RE: Steemit is not decentralized and it's causing a retention problem. Why not give some power to the people that earn it? Here's my suggestion.
I think the whales would still retain plenty of influence
Unfortunately, it is still a violation of the contract / agreement that was made with the existing SP holders.
people would who have put in time and effort as well would finally have some influence as well
I would probably put myself in that category. I've put a lot of time and effort into the site and community since I have joined in July. I have 27 MV of Steem Power now. It is nowhere near 'whale' status yet, but I have a lot more influence today than when I joined. Getting to whale status, as well as bringing the site to the point that my 27 MV are worth millions are two things that keep me going ;)
And I don't think it would be easy enough to get a lot of bot accounts to that high of a reputation. If it is, then the reputation system is flawed and would need fixing.
You underestimate people's ability to game the system :) The current reputation system is flawed, and it would need major fixing if it were to be used for that type of purpose. Just as one example - I believe a user like @blocktrades can upvote a new user's post, and they will instantly jump from 25 to around 50. [Edit] It was really designed with a specific purpose in mind - to deal with spam and abuse issues. For what it was designed for - it is not perfect, but it handles things fairly well.
It's all too easy for those without to want what those with have. It's the politics of envy. Breaking the "social contract" and taking any of the properly earned rewards to distribute to others is socialisitic. Sure it also accomplishes decentralization but at the expense of a broken promise and platform reputation.
I'm only a minor minnow who might benefit from the distribution that @richardcrill suggests, but I'm still opposed to a redistribution that robs those who earned what they have. I'm opposed on principle.
As to solutions I have none to offer. Perhaps b/c I don't understand how or why the imbalance of power came to be. Perhaps the size and scope of some peoples holdings is far to large for me to fathom (if 27 MV is 27 million vests and each is worth $0.16 that's over $4 MILLION) in relation to the entire ecosystem.
The solution to the problem may be beyond my paygrade to resolve or even comprehend but I definitely know the difference between right and wrong and theft is always wrong. There's got to be a better solution.
Very well said!
I completely agree with your reasoning for being against it. Even if it is better for the site, community, and user retention - if it violates the existing contract, then it is not right (IMO).
As far as the initial distribution, many of the whales were the ones that worked on the code, or hosted the servers, or did other various things to create the infrastructure to create/run the blockchain in the early days. Some others invested a lot.
The distribution is not quite that bad. MVests is kind of a wired unit. My 27 MVests is about 13,000 STEEM. @ned's account - which is pretty much the largest, has about 5.7 million STEEM. One day I hope to be like @ned :)
Great answers, Tim.
I'll add that, generally speaking, the people who make such proposals have much to gain and nothing to lose. The idea that the platform will win is spurious, at best.
If someone bought APPL in 2000, the people who bought in 2015 don't cry that it's not fair. They recognize that they got in the game later. Folks in Steemit need to recignize the same thing. I missed the early boat and got in as the celebrity wave was rising. My major investments have been all the way from about $1.50 to the bottom. If I'd waited to invest until now, I'd have a few times my current SP. But I have what I have and I'm confident that it'll grow. I've earned and invested in it. I have more voting power because of it. Will that be adjusted (up or down?) because someone thinks it's not fair?
I'm sorry. I'm uninformed here. How exactly would it violate the contract?
Every single person that has SP today (no matter what the amount or when it was acquired) earned/bought that SP under the premise that the SP would give them influence over the site's rewards pool. There are people that invested heavily early on specifically so they would get that power. If the rules were changed such that your SP only gave you power over 75% of the reward pool - then it is violating the agreement with everyone who currently has SP.
Imagine you were founding a startup company, and you got 5 venture capitalists to invest in your company. You formed an agreement with each of them that they would provide services/funds in exchange for 10% control of the company (each). Then a year later after the company started to grow, you decided to say well, actually - we are only going to give you each 7.5% control now. We want to take the other 2.5% and give it to our employees, so that they have a say in the way things are done as well. That would be a violation of the contract that you formed with the original shareholders.
[Edit] Updated the numbers of the example to better line up with the percentages in your proposal.
Thats exactly why I have bought and earned SP and I still have no real influence or any real hope of getting any under the current system.
I am not saying that the fact you cannot easily acquire influence right now is not a problem. I agree it is a problem.
There is a huge difference though between your issue though (you did not get as much influence as you had hoped/wanted/expected) and a violation of contract.
Any SP that you bought and earned is following the rules of the blockchain. You may have thought/hoped/expected that it would give you more influence than it did - but that is not a breach of contract. The blockchain is still following the same rules for you that it does for everyone else, which is that you have a stake-weighted influence in the rewards pool, based on the amount of your vested shares compared to the total.