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RE: Self-Voting: Scammy Behavior, Rational ROI, or Something Else?
Downvotes from folks or bots with low rep and/or low SP are unlikely to change my or others' behavior. And folks with high rep and high SP are usually ones who have been around here a while and see responsible self-voting as a part of the Steem culture. Plus, such folks benefit from responsible self-voting themselves. So they seem unlikely to downvote except in cases of abuse (though I may be wrong on that).
When self-voting becomes abusive (done too often or self-voting for crap content), offenders will likely be sanctioned (flagged) by folks with high rep and/or high SP, and this should dissuade abuse.
In short, I personally don't see a day when all self-voting is verboten or shamed away, but maybe I'm wrong.
Haha. You lawyers with your fancy 5 dollar words. I had to look that one up! :)
I agree, it will never be completely shamed away (nor am I arguing that it absolutely should be), but I do think it's interesting how much relies on trusting high reputation and high SP holders to act as rational, self-interested actors. I've seen many abuses of this, and I recognize how irrational many people can be. Nothing is perfect.
I was thinking about if that changes. If the Steem culture begins to see self-voting differently. It's quite interesting to think about how this all relates to larger contexts of "the real world" where our individual opinions are shaped by the tribes and cultures we live in which themselves are shaped by the emergent properties of many individual opinions.
Yes, some high Rep high SP folks behave irrationally, but I think there are enough of them that the "wisdom of the crowd" should prevail.
To me, Steem is no different than a closely held corporation. In a closely held corp, a small minority of shareholders hold a majority of the company's voting stock. They can use this power wisely or stupidly. For instance, they can use it to hire only themselves and close (but incompetent) family members as employees and pay each other completley undeserved levels of salary (the corporate equivalent of pure "self voting"), or they can use their power to hire only competent outsiders to run the business (the equivalent of only voting for others), thereby sacrificing any real "say so" they have in its operations. Or, as most rational people do, they can do a combination of the two, hiring themselves and maybe a couple competent family members (so that they continue to exercise some influence over the director of the business and its operations) while also spending good money to hire competent outsiders. Sure, there will always be those who resent the "insiders" privileges to hire and fire who they please, and to "pay themselves great salaries", but over time competence will prevail or the company will fail. If the company is raped and mismanaged by short-sighted insiders, it will quickly fail, the stock will go to zero or close to it, and the stock will be bought on the cheap by more competent and wiser people who will quickly restore its value (and then some). Over time, stock inures to the competent.
In most cases, the combination approach (hiring key insiders and also competent outsiders) is the most rational one, and I think its the one that Steem has taken and will continue to take. To censor self-voting (to deny insiders the right to hire themselves at all and thereby exercise any meaningful control over the company) is short-sighted suicide. Steem can certainly do it, but other blockchains won't and they will no doubt be more successful.
Excellent comment, thank you Sean.
Another $5 word! I like it. :)
I think you're right. Even if individuals aren't rational, the long-term economics and wisdom of the crowds does trend towards profits by those who can create profits most efficiently unless threats of violence or social shaming are involved. Where many get confused, I think, is when they tightly tie systems which create profits with human feelings, wants, desires, expectations, misunderstandings, etc, etc... all the squishy stuff which is hard to map to a spreadsheet.
Steemit, it seems, is both a corporation and a digital expression of humanity.
Whatever it is, I like it and really enjoy discussing it's details because it helps me better understand myself and the "real" world outside of Steemit.
Your comparison to insiders/nepotism is a good one. Many think nepotism is always bad no matter what. Those would probably also say self-voting is always bad. The funny thing, I think, is that often those are people who've never had real power/influence/responsibility of their own. Once they get it, they better understand the challenges involved. Without it, it's easy for them to say how others should act.