When You're Rich, Everything Comes Free: When Reputation Matters
I've recently attained the base 10 unit bias level of '70' reputation on the Steem blockchain. More accurately, I've attained 70 rep on the Steemit frontend; an important distinction, because reputation doesn't actually exist on the blockchain. It must be instead interpreted by a centralized authority that runs on a node on the blockchain.
Most of us realize this number is meaningless, as it has long been gamed into the dirt, mostly from the use of bid bots. However, we still like to use it as a milestone and talk about it when it hits one of those nice round arbitrary numbers. People like to have a sense of accomplishment and gain, even if there is no actual substance behind it. Go figure.
https://steemit.com/reputation/@edicted/why-distributed-reputation-is-immune-to-sybil-attack
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@edicted/soul-shards-reputation-credit-loan-coin-of-the-steem-blockchain
https://steemit.com/reputation/@edicted/decentralized-reputation-explained-odd-point-dynamic-rating-system
https://steemit.com/reputation/@edicted/silk-road-dark-web-trusting-anonymous-sources-with-decentralized-reputation
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@edicted/a-small-win-for-proof-of-reputation
Above is a list of all the posts I've made about reputation in chronological order. The most important one by far I would say is the one in the middle about my own thoughts on a custom "odd point" reputation system. Steem (and every other crypto for that matter) desperately needs a decentralized reputation system that is resistant to the profitable corruption that invades all the other centralized versions.
The post below that one contains my research on the reputation metrics used for Silk Road and the black market drug trade contained therein. Surprisingly, that reputation system was no better (probably worse) than the ones employed by companies like Amazon and websites like Yelp.
The main problem with the reviews given on these systems is that the users giving those reviews have no reputation of their own. Essentially, they have nothing to lose. It becomes very easy to either outright create a fake account and give a fake review or even pay (with money/gifts/discounts) legitimate accounts to give the best score possible. This is why I often find the best information from 3-star reviews. Normally, the users that give one star were simply unlucky or salty about a defective product (extreme outliers) and the ones who give 5 stars can often not be trusted due to said gamification of the system.
Interestingly enough, I have found a couple review systems that are on the right track. Airbnb and ride-share services like Uber and Lift keep track of not only the person providing the service, but also users paying for them. This provides much more useful information when it comes to determining the trustworthiness of individuals. If a customer gives bad reviews to every Uber driver they interact with and every driver also gives them bad reviews, Uber knows the problem is with the customer and not their drivers. The opposite is also true.
When reputation matters the customer is much more likely to be honest because if they lie they are much more likely to be discovered and lose their own valuable reputation. It's a superior system that needs a lot more work and an entire decentralized overhaul.
As it stands now these reputation systems are fully controlled by the centralized companies that facilitate the service. A lot of advantages can be made by bringing this technology onto the immutable blockchain. Anyone would be able to interpret the data in any way they liked while also having the security of knowing that the data could never be changed after the fact.
Conclusion
In a way, money is a metric of reputation itself. By having money in your possession you've proven (in theory) that you've provided more value to society than you've leeched from it. This allows you to buy the things that you need and the cycle continues.
We've all heard the expression "when you're rich, everything comes free". This applies even more so to people with high reputation. Walk around a military town in full uniform and all your meals get comped by strangers. It's truly fascinating.
I believe blockchain technology is going to take this to a whole new level.
Reputation will be the new currency.
In 50 years, currency as we know it may cease to exist.
Happy to be alive now.
Well done on level 70 but yea, kinda sucks it doesn't mean a lot unless you never used bid bots to get there and earned your way up through posting! Think it's more a measure of time on the platform now really.
Indeed. I see you're almost there as well.
Yea just under 1.5 more to go I think so hopefully the next 6 months, maybe sooner if I can post a bit more frequently...
This is kind of what klout tried to do with twitter years ago. I even got a bottle of steak seasoning once because of my old klout score. But all reputation systems have the issues of the oracle (identifying bad actors) and gamification.
I use Uber a lot and rarely give anything except 5-star reviews because I know that the driver will get booted if the score drops too much. It has to be something pretty egregious to get anything except 5 stars. And that's without the drivers asking me to do so.
And then, what's the incentive for an objective 3rd-party reputation system to develop and maintain the system in the first place?
Right this is why decentralized atmospheres are so exciting. The middle-man oracle can be eliminated opening the path for new solutions that were previously impossible. Unfortunately the complexities of such an endeavor are far from trivial.
Yeah, without the oracle, gaming the system is too easy.
This was Larry Page's fundamental insight in creating PageRank. Each link from one webpage to another was a vote by the linking page for the linked page. But not all votes are equal.
As soon as this was reverse engineered, the SEO industry was born to manipulate that PageRank.
Non-trivial indeed.