The coordination of Steemit's present for the future

Ever heard of the coordination problem? No, I am not talking about a teenager who has a sudden growth spurt or, said teenager when they lose their virginity; this is more scholarly than that.

A solution requires finding an equilibrium, meaning that no agent can do better by unilaterally doing something else given the choices of the others. A proper equilibrium is one which each agent likes better than any other equilibrium. Much social action, including perhaps inventing language and society, requires solving co-ordination problems. (source)

Ok, to simplify even more, we as the Steemit community all want the same thing being, Steem to be successful, but that requires coordination of action. The problem is, we all seem to have different ideas as to how best do that and we all have very different approaches, with many behaviors that actually lead us away from that goal.

On a decentralized platform with freedom of action, it is going to be extremely difficult to get large scale consensus, especially if it comes at a cost. For example, I do not agree with 'guaranteed' return bidbots as if there is a guarantee, where is the risk? On a system such as this, risk must play a significant part in the free market otherwise, it is not free.

As a result, I don't use bidbots as they are harmful to the system, drive value to a narrow end and are notoriously poor at discerning quality content since they are largely insensitive to the content they vote upon. It costs me greatly to not use them in returns so why not just join them?

Well, the problem is that if the system is solely based on bidbots, it is not sustainable and will increasingly reduce those able to pay as it pushes value continually upward to those who already have value. With this system, content is not actually required at all, only bids on blank posts. That makes Steem no different to any other coin on the market, and the community redundant. It makes the operators bankers and bidders the market.

The problem is the loss for not taking part, even though it will lead to the downfall of the system if left as is. And since people benefit from the system, convincing people to stop usage is not going to happen, even though in the long run, they will benefit much better by developing content and the community.

This system is flawed even if it only is used by the best content creators as essentially, the same thing will happen. Merit is taken from the system and only those that can pay benefit, and in time only those that use the systems can pay and will continue to do so at increasingly high rates, squeezing any newcomers out. If you already have stake, you will be fine? Do you?

If you do have stake however, you want the value of that stake to not only go up but, hold its value as it does for as long as possible. In the world of bidbots, that creates a pyramid effect that will collapse under its own process, causing severe price reductions. Bitconnect.

So, we have a problem, there is a better system (albeit imperfect) out there, we already have it and were largely using it but, to move toward it, it is no good enough for one or two to move, it has to be largely unanimous. But, with the gains that both bidders and operators are making, who is willing?

These gains need to be reduced to encourage a freer market system and I am unsure how to do this, but I can throw a few ideas out into the community.

A few ideas to discuss, build, destroy

• Bidbots should register as bidbots.

Many operators of the bots say that what they do is good for the community so they should have no problem identifying their Steem business as such. Once this is done, we can possibly play around with finding a happy equilibrium of benefit and risk.

• Paid votes should have no impact on reputation scores.

No account should be able to buy reputation as it makes the reputation score completely useless, so make the change or, get rid of reputation.

• There must be risk where there is a chance to lose significantly.

Without this risk, there is no reason why anyone would think twice about paying, except if they were long term investors that is. THere should be game in the system.

• The bots and their beneficiaries should not benefit from curation rewards.

This is because they are already getting paid directly for the vote itself, and the vote itself comes out of their stake of a community pool, as does the curation rewards. This is double dipping, making it almost twice as damaging to those who choose not to use them. The curation rewards should stay in the pool.

Conversations to be had

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head, there are more but essentially, there should be encouragement to move away from the usage of bidbots and into a much more market orientated system that can grow exponentially outward, instead of toward a pointed ceiling. I don't expect this to be very popular.

People claim to want what is best for the community but take the 'if you can't beat them, join them' attitude. This is the coordination problem at play. I would like to do better, but it costs me since no one else is going to join me in doing differently. I see people who used to fight for a better distribution creating, supporting and using bidbots even though they are already highly staked? I see some that would fight Spam, upvoting their own spam comments.

But, others say 'I will stop once I have enough stake.' What is enough stake to stop using them? The highest paid, can bid the most and with guaranteed returns, they are set to also earn the most, even though they are already the highest earners with the most visibility. When will they stop exactly?

Should there be a bidbot usage reputation cap? Earnings cap? Stake cap? should there be penalties for the bidbots caught voting on spam or plagiarised content?

I don't have any answers so I just throw things out to the community but in order for us to move forward into a more successful future for all, something I think we all want, we must shift as a community. That means moving the balances to favor what we want this place to be in the future, not just hope that it will one day spontaneously get there, it won't.

Inclusive exclusivity

Does anyone remember when Google began giving out free Gmail addresses? It was invite only and generally only the geeks had access. Because of this, there was a level of exclusivity involved as people felt privileged to get an invite and be a part of the exciting new system from an exciting new startup player. When was the last time you got an email from a friend inviting you to use Gmail? Now, it isn't used because of exclusivity, it is used because of ubiquity, because it is so common.

Steem is in the stage that it is building its brand as a cutting edge platform but it is largely dependent on the type of content rewarded. The rewards here should be reserved for quality and development and to get access, one must qualify as quality or developing the community. This should be community backed quality to enable spread and diversity and this is what the stake was for, the highly staked would support quality content to drive value. (what happened?)

Doing this now sets the stage for a high quality platform that will attract high quality users. After some point though, it will have a large enough base that it can dissolve outwards into all manner and quality of content. But, it seems to me that we are starting from the other end, we are appealing to the lowest common denominator and making the hurdles for potentially very large returns, very low indeed. We are out of sync, the timeline is wrong.

Here, the exclusivity shouldn't be based on access to the community, we should welcome all but, at least at this point, there should be exclusivity of reward and that can't happen if anyone can pay for a guaranteed reward. Tat is not a reward.

You give me 100, I will upvote you 150 out of the pool. I will keep your 100 plus the 20% in curation and you can keep 20. Deal? You will grow by 20, I will grow by 130 and I don't even have to risk my stake and I can guarantee your return. In fact, you should invite your friends in too as I have 10 of these votes a day. You pay 100 each, I upvote 1500, I will get 1000 + the 300 in curation with, you will get 200 together. Next week, I will be larger again and I can support more of your friends... Win/win!!

What could possible be wrong with that system??

Again, I don't expect these topics to be popular and I don't claim that the suggestions will fix any of the issues at hand but, the conversations need to be had and the challenges addressed before mass adoption. I would rather go a little slower with progress and get it right, than quickly advance and get it fundamentally wrong. But, I am not the platform, just one voice in a sea of many collected into what we have called a community.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]