What I meant by free market is that these whales are free to band together voluntarily and use their Steem Power as they please.
Ironically, in the supposed interest of helping small fish have more power, and take away influence from whales, they are using their whale influence to now crush small users.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
And yeah, if I were an investor, I woild certainly be a little concerned with all this.
Right. I see your point. My point is that within the real free market, Steemit is a private enterprise, and thus the stakeholders can do as they please.
If Steemit were a model of the free market, then yes, I see your analogy and it makes sense.
Either way, there are consequences for actions, and I think this whales will find that out.
This platform allows for downvoting. It is a private organization that allows for this activity. There is nothing anti-free market here. This analogy is to me, an apples to oranges comparison.
The free market (bigger picture) allows for Steemit to be this thing that it is now. That is my point. That is all I am saying.
The free market may decide that these actors not mimicking a real-life free market suck, and thus Steemit might fail when users leave.
Get it? I am not saying you are wrong. I am looking at it from the real-world, macro perspective. I am not viewing Steemit.com itself as the all-encompassing free market. It's not. It's a website and a platform and thus subject to these dramas.
It may continue and succeed, or it may fail. I think, like you, these silly whales are helping it to fail.
They are not crushing small users, they are only negating votes so that more users have a weight and can make a difference in reward distribution.
Smooth and co wouldn't have to downvote any post if other whales stopped voting, so blame those whales for not wanting to improve power concentration.
What do you mean with small users? newbies or users with low SP?
Why is stakeholders with more vests having more influence unfair? That's the whole point of stake-weighted voting.
I don't know if you followed debate recently, but the big problem currently is that the utility of steem power is essentially 0 because the large majority of users have no influence at all and they would have to buy at least 10k usd to be able to give a mere cent to someone. This means that we have a system based on stake that is completely out of touch with the reality, most users will never be able to be a whale. The whole thing should be scaled down to reflect the reality of users on this platform.
Regarding your question. Why is stakeholders with more vests having more influence unfair? I think abit said that in the context of the reward curve, the n^2 algorithm give a huge advantage to whale which is unfair.
This is what most users don't understand about this experiment
One thing that I noticed is that users who are currently being autovoted by whales seem to be the most upset. This is logic because currently they have some kind of guaranteed revenue which provides some stability which is good for them. However what they fail to understand is that this stability is an illusion, it is very fragile actually because any whales can decide to stop the autovote for any reason at any time. This experiment will provide a much more predictable and stable way to earn a revenue which is why I find it hilarious that so many people say they want to quit because of it. Authors who are serious about building a rep/following and want a stable source of revenue should be ecstatic about this experiment.
I am talking about both new users and those with low SP, I have seen their posts grayed-out, downvoted into oblivion, and heard their discouragment.
This experiment was not announced, has no real clear methodology or controls, and is punishing effort in true Communist fashion, by penalizing both new users and those of us who have worked very hard to build up an audience.
And of course whales can stop the autovote at any time. Who doesn't know that? And what is wrong with that?
The influence is off balance, perhaps, so the code should be changed. People should not be flagged for effort. This is very discouraging and an ugly move on the part of these "experiment" whales.
If a fix is needed, the code should be changed.
I am talking about both new users and those with low SP, I have seen their posts grayed-out, downvoted into oblivion, and heard their discouragment.
This experiment was not announced, has no real clear methodology or controls, and is punishing effort in true Communist fashion, by penalizing both new users and those of us who have worked very hard to build up an audience.
New users are not being downvoted, only users with whale autovote.
You worked hard to build an audience but all your payouts are coming from a few whales. Your audience has no impact on your posts. And it's like this for everyone on this platform.
That is factually not true, as I have just demonstrated. 3 days on Steemit is a new user.
Second, according to @abit, you are also wrong. Not only whale votes (and it is not only whale bot votes it seems) but also posts voted on by whale-like groups are systematically being targeted.
If I am not mistaken, this includes curation guilds.
If the voting weight is detrimentally imbalanced (and indeed I think it may be) let's change the code.
This is a stake-weighted platform. Those that do not agree with stake weighting are free to go elsewhere.
I worked hard to earn the trust of those (even powerful NON WHALES) who put their bots on me. Now their say in my content's value is being destroyed because of a few misguided whales and their disorganized "experiment."
You are simply incorrect that new users are not being downvoted, and that only whale bot votes are being "counteracted." Read @abit's blog for yourself.
My votes were consistently adding one cent to users' content, because I have been grinding on here since day one. I pretty much have no money to invest in this, but have made it all blogging. Now users like myself are punished for this effort.
Let's change the code and adjust n^2, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What I meant by free market is that these whales are free to band together voluntarily and use their Steem Power as they please.
Ironically, in the supposed interest of helping small fish have more power, and take away influence from whales, they are using their whale influence to now crush small users.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
And yeah, if I were an investor, I woild certainly be a little concerned with all this.
.
Right. I see your point. My point is that within the real free market, Steemit is a private enterprise, and thus the stakeholders can do as they please.
If Steemit were a model of the free market, then yes, I see your analogy and it makes sense.
Either way, there are consequences for actions, and I think this whales will find that out.
.
This platform allows for downvoting. It is a private organization that allows for this activity. There is nothing anti-free market here. This analogy is to me, an apples to oranges comparison.
.
Is there anything truly a free market?
Welcome to hear examples.
Is there anything truly decentralised?
We are working towards an ideal that does not yet exist. Perhaps it will never exist.
Is it not an oxymoron that we attempt to gamify and place valuations but seek for equality?
Equal opportunities does not automatically mean equal fulfilment.
I think too much effort is placed on trying to make things "fair" since we know that things never were fair in the first place.
The free market (bigger picture) allows for Steemit to be this thing that it is now. That is my point. That is all I am saying.
The free market may decide that these actors not mimicking a real-life free market suck, and thus Steemit might fail when users leave.
Get it? I am not saying you are wrong. I am looking at it from the real-world, macro perspective. I am not viewing Steemit.com itself as the all-encompassing free market. It's not. It's a website and a platform and thus subject to these dramas.
It may continue and succeed, or it may fail. I think, like you, these silly whales are helping it to fail.
They are not crushing small users, they are only negating votes so that more users have a weight and can make a difference in reward distribution.
Smooth and co wouldn't have to downvote any post if other whales stopped voting, so blame those whales for not wanting to improve power concentration.
I have seen the small users downvoted, so that is not true.
And besides, @abit claims in his latest post whales exercising their influence is "unfair."
Why is stakeholders with more vests having more influence unfair? That's the whole point of stake-weighted voting.
What do you mean with small users? newbies or users with low SP?
I don't know if you followed debate recently, but the big problem currently is that the utility of steem power is essentially 0 because the large majority of users have no influence at all and they would have to buy at least 10k usd to be able to give a mere cent to someone. This means that we have a system based on stake that is completely out of touch with the reality, most users will never be able to be a whale. The whole thing should be scaled down to reflect the reality of users on this platform.
Regarding your question. Why is stakeholders with more vests having more influence unfair? I think abit said that in the context of the reward curve, the n^2 algorithm give a huge advantage to whale which is unfair.
This is what most users don't understand about this experiment
If a fix is needed, the code should be changed.
I am talking about both new users and those with low SP, I have seen their posts grayed-out, downvoted into oblivion, and heard their discouragment.
This experiment was not announced, has no real clear methodology or controls, and is punishing effort in true Communist fashion, by penalizing both new users and those of us who have worked very hard to build up an audience.
And of course whales can stop the autovote at any time. Who doesn't know that? And what is wrong with that?
The influence is off balance, perhaps, so the code should be changed. People should not be flagged for effort. This is very discouraging and an ugly move on the part of these "experiment" whales.
@berniesanders figured it out and left.
New users are not being downvoted, only users with whale autovote.
You worked hard to build an audience but all your payouts are coming from a few whales. Your audience has no impact on your posts. And it's like this for everyone on this platform.
New users are indeed being downvoted of they are lucky enough to get a whale vote. See what I mean? It's not my opinion. It is happening.
elementm was downvoted because her post was autovoted by a whale https://steemit.com/art/@elementm/flowers-in-the-backyard-and-account-verification
investigator also got downvoted for the same reasons https://steemit.com/photography/@investigator/trilogy-or-photo
Posts that have not been botvoted by whales have never been downvoted .
You said above:
That is factually not true, as I have just demonstrated. 3 days on Steemit is a new user.
Second, according to @abit, you are also wrong. Not only whale votes (and it is not only whale bot votes it seems) but also posts voted on by whale-like groups are systematically being targeted.
If I am not mistaken, this includes curation guilds.
If the voting weight is detrimentally imbalanced (and indeed I think it may be) let's change the code.
This is a stake-weighted platform. Those that do not agree with stake weighting are free to go elsewhere.
I worked hard to earn the trust of those (even powerful NON WHALES) who put their bots on me. Now their say in my content's value is being destroyed because of a few misguided whales and their disorganized "experiment."
You are simply incorrect that new users are not being downvoted, and that only whale bot votes are being "counteracted." Read @abit's blog for yourself.
My votes were consistently adding one cent to users' content, because I have been grinding on here since day one. I pretty much have no money to invest in this, but have made it all blogging. Now users like myself are punished for this effort.
Let's change the code and adjust n^2, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.