The Number one challenge on Steemit
93.33% of the steem rests in the hands of the 1% of steem owners. That's not even including the STEEMIT INC account. My number one frustration on the platform is the distribution, and I spend a lot of my new commute time trying to figure out what we can do about it.
The good news to many is that the price of steem is going up, but the bad news is that this will hurt distribution. While the actual percentages won’t change with a price increase the amount of fiat required to purchase their share goes up. So, judging by the cost in fiat dollars it gets harder and harder to solve the distribution crisis as Steem mainstreams and price goes up.
It leads to problems on the server. You probably have heard the term circle-jerk in regards to the trending section. It’s the reality that many weak posts by well known authors are able to catch huge rewards. A single image or a single video may catch $500 or more. It’s so frustrating to see as a minnow or dolphin pouring your life into a 2 hour post that gets 8 views and 3 cents.
As my wife put it-
My $0.02 cents are only worth 1 cent.
The reason behind supported shit posts are several. The rewards are high so there's lots of incentive as an author. The consequences are low unless the Uber whales collectively decide to punish people. There are social reasons... "You scratch my shitpost and I'll scratch yours," or "what's the big deal that author's my friend." But the biggest reason is that curation favors it.
If I'm a whale I can make $1k/week upvoting comments. I make more when I upvote successful posts early. The already well known authors with high reps, big followings, and proven success getting big rewards is my highest chance for a fat payday on my upvote. You can't blame them. If I could make $1k a week just by upvoting my buddies who were doing the same to me I'd be hard pressed to do anything different. So, curation starts looking like kids playing soccer where everyone is grouping up around the same ball.
What are some potential solutions?
So, short of a cultural revolution we gotta figure something out to help change the distribution over time. My first suggestion is to alter the reward curve for whale curation so that it’s at least partially dependent on the delta between their own steem power and the steem power of the post they are voting on.
For example; I'd like the future to look more like this- Whales get higher percentage rewards for finding a good minnow post, up voting it, resteeming, and possibly seeing the same circle jerk effect, but at least it's on minnow posts. They can still be rewarded for posting on their friends posts but the percentage or cap is less attractive. That's one approach.
Another alternative is to reduce the voting power used when it's spent on a weaker account. In this case the whale could presumably have more votes that pay somewhat less individually (because there's less of a chance of a pile onto the post) but with the right curve or power that could still be better than just the ganging up on another whales post because they can only vote on fewer of them.
It's possible these comments are moot after HF 19 and linear rewards, but I'm pretty nervous that it'll go on. They'll just have fewer more powerful votes to send their buddies to the moon!
If we can incentivize the whales to look for minnow posts, up vote them, and resteem them we have a better shot of helping minnows and dolphins grow their accounts. I think this will also clean up the trending section so that higher quality posts we can all be proud of end up there.
Potential pitfalls
Now, this might be dangerous because it could incentivize whales to make alts, shitpost and re steem on the alt. This already goes on though to some extent. We may just need the "police" to be diligent about that too. More on that tomorrow...
Anyway, drop your thoughts
These ideas are 1-day old after a some deep thoughts with @trafalgar. I'm still philosoficating about it.
Do you like it?
How could it be implemented mathematically?
Do you think this could help distribution over time?
If you wanted to incentivize whales to vote for minnow content how would you do it?
Circlejerk is so hawt right now
Please vote for me for Witness!
You can find me hanging out on steemspeak, a discord channel that many steemers use to text and talk to each other- https://discord.gg/qjpRj7w
You can find me in Whaleshares- https://discord.gg/GykFB6S
or my new channel PALnet- https://discord.gg/HYj4yvw
I can also be found on steemchat as @aggroed. If you have a post to share give me a good sentence or two of why you think I’ll like it.
To vote for me click the link underneath my profile, scroll under the list of 50 names and type aggroed into the box. If you can see my name you have voted for me (don't click the little blue upvote next to my name as you'll cancel your vote for me).
In every free market economy, it always look like the wealth distribution is not fair, but the trouth is that any attempt to intervene will only make things worse.
Except in this case, we aren't in a free market. We are all bound by the unique rules of the STEEMIT platform. Like it or not, we are heading to a new hardfork that will change the rules.
So the question becomes, "Is the STEEMIT platform stronger with the built in incentive for whales to upvote whales, or is STEEMIT stronger with built in incentives for whales to upvote superior content?"
Remember, the incentives we have now were not market chosen either...
Agreed
No, there is a system design in place now and it aggregates wealth. We have the power to make changes and run experiments. If we do nothing we're stuck with 93% in the 1%. It's worth exploring.
Aggroed, I agree. It is worth exploring, and supporting.
Absoluteky. This is a safe place to test new models without causing famine and poverty to an entire population for generations, as might occur IRL social experiments...
It's not a free market, it's a highly regulated system with specific rules chosen to produce specific results. It's like a car engine. The better you design it, the faster it will go.
What is regulated are the contracts that the virtual coins represent. But this is not why you have a wealth pyramid.
Don't get me wrong. I am all in for changes and fixes in the way Steemit works (altough IMO the more important ones are related the the Steemit social network's user experience), but none of these will make the wealth distribution more fair.
When you assign a reward for choosing a post that others will like, you are regulating behavior. That is a regulation and the site is full of them. And yes, there are ways to make the wealth distribution more fair. Changing the way rewards are dolled out is one of them.
I have to laugh at your vote bots though. 3 minutes and 18 votes? I don't know what to think of that stuff.
That is backwards thinking. Old think. We have a chance to build a new model. Not make this place the same old garbage most of us want to escape.
This was said many times in history and the result was only lots of destruction and suffering, just to end up in the same place.
I plan to write a post about that soon, but in a nutshell, every time you reshuffle the deck, you create lots of value by doing so but only for a very short time. Those who have the brains or the guts or even the luck to grab it, will become the whales of the shuffled ecosystem. Now, if you want to change the rules so that you will have a chance at that big bang moment, that is another thing, but don't expect it to make the system more fair.
I feel bad if you really view life with so much surrender. You should turn off your vote bots, you might give people the impression that others actually agree with what you're saying. ;)
I don't have a vote bot for my replies, so apparently some people agree with me
False. This is the two party propaganda that they feed to the Red team. If anyone tries to even the playing field, that is insipid communism. Poor people who work 18 hours a day to pay their rent should not be getting Christian charity, because you are encouraging laziness (they actually said this in 18th century London). If someone has a Trillion dollars and owns all the land, you just have to do what he says, because we don't do any redistribution. No, free markets have to be protected with laws. The basic truth that the bad guys teach the Red team to reject is that there is never a need to level the playing field. The other thing they sell the red team on is giving public utilities to private companies (because lazy governments are not as efficient).
this statement has some truth in it but is worded too strongly
you can have market inefficiencies, externalities, asymetrical information, public good, monopolies, irrational behavior, misaligned game theoretical outcomes etc that could benefit from intervention
but generally a free market is very productive and intervention should be seldom exercised
More minnows would stay if they actually saw rewards. As it stands now, the dead followers list will continue to grow. Just my opinion.
What gives me a little hope are the fundraising/charity blogs.
There are lots of good people here who can see past selfish earnings.
I think they would agree to make reasonable compromises to expedite the grand vision of Steemit.
Maybe the power down period is too short? Or maybe the reward vs lockup period should have tiers?
I think that discourages investment, which is bad for the platform. That's just one thought and worth a post from you about to explore further how you think it'd work.
I am connecting high quality content, and the curation of that content, to the long-term prosperity of the platform, which can most reasonably be expected from users who have long-term stakes.
What I'd like to see is tiered/adjustable power down periods that correspond to levels of inflation. Both short and longterm investors could be served.
And the ratio for those tiers could be guided by network growth, coin price, and other health metrics. Ex. If things are going great, power downs periods could shorten.
Just some thoughts...
Interesting thought of opening up ease of sale when things are going well. I think I like that. I think that's tied to price and not to inflation because I'm pretty sure inflation is a set number hard wired into the hardfork.
Thanks for making it MORE understandable... for me at least it is so hard to navigate through this and still get frustrated it cannot be so simple as to write good content and have it be "discovered". I love this platform and try hard to not be intimidated or discouraged by the fact that most will probably upvote for the numbers not the content.
Check out my wall for the minnow support project. It has some great tips and links in there o help you get started.
Thank you . I will - I appreciate your help and advice
An excellent post worthy of my first ever witness vote.
WOOT! THanks boss!
How are Hard Forks HF done . By witness? and % of Nodes(?) or majority servers?
Who writes the(codes) them?
any chance I can get a plastic fork? it will float and I won't have to dive so deep..
:-)
I would like to see something along the line of the bigger the fish,whale to whale , you get less.vote power would be low ,rewards would be lows. whale to minnow vote power high and rewards higher. I would also Like to see some kind of cap on accounts that way it eliminates the king of the hill,levels the playing field. puts a limit on greed.
whats wrong with saying $10,000,000. is enough? you cant live comfortably on that?
sorry but you want to stop this !%-10% vs the 90% that what it takes. they will not do it voluntarily ....grafts , bribes and lobbying ,that they understand...
if we are going to stop the war machine,we need to keep control of the inequity rooting in here,and root it out!
but how we do that is not up to me... and I am just a minnow ,so who will listen to me.
Well that is my 2cents
namaste
I think capping is too much. We want to encourage people to drop the other systems not limit what they can do here. Some good ideas in that.
HF rolls out when the majority of top witnesses are running an update version of steem. So, it's up to them.
I respectfully disagree...
It is more important to build this system... and do it right.
let them have the system we are replacing... I would rather see billions of people with millions than thousands with trillions.
If they can buy this platform they will!
we need to post it not for sale!
and stick to it !...
but alas just a dream.... 34% fought for our independence...
:-(
namaste :-)
Even Professional Sports Teams have Salary caps! Just like We have an Electoral College! otherwise, about 5 States would run the Whole Country, what we have here? Not criticizing, just an observation from a newbie..playing devil's advocate here..
I knew there was a reason i follow you... you just keep putting out quality posts that make one think. While i don't always agree with what you are saying i can honsestly say that what you say is always informative.. thank you again for the quality posts. I think we minnows and dolphins need to help one another by upvoting and resteeming good content regardless if we make anything by doing so... not sure we can drown out the whales, but we might be able to at least swim in the same pool with them....
Well, the goal isn't to "drown out the whales" but to align our incentives so that we all benefit. Thoughtful though, and thanks for putting up with the parts of me you don't care for or agree with. It's the essence of wisdom to be able to hold a thought without believing it. Somewhere in here there's a space for dialog and thanks for helping to hold that space.
I really do believe in steem and the wealth distribution around the world has to be fair for us to function well.
Yeah, a rising tide lifts all boats.
I usually post about every other day. I realize not a lot of people are into gem and mineral collecting like I am, but I persevere. Just like any business it takes a lot of time and effort to make it. A lot of the heavy hitters have been here for a while and put the time and effort into becoming a whale. So they kinda deserve their positions, but I totally understand that many people up vote not the best things. Not sure if that's nefarious or not.
One thing to keep in mind is there are only what, 180k users? That's nothing. This platform is still young and will continue to evolve, for the better I'm sure. When we have over 1million users the niches will start to flex, hopefully mine, and maybe that trending page or hot page will be more diverse. Just remember, we are so, so, so early into this experiment. In another 6 months I guarantee that the majority of us will be sharks schooling the minnows. It's exciting! Steem on!
Nice response. You get a follow!
Thanks bro.
Brilliant post. I didn't realize how extreme the problem was. It's trickle down economics all over again and it only works as long as the whales are all good people. Luckily we have a few but I think we can do much better than this.
You offered a great solution that I hadn't thought of and then a potential problem that I wouldn't have thought of. If we could find a non-oppressive way to prevent the alt-account problem, increased incentive on curating minnow posts would be great.
I like the idea of bringing down the voting power of whales a notch and upping it for minnows which I heard is happening soon.
Maybe another solution would be to reduce the monetary incentive on curation and inviting a larger group of content creating whales. If the majority of whales were content creators they wouldn't be as in a hurry to curate for money because they would already be making money on their posts. There would still be some incentive to curate but not enough to vote and resteem crappy posts when the good ones would make you almost as much SBD. More programs like whaleshares could create new opportunities for those who are primarily curators to contribute to the community and be compensated.
What do you think?
Thoughtful. But you gotta put yourself in their shoes and realize the behavior they exhibit is incentivized. 1 click of a button = 15-40 or more if it's a big post. Writing takes time. There's a natural shift of behavior in this meta of the system. I'll put it in a post later.
I was just thinking about this earlier today when I was noticing the Group "Inner Circle" typer trend happening with Big authors and the "Cirlce Jerk" some are involved in? But my serious question is this? Any room for me in that circle???
Cute.
Delete the Elite! 😂
If all the minnows stopped kissing whale and dolphin butt, things might change here. It is like socialism for whales. Plus I see all the whales helping whales. Whale bots, whale votes...well, when the people lead, our leaders will follow!!
Haha :p
I'm not anti whale. They do a shit ton of good things for this place. I think there are better ways to align incentives so we all win than what's currently in place.
I was being silly. Paraphrasing Bernie. Lol
And I agree with you. I am not anti-whale either. Having been here only a month it seems the only time I break a dollar on a post is when I get a whale vote. Maybe the whales and dolphins aren't seeing posts from new users? Some of the minnow content is great. Like I said in a recent blog, for the most part, the whales still provide the best content overall. They deserve the big bucks. Plenty of minnows do as well. Great post as always.
Nice explanation
Anyone know if you can buy steem with dollars somehow maybe credit card is it even possible or do you need to buy Bitcoin first?????
coinbase lets you use cc
Still not familiar enough with the platform to offer up anything worthwhile by way of suggestion, but from what I've learned so far, your ideas hold a lot of merit.
There's evidence of this even in the introduceyourself thread - its obvious when new people get introduced or instantly resteemed by users who already have quite an influence. And there's nothing wrong with introducing a friend, but, some of these intro posts are total crap and pulling in $100+ in a day.
I know there are a number of whales that are working hard to support new members, and its great. But it doesn't feel like enough, yet.
Folks in teh PALnet chat talk about a welcome group for newbies. It's on the list.
Good to hear, thanks for the follow-up.
Upvoted, liked, resteemed and voted. Good luck! (:
Everyone loves a good Circlejerk don't they. But this all seems pretty reasonable. The rich get richer etc etc.
Maybe have a sliding scale system where a big whale can have a huge impact on a minnows post, but minimal impact on someone such as another whale.
Then have it in the group rules, or constitution that any Alt account that aim to pervert the flow of SBD to themselves attract penalties.
No one likes a fraud.
@aggroed, I have voted for you as a witness on the recommendation of @themagus.
I will appreciate it if you can from time to time also check out my posts.
good luck with your witness.
Sounds like fu. Also, it looks you may have unvoted me. If you can see my name we're good. If you click it after and my name goes away then you have changed your vote. Thanks for your support!
Hi. I did click it again - sorry. Will vote then again.
Will appreciate if you can check out my posts also from time to time :)
I followed. If you're support peace, abudance, and liberty you'll likely catch a resteem and some upvotes!
thanks
Very insightful and relevant post! I alluded to this very same problem in my post today. Hoping that the upcoming HF 19 linear rewards can level the playing field for minnows and dolphins. Steemit equality for all!
great get rid of the steam cleaners too while we are at it those guys are a joke!
what's that? sorry, not familiar with them yet?
its this guy who self appointed his self to police steemit and he made a homemade bot which a 12 year old could program better to go around flagging and threatening users for whatever he doesn't like or could possibly be a copy paste post. The guy is a goof and thinks hes some special steemit savior saving the day from evil investors who post stuff. It truly is a nazi like movement here on steemit which maybe had good intentions but ended up being a complete failure but still operates as of today. Few of my friends got there posts flagged by this "bot" removing earnings from posts and making there posts pretty much disappear for the most part.
how do you re-steem a post? or do I not have the power to do it yet?
little arrow looking thing next to reply at the bottom on the post.
thanks!
Very awesome points. I'd like to eventually see higher profits but I would also like to see the rest of the community grow equally. It's hard to see the perspective of the whales when you're only making less than a dollar on posts you spend alot of time writing.
If you're a minnow you make money in the comments. Check out my post Minnow 101. But yeah. Long hours no low rewards.
Thanks man! Just read that post. I'll have to start commenting on more posts from others. Hopefully, I can help the people that have less than I do.
Cheers,
@clayford08
Good plan. Good man! You're lookin' sharp in your profile pic.
And then there is this type of thing:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@randowhale/introducing-randowhale-will-you-get-the-100-vote-give-it-a-shot
Literally selling up votes... :(
Aggroed, While studying about Steemit, I read that the starting rank is 25 and the cap is at 75. Can you confirm if the voting influence is tied to the rank or not? The reason I ask is that if the voting power is capped once you reach rank 75, then it is possible that eventually, many more individuals will be at that maximum whale voting power. If that is the case, then I believe that things should be left alone and it will eventually sort itself out. However, if vests and rank are not connected and early adopters are allowed to increase their voting influence exponentially or even linearly indefinitely, then there will never be a way to catch up and the early adopters will always hold the majority of power unless they decide to sell the majority of their Steem.
These are different. Rep isn't even hard wired into the blockchain.
Thanks! So essentially, rep. is just an arbitrary way of saying you made some progress? Seems rather pointless then. Why not just use the vesting system to monitor progress instead. Steem Tokens, Steem Power and Steem Dollars make it confusing enough! Do we need 2 ranking systems as well? Is it all deliberately made to be confusing so that the great unwashed simply chase the pennies blissfully?
Rep is why people are nice. Steem is wealth. I'm in the middle of a post, but you're welcome to ask me stuff in the PALnet discord channel whenever.
This is the way of the world.
The Steem blockchain seems to have been built around the principle examined by @aggroed. Our culture and our society is designed to prop up this type of inner-circle echo chamber.
Everyone wants entry into the cave. Even the sounds from outside are mesmerizing.
Old issue. So important. Still no satisfactory solutions... Upvoted for more discussion.
Thanks. We'll see where it goes.
Agree with some things in the post, but unequal distribution is also natural phenomena. That being said, the distribution of steem on here is getting more egalitarian over time rather than less
As you pointed out, circle jerking is a passive problem on here as the short term incentive of maximizing curation rewards encourages voting for established authors rather than finding quality posts, which would be better for the platform as a whole.
It's an honor to have you on my wall @trafalgar. Here, have some tea and enjoy your stay.
They know more about the minnow and the dolphine, but they dont know that there is #redfish that needs more help. There voting weight is lesser than minnows.
This redfish level was introduce in mid month of May and they dont know or aware of it!
This the first level next to minnow!
#redfish is leaving in a bowl separate from steemit ocean🐠
Lol. That's a rough spot. Even more important to stick in the comments and grow a base there. Skip posting till you have at least a little audience.
Thank you,, just wanted to stressed about #redfish for awareness .. Haha🐠
You need memes if you want awareness. Make a good one and I'll send you 10 SBD
Really, i will do that, thats another funds for building the redfish.. I will note that!
You have 45 min to make it! GOGOGOGO
Is redfish a part of steemit?
when they don't know that there is redfish!
Then you ask: What is Redfish
took me two days for my 1st one!..lol
Very good recommendations. I sometimes say this jokingly, but I think part of the problem is the length of the average post in the hot pages: A 5 page-long post may be good for circlejerking, but your average joe just dipping his toes in to the system is not going to read that, worse, he may feel like a shitpost is not worth posting, reducing his chance to earn power and become part of the community. To me "curating" should also apply to low-quality, funny or plain nonsensical-but-entretaining posts.
And so, I think something that would help alleviate this issue is: More shitposting.
Those are my two satoshis.
Great post mate, puts the distribution factor into perspective for me. Keep it up, you will be a whale/witness one day. How bout a follow to help a new minnow grow? Thanks @tokar854
Nice try. Post on the minnow support project on Monday and you'll get a fair shot!
Good stuff, worth more than 11 cents.
It's just getting started
Now that's more like it!!
I thought I read the voting is changing in next few weeks so ratios different.
Yeah. HF 19 changes the voting power by a lot, but I don't think it's going to alter curation trends.
Nice Post. I don't know if these suggestions will work, but it's definitely food-for-thought and could potentially give some diversity to payouts and redistribution of funds in a different way.
I'll think on this and see if I can think of any other ideas.
Thanks boss.
I've seen some good posts make dust in these two days. I must say, it's bad, when you put in your efforts.
Minnows should be in the comments to start. Check my Post minnow 101. But yeah. it's hard breaking in.
I agree that most of the minnows aren't getting paid the amount of money or respect that they deserve. I myself made to two hour long posts today. Each one got about $2.. That is actually quite a bit more than most minnows make on their posts, but it's not nearly as much as any of the whales make on a simple meme or something. Restoring the distribution is a strange thing and I can't honestly imagine how it could completely work because it's going to rely on the whales resteeming and voting things up when they could just be sitting in a relaxed chair making money. Who doesn't want to do that?
Yeah. It's a tough issue. I'm not positive these are the answers, but I'm positive that including lots of smart people in the discussion we can come up with the answers.
What about making it so you earn the same curation reward for your vote regardless of how popular the article becomes?
Why is it a good thing to motivate someone to vote for something they think will be popular instead of what they actually like?
The logic is clearly being gamed, and is producing poor results (well, for some of us), so I suggest this is the problem spot we should focus on.
I also think that those who benefit may not be interested in fixing the system, which means the site will be weak to a potential competitor.
It's intended to produce good results. I think it's close, but needs a tweak to be successful.
I also think the whales need to sell off their steem.
I'm not here to tell them what to do. Only to look at incentives so they can make choices that tend to benefit the platform as a whole.
It looks like a lot of whales are powering down right now, but I don't know if these amounts are normal or not.
https://www.steemdown.com/
Yeah why not! $2 steem is good times compared to 7 months ago.
OK, the question was what would be helpful to solve the problem and I'm suggesting what I think would help. I don't think that is the same thing as telling anyone what to do.
I am suggesting that if the whales sold off some of their Steem, the platform would become more fair, bringing more people in, which would end up increasing the value of everyone's Steem, making the whales more money. So, I think it all pretty much works out.
But these are just my opinions. I'm not giving orders to anyone and I don't think anyone agreeing with me is giving anyone orders either.
I think the whales need to sell off their Steem in order to solve the problems and issues currently taking place on the site.
I often wonder how long it will be until a competitor comes and crashes the party here.
Steemit is gonna crash it's own party with user issue assets. So, I think it's gonna explode.
They can sell or we can incentiize a better curation system. I prefer the second option of those 2.
haha :) I'm for both 1 and 2! I honestly think you can't have a good platform in such a system with such an imbalance in ownership. I'm not 100% on that, but that is my hunch.
I've been fighting it for months. Just taking it to the next level.
Great post....loved it..Upvoted
I read that the voting is changing, but I'm not sure what the new system will look like. Does anyone know?
Yes i like the idea and think it whill help the distribution over time
Thanks boss.
Excellent post. I'm not new to the site, but only recently started to look at it seriously. It does seem like there is an ingredient missing here. I think you've done a nice job illustrating what it could be and defining possible solutions. It does currently resemble a microcosm of larger economic society, where the majority keep passing around the same worn out dollar bills while the very few roll around in beds of crisp benjis. Is there a weakness in how fans are won? Is there a community negation caused by too many similar topics? Will more eyeballs mean more fairness? It's hard to do it just for "the reward of posting" when so few make so much with dubious consistency. I hope to learn more quickly and help contribute a solution. You got a fan in me.
It's the story of life I guess, you have the 1% control most of the wealth, The next 4% feed off the 1% and the 95% well their just the 95%. Great post thanks.
yeah, but it doesn't have to be like that. We're not fighting an ancient banking family with armies. it's witnesses. We're in charge here so we can make this work. If we mess up we can fix it. Currently I think it's messed up. Maybe this will help.
I hope it can be fixed, for the sake of steemit. The 95% wont continue to build the network without incentives and will just leave, then that will effect the top 5% in the end.
I think this touches on what I find to be an annoying flaw; people are incentivized to upvote new content before they even take the time to read it. Heck, Steemit kind of doubly incentivizes this by putting upvote buttons on the feed pages rather than only on the article pages themselves; it's trivial to upvote a post without even being able to read it if you wanted to! (And, of course, I'm sure we've all seen "great post" comments on long articles ten seconds after they were posted; you know there's no way the commenter had time to read the article yet. But that's another issue.)
I'm not really sure what the solution to this would be; your solution may help the cases of whales circle-jerking, certainly, but I'd like to see the more broader behavior not be encouraged so much somehow.
Just a few thoughts:
This is just a few things off of the top of my head. Dev's? any of this possible?
I like some of those random type ideas, they should be discussed, but obviously, the Whales run the show!
Good information! Thank you!
Now my dad was a Federal Reserve shill, but he had appropriate thoughts regarding employment compensation ratios. He said, if his employer was going to pay him a certain amount, he needed to be providing them four times that much in value. He figured that whatever they were paying a worker as salary, they were probably paying him an equal amount in benefits (and what they shuck out to Uncle Sam for taxes) so that way the company was making as much from him as they were paying him.
Taking this 4 to one ratio as a minimum for the folks at the bottom of the pile sounds appropriate to me. For those just beginning , you could have an algorithm to gauge how much their content will generate for the platform over time, and give them a greater portion up front for the first few months. Then ween them back to 1/4 of it as it actually materializes after that. Then their amount could increase and move closer to 1/1. Obviously this platform won't succede if the top 3% get 98% of the rewards. The bottom 75% need to be getting a minimum 25% of the overall derived benefit from their activity (mining is a different matter of course).
I use 5:1. You're dad's a smart guy. To bad he helped people that were hurting us.
He was telling me when I was 8 years old about how if we didn't have a central bank to set the interest rate, the president would lower it to get reelected and cause inflation. Of course bankers would never do that to move $$$ from the workers to the top 1%, cause their your friends.
Yeah, I feel like I'm the one who really got cheated because if he had not taught me that bullshit, I would have realized why bitcoin was being created and adopted it the year it came out.
In his defense, he didn't know any better. He was a published scientist at 17 and thought he had it made getting into the Ivy league. He knew they would teach him B.S. about religion, but the economic stuff, he just didn't know any better.
I'm excited about the possibilities here, but came to similar conclusions as pretty quickly. I could post all day everyday and until I curry the favor of one of the "whales" it will do me little good. Now, if they happen across my content and like it, that's great, I'm fine with that. But frankly, I'm not about to go out of my way to beg for their attentions. It's not what I envisioned this platform being about.
I came here because a future where a blockchain tech sort of like STEEMIT could ensure digital content creators always received credit when their content was used, linked, reposted, etc. would be --amazing--
Steemit isn't quite that but it's close. But if these lopsided wealth distributions aren't figured out, you end up with the system you mentioned where discovery often depends on a very small group and it therefore isn't at all an effective way for creators to find an audience. The content creator must first draw notice and approval of the "gatekeepers" before they are even seen which is precisely the problem I rejected in the publishing world.
hf19 will get us on the right track, fine tuning from there.
This post received a 11% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @aggroed! For more information on @randowhale click here!
I think a more granular rating system than up or flag would be helpful, combined with some kind of diminishing returns on up voting the same users within X period of time would be helpful for helping to create some better content and distribute rewards more evenly.