The Elusive 1 Cent Vote - Proposal to Scale Down Exponential Posting Rewards

Let's scale down somewhat the exponential nature of posting rewards.

The Elusive 1 Cent Vote

A one cent vote is a personal, maybe psychological, barrier that I had hoped to pass with a small investment, because I want to see my votes cause a reward uptick. However after investing 1 Bitcoin in Steem Power I am still not there!

Supposedly my voting power now stands at 2.8 cents. But when voting I do not really see any increase of that order, except on already popular posts. New or undiscovered posts, where it matters to me, only tick up a few tenths of a cent.

While my Steem Power is now worth less than 500 Dollars due to the price decline of Steem, it is nevertheless not an insignificant amount. Yet I still do not get the satisfaction of seeing my vote visibly cause a reward uptick - at least not on new and undiscovered posts.

What is the model here? Does anyone really expect millions of people to invest 500 Dollars in the first place, let alone for a vote that is worth a mere fraction of a cent? It seems to me that there is a very high barrier for people to buy in and engage more effectively on Steemit as curators.

Also consider that a 1 cent vote is not huge, after all a hundred such votes are needed for a post to make even one Dollar. That is a lot of votes and still does not add up to much for the author. Even to achieve that those 100 voters would each need to have maybe 1,000 Dollars invested in Steem Power!

It is hard not to conclude that voting power is hugely skewed. Only a few people have votes that matter, while the vast majority has votes that are simply worthless. At the same time, voting on new or undiscovered posts adds much less to the reward than voting on popular posts.

Proposal to Scale Down Exponential Posting Rewards

A lot of suggestions have been thrown around already. Groups have even formed trying to reward undiscovered authors. That is all very commmendable.

Posting reward distribution - Steem Whitepaper

Nevertheless I would suggest scaling down somewhat the exponential nature of posting rewards, to ensure that more writers get something and reduce the excessive concentration of rewards that we have now.

Such a change would also increase the value of a vote for a new or undiscovered post, as well as lower the level at which buying in can become a rewarding experience for curation.

How sustainable is a system where a few authors get thousands per post while the vast majority of decent posts can barely garner a few cents? Rather than a top post getting 5k, wouldn't it be better for the top post to get say 1k and 400 other posts 10 SBD on average? 1k is still an extremely motivating amount and small payments to hundreds of other authors can only help to keep them engaged.

In other words, small rewards help reinforce the idea that it is possible to earn bigger rewards.
- Steem Whitepaper

The Steem whitepaper even mentions that small rewards are needed. Small, not tiny or non-existent.