The idea was that those with the most invested are supposed to have the most say in how the reward pool is distributed, which makes total sense.
That is exactly what is going on. Those with the most invested have decided to exercise their 'say' in the reward pool, in most cases, by abstaining (in a few cases by downvoting). That is a perfectly legitimate use of their voting rights, and it is quite possible (not saying it is necesarily the case, just that it could be) that abstaining is the action that maximizes the value of their investment. If so, why shouldn't they do it?
Out of interest, do you like what has been happening to the front page since the start of this experiment?
It seems to be memes, rants, endless posts about dash, trying to get people to buy it, posts about steemit. In other words it is degenerating into "just another social media site".
Maybe I'm a minority, but I gave up Facebook and twitter and reddit precisely because I was tired and exhausted with all the trolling and memes. Steemit seemed like an old-school 1990's site where you could read interesting substantive articles on stuff that the press complety ignore (because they too have gone down the click-baity report-the-latest-troll-fight-on-twitter route).
I liked reading about Heidi's travels, and about gardening and seeing flower pictures and so on. It was like a little oasis on the web.
The experiment has turned it into another web meme/trolling site. Is that the goal here?
I think the front page better represents what people on the site are actually paying attention to and voting on (i.e. what is actually trending). As you say, it is much like other social media sites and for much the same reason: such content is popular and engaging. Previously the Trending page was more of an "editors picks". I would hope that we can somehow figure out how to have both, because I agree with you that the "editors picks" concept of higher quality content makes a lot of sense too.
But is that stuff trending because it is genuinely popular, or because there isn't anything else to vote for because the good stuff is being withheld/not published?
It's possible that Steemit is resembling sites where people post throwaway stuff without being paid, because there is no longer any differential in pay if your stuff is any good.
It's like if a rule was imposed on "the rich" aka the whales, where they were not allowed to pay extra for silk shirts, they had to pay no more than they would for a nylon shirt. What does the manufacturer do? Withdraw the silk which has a higher input cost, and only supply cheap nylon, because that is the only way to maintain your margins. So you are not going to be able to buy silk cheaply, you are not going to get silk at all...
These are great points, but I'm afraid they will be lost on this crowd. They don't seem to comprehend any of it.
There is a huge differential. Many posts still get $0 or near $0* and the top posts are getting about what they got before, though they are likely different posts and as a result of different (broader) voting.
Is it possible to have the chance to up-vote posts a second time, but only once one has scrolled down through a post after opening it?
If so, we can make it so that a single vote will distribute STEEM from the rewards pool (no matter from which upvote button the vote came from), but a second vote will determine post ranking within the second type of trending page (the "double votes", presumably quality posts).
Single votes, such as the types that come from bots, will still earn their curation rewards, but second votes would presumably only come from satisfied readers who took the time to click on the post, read it and then scroll to the bottom to cast a second vote.
Only the first of the votes would count on the block-chain, but the second vote would determine the second type of ranking on the Steemit front-end.
Interesting ideas!
I recognize your point. Wheras I used to enjoy spending time scrolling the Steemit newsfeed. A lot of it is memes and talking points with repeated stories thrown in there. You get gems here and there but I see your point.
It seems like a rather pointed attempt to turn Steemit into what it never wanted to be in the first place. Seems malicious. And anyone speaking out is getting squashed.