs to be "salted" with something like reputation, or something not monetary. This would help in adoption of this platform as a "social" site, which is not happening at the pace an idea like this deserves, even in beta!
this is an age-old question. but I don't have time to elaborate, nor am I truly qualified. but I will just point out two things: 1. everything on this platform comes from SP, even reputation, only indirectly. 2. reputation has its own problem. e.g. steemsports or some similar accounts that produce automatic or semi-automatic posts have very high rep. does it make them really reputable? this is debatable. But I agree that rep currently is almost useless and I of course fully support anything that enhance fairness. The allegedly coming curation guild should alleviate unfairness somehow, hopefully. :)
I agree with you that SP seems to be the main thing to drive steemit. But this system apparently has failed to be a catalyst for the adoption we expected to see. As we grow, our reputation should be worth something and hence my proposal so that it is debated.
And accounts like steemsports could be "labeled" differently so that the votes on those types of posts be rendered impotent, not contributing to its gain in reputation.
It has been proposed before, I myself have suggested it. Either this pseudo-"reputation" to weigh the SP power, or another real reputation system. Dan has written about the possibility of another reputation rank, but people got angry and dumped on the idea. I liked it, way better than SP metric.
Users who are trusted should have more weight than money-focused miners or early adopters that don't create content at all. Hence a real rep score, not this one that is created by SP based on the success of posts, which is a useful metric in itself, but not real reputation like society.
I regret not having read about this earlier, but I sure do agree with anyone who thinks the reputaion scores we have as of now, is basically useless. And by useless I mean that I see no discernible value to having it, other than ego boosting brownie points!
I also agree with you in having the focus shifted from the crass money/profit focused approach we seem to have at present. I truly believe it is the limiting factor against mass adoption as the average user comes from a world which is a "everything for free" culture and have minimal exposure to crypto. On joining, they are confronted with a seemingly daunting obstacle of wealth as in SP holding and get discouraged quickly when they see the wealth some have.
Thank you for your comment.
It's a barrier to a certain type of mass adoption based on current existing models, which is why it's not accepted by many, due to it being different, and they don't understand how it works. The problem is not the platform per se, but the mindset of people who don't understand. I joined when there were more active users, and I didn't leave. I learned how Steemit functioned. People don't want to take the time to learn about a new platform model. Perceived unfairness, due to not understanding how things operate, and unrealistic expectations to just "make money" easily, lead to people trying to operate in a reality while having an unreal perception of what they are even doing.
People need to learn. Otherwise, let's just get rid of everything that's different and make it nonmonetary like other social media. Then people will be used to it, it will work the same way with the same motivations. And we can all be happy that people are using the same types of platforms that don't change things up too much hehehe.
With that said, yes the SP mechanism isn't the best, most optimal. But what do people get on Facebook? $1.00? $0.10? $0.01? Nope, $0.00. So people who join aren;t comapring things well, with the opportunity to make money if you can actually post decent content and get recognized... whereas Facebook... you won't get making money anyways. But hey, I joined, and I'm not making big bucks right away, or my content is better than someone else who made more, etc. so I'll just get mad at how "unfair" life is, and cry myself away from Steemit back to Facebook... LMAO.
It's not even so much the SP, but this, that drives people away early. Unrealistic imaginary fantasy expectations lol. Even with a reputation weight, people would still have this issue when they join because they are ignorant and don't even care to learn to understand how things function. How about we put some onus of responsibility on the user to educate themselves about what they are getting into?
Hmm, must admit you have a point when you say
But the fact remains that most were enticed with rewards, so the reality was suggested which made them get these "unreal perceptions" in the first place! And yet the rewards are there, and very welcome at that, but the real "reality" smacks a new-comer hard in the face and makes him leave.
It is a shame IMO that we have around 120 K + accounts but only 4k are active on any given day! Either the platform is not attractive enough or their expectations hit the wall of reality, but the low level of user retention is a concern for me, and should be for everyone.
And thank you for your elaborate comment which brought up questions which I had not considered earlier.
Haha, yeah. BUt that's my point. Looking at the rewards as a problem isn't the real problem, its people who don't understand how this works. People wouldn't come if there were no rewards. They think one thing, but then its another. When expectations don't match reality, conflict ensues. If you can't do anything, like learn, or change the system, then you tend to give up in hopelessness. Knowledge is the key to empowerment. Then we can change the system, like Steemit, and make things better. "Fairness" can only go so far. There is always inequality in what people work for to produce and get. Some people work less, yet expect to have more than they have, to have what others have, simply because other shave it. It's a bit of a deluded mindset.
Yup, it's bad. 4k... it's more like 1-2k MAX of real activity. I would say its less than 1k of constant users each day.
Image matters, and right now the image isn't good for Steemit. Busy will be able to help change that.
Let's get rid of the rewards, and let's see how attractive Steemt is then? LMAO.
Lol, we wouldn't be having this conversation then :)
Well, I'm new to the site. I actually found it by accident, maybe I just live under a rock or something but to me it's fairly new. I'm an artist so Steemit seemed instantly like a really cool concept to get my art seen by folks who would not normally see it. There doesn't seem to be a large majority of folks on Steemit who are just here for the social platform aspect and often times I see things that do not seem like anyone has put any time or effort into creating the content they are posting. The way I see it is the current system is designed to prevent people from gaming the system for profit and actually supports original content that time and effort was put into. The whales have a vested interest to see the platform succeed...They are in it for the long game. It makes sense in my opinion that their vote be worth more than the average persons vote or you're going to having a bunch of newbies figure out how to create 100 account and have them voting each other into oblivion and diluting the value down for the rest of us who see the long game and enjoy the ride. The higher than reputation score the more value you are injecting into the platform via content, votes, and comments....But if you don't have any sp or are constantly selling it and diluting it then you aren't actually vested in the success of the platform.
I have written for blogs, magazine sites, etc. In those situations you must conform to what the blog or magazine expects will be popular instead of creating content that you love it are passionate about. You are in that instance lucky to get noticed at all and if you do it makes you perhaps pennies a day unless you really hit it it big and then you have to keep your content constantly hitting big or it's pointless. With Steemit your goal is to become part of a community and share content that gets the attention of like minded followers.
Anyway, that's just my opinion. :)
We need your, and everyone else's, opinion if we are to tweak the system for it to be adopted at a rate faster than we see now. If you check around, one of the most persistent complaints since inception, has been regarding the payout. If we are to find a solution to that, we need these discussions and I am confident a solution to satisfy most will be found, because the reward itself is one of the main attraction to draw in new users.
Thanks for your comment.