FUD? Absurd? Bullshit?

I was rambling on the most varied follies when I found myself thinking about the quality of the content here in Steemit and the old discussion about the amount of "junk" that appears in the Trending page promoted by voting bots.

There is an endless discussion here on what is quality content, and on the responsibility of those who have a greater amount of SP in promoting such content.

In this digression, I came across this post written by @therealwolf, creator of @smartsteem.

In short, he talks about some possible changes in the functioning of the reward distribution system, where all votes would have the same strength, regardless of the amount of SP, and some other changes that, in my view, would not be exactly the solution, and perhaps would create even more problems with what content appear in the spotlight.

The discussion is important, but what this post made me think is that in fact in all this time I am participating in Steemit, I have never seen raised the main problem that exists in the system to attract quality content creators.

Why use Steemit?

Let's be honest and acknowledge that the main reason we write here is the possibility of receiving a relatively immediate return for what we publish, regardless of its quality.

After all, why waste your precious time to produce and consume content in Steemit since platforms like YouTube, Medium, your own blog, etc. has a much better financial return for those who produce, and a much higher quality for those who consume?

Blockchain Decentralization? Revolution in the way of consuming content?

BULL
SHIT

We are all here for the possibility of financial reward. The rest is secondary.

Steemit is a platform that still do not know what it wants to be

The premise of Steemit revolutionary in the way we use social networks / content platforms, but there is a flaw in the logic of functioning that is related to an issue that no one has been asking lately:

** Is Steemit a social network or a content creation platform? **

The answer to this question is of extreme relevance because in the long run, how (and by whom) the network will be used is directly linked to how authors are rewarded, and consequently, what type of content te community expects.

So I think it's extremely relevant to discuss how rewards should be distributed depending on what the focus of the content posted on the platform should be.

Steemit as a social network

It is easy to see that the predominant type of content in social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc) are in general content that has the purpose of being consumed immediately, and usually, there is no concern among its participants about quality of publication, but what will be the immediate impact of such publication.

If this is the direction that Steemit is expected to follow, then there are no issues with how the content is rewarded, since 7 days is more than enough time for that content to be consumed, so the discussion should be directed to how to highlight the most popular publications.

Steemit as a Content Creation Platform

My perception is that there is a great movement on the community in this direction, since many discussions here revolve around how to highlight (and consequently give a greater reward) for contents that present a higher quality.

And here's the biggest problem with Steemit's perception in general, and because it's common to see content producers from other platforms use Steemit for a few days, then quit completely.

Steemit's method is not a good incentive to invest time to produce content here.

The question is quite simple: Why waste my time to publish high quality content here at Steemit to receive a payment for only 7 days, when can I use several other platforms that allow me to receive my work while it's posted?

Why produce videos for Dtube, if on YouTube will I continue to receive income from advertising each time my video is displayed?

Why produce high quality texts when I can publish in Medium, or my own blog, and receive every time someone finds my article?

The content monetization system in Steemit does not attract people who have high quality content production their primary means of income because there is no good financial return in the long term.

Possible solution to attract producers of quality content (and encourage existing users to improve their quality)

Before continuing, notice that I have no technical knowledge about blockchain coding, so I do not know how feasible it would be to implement a solution like this, but I believe it is extremely important that these possibilities are discussed

The problem I mentioned above about why there is no stimulus for time investment in content production here lies primarily in one fact:

There are no long term gains here.

Because the reward window is only 7 days, everything that has passed the pay day does not generate any income, so any older work loses its financial value completely to the creator.

One possibility I thought to solve this problem lies in changing the way distributed rewards happen.

For my proposal, the following premises will be considered:

• The distribution of rewards should take place at a certain time of the day

Maybe I am wrong here, but for the idea that I will propose to work, the reward distribution should happen at a certain time of the day, one or more times (once per day, once per hour, etc.).

For the following proposal, we will assume that the rewards are distributed once a day.

• All publications should participate in the distribution of rewards

After all, why not receive for my old publications, since they are available to be accessed at any point of time?

It is not unusual for users to start using the platform after finding some content posted here through a google search

• Voting in a publication will always count towards the distribution of rewards regardless of time.

Why can not a new vote in an old publication influence the value of that publication?

The same would apply to of flags (downvotes), so content that has the purpose of abusing the system could receive rewards for a while, but each new flag would reduce the share recieved from the reward pool.

Suggestion of a new rewards distribution method

Considering the above premises, I believe that the distribution of rewards should happen as follows (using arbitrary values ​​to illustrate):

• x amount of STEEM is generated as a reward per day
• Before the distribution of the day, each publication (both old and new) is assigned a multiplier referring to the proportion of * rshares * of the post in relation to the total of * rshares * distributed in the network among all publications:

(% rshares of the post) = (Quantity of post rshares) / (total of rshares of all posts already published)

• The reward value that the post will be entitled to on that distribution is equivalent to that proportion

(reward of the post) = (Total reward of the day) * (% rshares of the post)

• The total rewards received for the account on the day is the sum of the rewards of all posts already posted.

In this way, the author's previous work continues to be valued, and he continues to receive for his work.

High quality publications would continue to be valued over time, because as an experience, I have found countless good articles published over 6 months ago that would be worth my vote, but I did not do it because there was absolutely no no sense in using my voting power to do so.

Another consequence would be the possible reduction of abuses (spam, plagiarism, etc.), since it would be possible to distribute flags for these low quality content, so the participation in the distribution of rewards would always tend to zero, since these low quality publications could receiving flags indefinitely, and therefore perhaps not worth the effort.

Conclusion

Both the platform and the concept behind the Steem blockchain are completely new, and there are still many discussions and adjustments to be made that will elevate Steemit to a more accepted position beyond the inner circle.

However, this lack of definition as to what the purpose of the content published in Steemit is for is a major obstacle to its growth, and my view is that this is a discussion that should precede any other diiscussion about votes / rewards.

My view is that the platform model is more like a quality content production space, and therefore, the reward system should be completely rethought, mainly to attract content producers that already have an established audience.

It is visible the great effort that the community performs to try to promote quality content, but still, it is visible that the results end up being much less than expected. So I believe that @ned and Steemit Inc. should take a stand on attracting good content producers (which would therefore attract more users), and good monetization of content (including older content) is a very strong way of attracting them.

As for the change to 1 account = 1 vote, I do not believe that it is a good way (unless it comes with an improvement in the distribution of rewards in the long term), since the possibility of having a greater influence on the platform the greater their participation is an important differential in Steemit.

Anyway, the discussion is open here, and I hope that this fundamental problem of Steemit's operation will be discussed further so that we have an increasingly better and more popular platform.

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