RE: STEEM's Biggest Villian
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"Who cares if they self vote? Stake weighting enables substantial stakeholders to manipulate the rewards pool and take from it for themselves. This does not increase the distribution of Steem and does not put upwards pressure on the price of Steem. The reverse is true"
Let's assume that is correct because it probably is to one degree or another. There is no promise of rewards, and the Steem white paper pokes fun at that suggesting that people will get under-rewarded in comparison to the work they put in because it exploits human psychology in the same way that gambling does. However, wouldn't it also be true that if we had 5 aspiring whales who bought into Steem today at 500k each, just so they could self vote, that that in and of itself would drive the market value of Steem upwards?
I don't think that would much affect Steem price for long. Extant whales would get fiat for their Steem, which they would not reinvest in Steem, but spend on hookers and blow (at least that's my assumption based on my knowledge of extant whales), while the SP of the new whales would not encourage anyone and would have a negative impact on user retention as normies fumed at the shitposts making $200 on trending while they got nothing.
The White Paper assumed that 30% of rewards would inure to those normies, who are presently only getting around 1% of them. Casinos don't long survive and profit if they don't parade some winners from time to time, and 1% is woefully inadequate to lure in gamblers.
I don't think 30% is a joke really. It's far more than most folks get IRL, compared to banksters.
Distributing Steem to ordinary folks and great authors would encourage them to post, comment, and interact, and ordinary folks are innately social - they want to benefit others. It's why upvotes on Fakebook and Reddit exist. Handing out 30% of Steem as rewards to those folks would distribute Steem more widely, and they would gladly upvote their friends and good authors more if they could. They're not spending it on hookers and blow, like whales. Those that do never become of greater import to the Steem society. Some folks need potatoes more than they need bigger upvotes to hand out. I am glad if I can help them with my upvotes, because I want them to have potatoes a lot in that case.
Potato buyers would not have ire at Steem as a result, and would be likely to invest in Steem if they become sufficiently potatoed, and also to recommend it to their friends, putting upwards pressure on the price.
Angry folks that see the $200 shitposts on trending while they are reduced to eating recycled food will never invest in Steem, and never recommend it to their friends, and they will leave, putting downwards pressure on the price.
User retention rates indicate the latter is happening a lot more than the former. That's bad business.
I've concluded that we need to admit to ourselves that the whitepaper got it wrong. We can't get any good measure of a post's value based on the weight applied to a post or the number of votes. This, because the stake-weighting is real, and so are the bot armies and vote trails. That said, first thing needs fixing is the trending page to hide problems like $200 shit posts. Algorithms will do it better than the community can. It's not optimal, but it's the truth. I'm just talking about the way things are presented on trending. The page should show multiple popular tags which include the best of the newest articles in each.
I reckon the White Paper got some stuff wrong, too.
Whose gonna choose the 'best'? I reckon trending will work just fine if we eliminate profiteering, which isn't that hard to do. The Huey Long algorithm will fix it quick. Prolly plenty of other ways to do so too, and if better minds than mine set about figuring them, better proposals than mine will come up.
You know what, after reading the whitepaper; I’m no longer opposed to Marky’s actions. I want him and his downvote posse to get the lid on this bucket of crabs and jam it on tight. This is because Steem is a trap and we’re all doomed. If he can win big enough at flagging, it will prevent new stakeholders from falling for Steem’s machinations. I find the crabs in a bucket mentality disgusting and systems designed to get people to operate in such a manner is a trap. The fewer people who fall for it, the better off they’ll be in the long run.
The communal downvote mentality is a communist training program. Set these folks loose in the real world and they’ll eat each other alive. Steem got some things right in the realm of gamifying content creation, but the whitepaper is using all the wrong analogies. It’s clear to me the authors of the whitepaper are the real profiteers, and everyone else pushing the dials and turning the gears are fodder for their end game. Guess what’s for dinner, we are. It is heartening that other systems are taking this open-source model and running it in a better way regarding distribution, and also by not encouraging a culture of rampant flagging.
Going forward, I will stop orbiting Steem in favor of WeKu. I’ll still syndicate to Steem, but they’re only worthy of my sloppy seconds at this point. Perhaps I'll make occasional exceptions for contests. One need only need look as far as the WeKu whitepaper to realize that they’ve done a complete overhaul of the Steem model. I think they’re pulling it off, and when BTC rises, the smarter money will settle with the sounder whitepaper. Whereas, the intention behind Steem comes off like a scammy, cruel, joke. Next time I’ve got to approach the unknown with a bit more skepticism.
As far as your observation on who will choose the best, it doesn’t matter, and this is because the system never worked. I’m not saying an algorithm will fix the problem in its entirety, but it can make it less imperfect by judging content (not based on stake but) based on quality, syntax, grammar, spelling, and the length of an article. The video content would be more tricky. There would have to be different algorithms to satisfy the order in which videos get listed.
You’ll never eliminate profiteering. The ninja miners have that secured from the start. While you add content for peanuts, your adding value to a platform that the profiteers have already owned, increasing the value of the shares which belong to them. The best way you can stop profiteers from profiting is to stop giving the platform content. If that were my intention, I wouldn't publish on Steem at all.
All of your points are well taken. I am aggrieved to think I may have imparted my cynicism to you in our conversation. That's why I don't talk religion LOL.
I haven't been to Weku in a long time. My first visit there did not inspire me, but I do hope they're improved.
The only profiteering I have considered on Steem is regarding rewards, and that's not that hard to make uninteresting to stake weighting manipulation by simply reducing post and comment rewards below a cost effective level.
I also feel that the ninjamine deeply devalues not only the token, but the platform and community. Maybe I should have another look at Weku now, and see if that community has grown where Steem has instead shrunk.
It's not so much your cynicism, and I do like to think about complicated topics like blockchain, politics, and religion too; But the more I read the whitepaper and see the direction Steem is going, the more it annoys me to no end. There are two analogies in particular which are stacked back to back in the whitepaper, and thinking about them in conjunction with one another lends some insight into the mindset of the developers.
I read that before, and I was okay with it; Mostly because I like how Steem draws creativity out of people. Also, this can help individuals realize the dormant potential that they might not have known they had, were they never challenged by the baked-in gamification. So, that was mostly forgivable as the net effect is something one may consider a positive. Anything which is not too negative and makes people get better at creating seems like a good thing to me. Granted, you may have those who up and quit out of sheer disillusionment because they do not see a return, or because they dislike the challenge; And perhaps these folks would be better off visiting a bonafide casino.
And this is where I begin to question the intent of the developers. I mean, it's almost like they're trying to create a Casino Hotel California. Picture this; You go to the grand opening of the Casino HC. You put a quarter in the slot, and much to your surprise you win the jackpot. Woohoo! Knowing what you know about odds and statistics, you cash out and make a b line for the doors. Only some random patron thwaps you over the head and snatches your winnings, returning them to the cashier. You're like what the fuck, I won that fair and square with my money, why did you do that?
The guy is like, I've been here all day pulling that their lever. Meanwhile, you just waltz in with your fancy pants and try to do a hit and run. Not on my watch, he says menacingly! So you go to file a complaint with security. The security team responds: It's not our problem, those are the rules, Sir. So you stalk this asshole who ganked your shit. You follow him around for days; stealthily lying in wait, and hoping that he strikes it big. Finally, when he does; You treat him in kind. Revenge for the sake of revenge, because nothing is quite as sweet. The abuse and cycle of abuse repeats ad infinitum.
At some point, you've got to ask yourself: "What the hell kind of Casino is this?" And in the question lay the answer, it is hell. Steem was designed to keep you trapped, the developers say as much in the whitepaper. And what better trap is there than the cycle of abuse? I was pro-Steem when downvotes were shown as flags, and this is because people were less inclined to abuse and use them.
I know we've got different ideas as to what constitutes abuse with regards to the reward pool, and that is fine, it's whatever. I see merit in both content and stake because the purchase of stake causes scarcity which generates demand, and this demand is what drives the market value. HODLing also maintains scarcity which secures market value. Whereas you see merit in only the content, but without the carrot of extra control over the reward pool, there would be no market value because there is little to no incentive to purchase Steem.
And why do people desire extra control over the reward pool? They want it to reward themselves. I mean it's the fucking biological imperative at play. We can't just drum this out of human psychology, and every time people try to on a grandiose scale, systems fail. This is part of the reason why Steem needs to define itself and demystify all the elements.
Instead of rolling out free flags which is immensely destructive and encourages this crab mentality where everyone hates and envies each other right up to the point where they are boiled alive, they could have simply modified the rate-limited voting accordingly if there was a problem, but I don't think there was a problem, outside of the people who feel entitled to the stake of whales who use theirs on themselves.
So I like what WeKu has done; The whitepaper mentions nothing about crabs in a bucket or gambling for starters, and this lets me know they’ve seen the value of steem regarding content creation and want to harness the open-source model more positively. They still have a flag button, but they haven’t added a downvote button to normalize the destructive behavior. I’m hoping they will go their own way with it, and not mindlessly adopt Steem’s destructive HF. The social media/blockchain marketplace needs some healthy competition. This will help them all to get a bit better.
The IW has a WeKu community presence with a sizeable delegation provided by the WeKu team. That said, if you want to mirror some of your content over there you are more than welcome to. We have at least one curator who watches for new IW content, and he rewards it with the group’s upvote. I’m hoping if BTC moons again, the choice will be clear which is the better crypto to invest in. I hope that Steem will get its shit together, write a less offensive white paper and implement a hard fork geared more towards harmonious human behavior. I’ve not read WeKu's full whitepaper just yet, but it comes off far more respectable with the simple omission of destructive elements like the ones I mentioned above.
The italicized bit above is why I stopped worrying, wash my hands of the politics, and learn to love the activities of people like the downvote posse. If the folks who wrote the whitepaper see us like crabs in a bucket, stuck in gambling psychology and that’s the atmosphere they’re trying to foster, then the intentions are Mal from the beginning, and they don’t deserve to win in the marketplace of ideas.
On the other hand, if a company like WeKu, for example, can run with the positive elements, harness a different spirit, and lead by example, then perhaps they can either avoid or transform the negative into something positive.
So the “extreme measures” of HF21 and the downvote posse have become humorous to me. They may as well cut off their nose to spite their face because they are without a doubt in my mind hoisting themselves on their own petard. But give it time, we'll see how it all unfolds, absent a BTC moon it's a bunch of speculative meandering. If we get said moon, it'll be up to BTC holders which chain is lackluster and dilapidated, as opposed to which one is shiny and new.