RE: Got upvotes but no payout? An overview of the situation around the minimum payout threshold
Regarding this comment:
Around 30% of all posts and 10% of all comments receive votes but are not paid out because their value is below 0.02 STU at payout. I was actually a bit surprised that the number for posts is that high. I think, however, this could benefit from a more detailed look to see how many of these posts are actually "human"-made before jumping on any conclusions.
I'd say most of them were human. If you trawl through the noob posts there are literally thousands that have a few votes and no payout.
For a start, they get completely ignored by the established steemians, so their only votes are from fellow noobs.
Do the math: they start with 15 SP delegated from steemit. To get to the payout they need a 100% vote at 100% voting power from at least 23 other noobs with 15 SP (to get about 350 SP in upvotes).
In practice, they might get 10 votes, and those are NOT at 100% voting power, because the voters are voting away at everything (they are too new to grasp their voting power is draining).
After a week or so of getting votes and no payout no matter what they write, they give up, which is why Steemit has such a high abandonment of users.
This will get worse after HF20 - there won't be any starting delegation from Steemit for noobs, and they will be allowed to vote even when their voting power is completely gone...
It would be nice if established steemians sought out new people and delivered a few votes to them every day - but I see a lot of talk about engagement, but then people stick to their existing circles.
Thanks for you comment, @rose98734! I can't tell if you're right that most of them are actually human from the data I've shown here - I think I should really look into the posts without payout more closely :)
You raised a very important aspect which I completely ignored in this post: HF20!
Do you have a source for that? While it will be possible to create accounts without delegation, I haven't seen an announcement that the Steemit signup will do this?
But another aspect is the vote value downshift by 1.2 SP. While you currently and ideally need around 23 15SP votes, you'll then need at least 25 of them or more with "realistic" VP values.
My source was the following from steemitblog:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/proposing-hardfork-0-20-0-velocity
Which said the following:
As always, the steemit team is so focused on the abusers they haven't thought through why the abuses are happening in the first place. It's because it's pretty much impossible for a noob to go from 0.1 SP to 50 SP legitimately. They either give up, or figure how to game the system by opening multiple accounts. The option of writing and getting discovered is blocked to them because it's now too difficult to even earn $0.02 which will give them around 0.017 SP. They'd have to toil for aeons with thousands of $0.00 posts and a few $0.02 posts before they even break into three figures of steempower.
Indeed, this sounds like they might use the new account creation mechanism for the Steemit faucet - let's see once HF20 is active!
I think for new users it is key to join one of the existing communities and engage with established users. I remember that I "sold myself" for any kind of contests back then to get some SBD/STEEM, lol...
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it is quite some effort to build up SP without own invest.
Speaking of, I've sometimes felt an attitude among users that they "expect" to have a Steemit-funded vote that is worth "something". Let's not forget that Steemit gives out these accounts for free, you can post, vote, comment, and eventually build up your own STEEM/SP from nothing. Yes, the vote is worth close to nothing, but the "social network" or "blog" aspects are fully usable without own invest. You typically don't get monetary gains from other social networks or blogging platforms.
I've signed up for Golos a few month ago to see how that works and their free account had so little SP that I couldn't even vote. I had to buy some tokens in order to be able to vote at all.
P.S. Here is the account of the type of noob I mean:
@highlandwalker
He takes photographs of the Highlands of Scotland on his walks. He's trying hard to engage - voting for people, resteeming, leaving comments. But despite being a member since May 2016, and writing 134 posts, he has managed to go from the 0.1 SP starting steempower to 0.913 SP.
My vote is only a cent, so sometimes I am able to tip him into the $0.02 payout level, but as the price falls it gets harder and harder.