RE: One SImple Rule Change To Put The Power Where It Belongs, The Users Of The SP
Hey Dave - it's great that you're thinking about these things and posting about it to get the community involved, but I don't think this proposal would actually change anything if it were implemented.
Delegation is not really necessary for vote selling. It's convenient, yes, but that's about it. If your change was implemented I think the large SP holders would just dictate who their delegatees vote for as witnesses.
The SP holders have all of the power, and if they delegate to someone who doesn't vote as they want they can just delegate to someone else who does.
Additionally, they could just sell the votes themselves without delegating to someone else. They can either run a voting bot software using their own account, or sell their votes through a service like minnowbooster and smartsteem provide.
What do you think would happen if the witnesses said, "no more bid-bots" or place heavier restrictions on the bot owners that reduce usage?
The witnesses can't just "say" these things, they would need to develop and adopt changes to the blockchain code in order to effect any changes. What changes do you think could be made that would accomplish this? What do you think would happen if the top witnesses did those things?
It seems to me that a lot of people here think they know how to fix everything. There's a lot of "if we just do X then everything will be better". It's great that people are thinking about these issues and coming up with ideas to improve things, but pretty much every proposal I've seen would most likely end up with the same "problems" we see now, just dressed up
a little differently.
My take on the whole thing is that most of the problems that exist on Steem just stem from basic human nature and they exist pretty much everywhere. Is witness voting really that different than regular politics? It's all controlled by the wealthy who like to maintain the status quo. Bitcoin and other cryptos and most other systems on the planet are all the same.
Steem is not going to fix these things. So rather than trying to fix problems that are probably un-fixable, my thinking is to try to work with human nature rather than fight it and make the Steem platform the best it can be within those constraints.
This comment is already getting rather long, but I have a post in the works that is focused on this topic, and hopefully will explain how I think vote selling by passive investors can actually be a good and healthy thing for Steem.
I have a problem with human nature arguments, basically because the economic, political and social environment have a profound impact on what is deemed to be 'acceptable' levels of self-interest.
As I see it, late-capitalism encourages a particular form of self-interested behavior: the pursuit of capital gain, and this has 'evolved/ regressed' (depending on how you see it) to have fewer rules which dictate the movement of capital and fewer restrictions on the ability of the those with capital to move it about in order to maximise their ROI.
Crypto currency and steemit (possibly especially) just provide greater opportunities for people that have already been encouraged to pursue the self interested pursuit of capital accumulation to carry on doing so, but they offer much greater potential returns (at more risk) over a shorter time. Obviously the more capital people already have, the more able they are to become empowered on steemit, and win over the witnesses.
OK - this is probably stating the obvious.. what I'm trying to say is that steemit as it is doesn't just allow 'selfish human nature' to carry on doing: our capitalist system encourages a particular manifestation of selfishness (making no value judgement here) and steemit amplifies it.
It's maybe this amplification factor that makes people so mad: you don't see this selfish-propensity of humanity (I won't call it human nature) in such a raw form in ordinary life - but, once again, it is the structure of steemit as it is, located in the capitalist system as it is in this particular historical moment, that has allowed this to happen - bid bot use is not down to 'human nature' it's down to this transhuman conflation located in a postmodern capitalist political economy which encourages individuals to pursue self interest with more freedom and fewer restrictions than in any other domain on the planet, real or hyperreal.
Bizarrely however, because everything's a lot more complex than that people like @davemccoy also join steemit, as do lots of other like minded people and start raging against it (it seems dialectical).
I'll look forward to that post.... but please don't fall back on 'human nature' arguments! Humans have the capacity to do many things - be selfish, be altruistic, even to question the nature of the self and to transcend it.
Also, we're way beyond 'human nature' here anyway, many of the 'users' aren't actually human!
As to your 'how do we fix it question' VERY GOOD QUESTION. Too long to comment on in-depth, suffice to say, I understand what you are saying about the complexities of making changes.
Very good reply @revisesociology. There isn't much I can add to it, I just wanted to let you know I read it and appreciate you taking the time to write out such in-depth thoughts! :)
Hey thanks, it's good to think these things through!
Karl.
Matt, thank you very much for the lengthy and well thought out reply. You earn respect in my book for being a witness that is willing to put your views out in the open. I do understand your point about the fact that the large holders can just change methods, so no real difference will exist for long as they would have a workaround. I had not thought of that, so thank you for pointing it out. I do think it might have an effect on the margin, I'll discuss later below.
To answer this question:
I would say that the witnesses would lose their votes from the guys with the SP. So what we would end up with would be new witnesses that support the needs of the large owners.
About your point about people saying if we do "x" and then that will fix it, the point is completely taken. I realize that this is a very complex situation and my point about this being a simple solution trivializes the many things that would have to change to make it happen. I should've said a "simple concept", but it is certainly more complex with the implementation.
As far as why I think the concept has some merit (maybe not as much as I originally thought, as you described ways they could get around this), is because it would affect things at the margin. For instance, there are many votes that are cast everyday from thousands of people that never even log on. If they aren't logging on, then they probably aren't updating their witness votes. So the status quo becomes even more entrenched as their votes remain the same day after day no matter what the issues are.
Also at the margin I think there would be a some change in the willingness to delegate their power. Right now some just delegate out to the highest bidder, which requires no thought or effort to learn the issues. At least if they lost their witness voting power along with the leases, then they would have to choose from a pool of people that agree with them and the things they want done (ie they become more informed and less passive).
And finally I 100% agree with you that this system mirrors what happens in life. Fair or unfair, you are exactly right when you mention that power gets concentrated at the top. And just like in real life, it is something that we must all realize as a fact. I admire that you have chosen to take a constructive approach and work within the parameters of what "can be done" as opposed to what "would be nice to do". You are right about human nature and I agree completely that working to make the platform better is a good thing to do, as opposed to fighting everything that is wrong at every turn.
I would differ in one way from you though, and that is in thinking the problems that we all see are "un-fixable". I think they are very fixable, but only with all stakeholders at the table. If the people that have such a large share of ownership realized they have a problem, then maybe one day they will sit down and properly deal with that problem. That is what I hold out hope for.
Frankly they are the ones with the biggest stakes in this venture, if it succeeds or fails it will impact them the most. What I am suggesting is that they see the problem before it becomes "un-fixable" and irreversible. As with any market, people seem to be able to spot the problems easily in hindsight. What I'm attempting to do is bring up a way to keep the ownership in tune with the users and managers of the system before these issues become "un-fixable".
But just like the owners have the right to make the platform what they want it to be, the users also get to choose whether they want to use this platform or not. I have seen firsthand a "churn rate" here on steemit that would cause many executives to lose their jobs in the real world. And this kind of churn rate does not bode well for the future (if the status quo remains). I (and many like me that care) am trying to come up with a constructive ideas to make the system work better. There are many wonderful things about steemit, including you. I wish more witnesses would engage the community and try to understand how the "everyday user" thinks so they can adjust where and when needed.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post, to address the issues, and to engage me (and by extension others). You have shown yourself to care about the community and I have seen many times that you are there to support us. I appreciate both of these things very much.