RE: Open letter to @Ranchorelaxo and @Haejin.
I just joined Steemit last week. I have had a financial blog for roughly 8 years now and racked up an email list of approximately 70,000. I posted 6 short "test" pieces just to see how the platform works. I'm remaining anonymous because I wanted to see how the system worked before I went all in.
I can say that the current system here is a waste of time for someone like myself. In the few first hours on this platform I was already testing bots to see how the feeds were manipulated. I could come on here and spend a couple hundred steem and get my way to the #1 spot without even blinking (but losing money in the process because of the way the bots work).
Has nothing to do with the quality of my work, where I come from, etc. It is just completely by gaming the system. Obviously, this is problematic for me. I have been published in the NY Times, Financial Times, Barrons, the Wall St. journal, and been on CNBC twice.
The day I joined, the top post was flooded with spelling errors (in the title), as well as being overall poorly written and flooded with grammatical errors. And then I go to see HOW it was ranked at the top, and it was all bots.
Of the top Steem power holders, the vast majority are bots or the Steem team itself. I looked into how the bots worked, bought a few bids, and my jaw dropped at how easy it was to get ranked.
Distribution of power in the cryptocurrency community is enormously skewed. It is only enhanced on this platform via the churning of bots, as they easily accumulate all the power in a short period of time.
There is no merit in any of this. It has more in common with playing a video game than writing.
Bots are openly discussed and encouraged for use by some of the top member of this community (they own some of the bots).
So I'm quitting before I get started here. This is a lose lose. Sadly, there is no incentive for me to create good organic content on this platform because, while it might be read, the votes given by people reading it with good intent are far too weak versus what I would see in ad and sales revenue on my own website. I would be crossing my fingers to bag one of the 50 "whales" that would actually incentivize me to keep writing.
And those odds are extremely small versus traditional avenues, where exposure is greater and chances of upside are greater, as well.
Per this author being criticized (@Haejin), he just played the system "right". He saw it for what it was (as I did) and played ball. Clearly, it worked for him and he is making a lot of money in both Steem and through his website. I know a lot about technical analysis (I was a former fund manager) and much of his content can be found similarly elsewhere - but his exposure is much better, which is why he will do better in the end.
I, on the other hand, plan on sitting on the bench. Kind of a bummer, because I did have high hopes for Steemit.
After reading some of your content, I advise to post it on D.Tube. The bots are still an issue but there is a dedicated curation team which will upvote good content in a video format. I do feel your content is solid so I'll leave that to you.
To add, I feel that the way Steem uses investment of votes as a method of valuing content, is not a great one as I could post a picture of a glass of Coca Cola and with enough investment, get onto Trending as you've mentioned. This is clearly not an indicator of good content but rather an indicator of investment backing. I don't know the answer to this issue but it's clearly not a good idea for Steem to be promoting content via by investment but rather the actual quality content.
Give D.Tube a try with an introduction with yourself, a well made video which you would be happy to give to absolute strangers on the street and hopefully the curation team notices you. The curation team checks for bots.
Thank you and yes, I'm not exactly the camera-loving type which is why I spend much of my life under fluorescent lights and in front of monitors. Video is not an easy medium for me.
As you know, economic models are subjective....those who benefit don't complain while rest revolts. All of them are criticized at one point or another, so there is never a perfect solution.
Regardless, I point to the primary purpose of the platform, from which it naturally steered away, though likely unexpectedly. Still, something can be done. The bulk of problems for the 90% of writers (with the least economic power) are not set in stone on the blockhain but rather this layer, the steemit website. I have a pile of ideas in the last week alone but unlikely anyone is listening. But we'll see. All of this (Steemit and beyond) is no bigger than a toddler in the greater scheme of things. Lots of time to go.
From what I can see, you're able to cut through the bullshit when it comes to "Youtube Blockchain Tipsters" and there is no doubt that someone who is able to deconstruct these posts isof heavy valuable to Steem. That's going to give you a lot of authority on this Blockchain and from there, you could even refer people to your content to extend on your reasoning.
I personally believe a lot of the problem is the curation. I can understand that a lot of Steem users, feel their vote isn't worth much whenever a "whale" can change the tide for reasons outside of the quality of said content. I would rather do this via by reputation. The investment would still go through depending on Voting Power and Steem Power, but now it's not a game of who has the most money but rather, how dependable is this person's vote to said content. You would have to believe that a person who is looking for the best content, is not going to be as easily swayed as their reputation could be tarnished because of "voting fraud". With the current model, this just doesn't happen.
Personally a system needs to be made where a vote can be trusted as a means of quality curation. I can fully grasp that if a person invests money into something, it's a show of how much confidence they have in said content but as said, it simply just doesn't work. That's why I'd like reputation to be used. That way, if you keep ripping people's content but being right about it, you'll be seen as someone bettering the blockchain and your vote would mean more because of it.
How much you invest to said content to keep content creators coming back, that's up to you and I hope this happens soon. Would make for far better content.
I agree. It does kinda suck that rep has zero necessary connexion to income. I also can't help but just see the stark obviousness of @swinn's opinion that this hijean person just "figured 'it' out--" in a way, it motivates me to do better. Personally, yes, of course I would like to make a bit more coin--but hey, frankly I'm just grateful I've made anything. And though I might not be the strongest steemain atm, I have confidence that I will grow stronger. That being said, it kind of saddens me to hear someone like you, @swinn, be so quickly discouraged... Heajin is only one person!! If he's truly "so bad," then, someone better--and that's the thing--there is always someone better--then they will show up and prevail. Then life will go on lol. If you are a capitalist--in other words, a "free market" economist--then by design, you must adhere to the belief that currency (money) is a accurate representation of desire; the last word being key here. In other words, the belief that basically the "demand" for a product is one and the same as an agent's willingness to pay for it. If that is the case, then, we must agree that, although we might not like x,y,z that, if people are freely giving them money that we must--assuming we respect their personal right to spend as they wish and they are doing so "without coercion"--agree the recipient of that "willingness to pay" is necessarily providing some kind of value.
So what's the answer? Simple: CREATE SOMETHING THAT IS MORE DESIRABLE.
When I figure out what that is, I'll (possibly) let you know ;)
So @swinn, I challenge you to stay--the platform is young--the "quality" will improve--but not if all the quality people run off before that can happen!!
Although I agree with what you wrote, please consider these:
Paying bots for the promotion of your work is not ilegal or immoral. It's simple advertisement, which everyone does for more exposure. It doesn't reward effort, that is true, but it's not wrong either if some are willing to pay money for more exposure.
What haejin is doing is NOT about paying bots. He has an alt-account from which he games the system. He paid a lot for it to get so much voting power, that is true, and now cashes in on his investment by abusing this loophole in the system.
What is actually harmful is how his tactics are ruinning the credibility of the platform with literally worthless content at the top of the trends.
I personally never paid a cent for buying steem. I slowly get rewards by simply reposting my topics from elsewhere (which never got any monetary rewards there), so even if I get a cent, it's still more than I was making on the other platform. I am not losing something by not paying bots, and I am gaining something by being active.
What I am basically saying, is that Steemit is fine for sharing content and bots are not its biggest problem. Self votes are.
Not even Self Votes, abusive or almost exclusive self-votes. There is nothing wrong with an upvote on your own post. When you're upvoting your comments it might be seen as abusive but a self-vote here and there especially on content will never move an eyelash.
Thanks for the comment and I get your first point, but these should be labeled as ads and obviously not so many of them. Right now they dominate everything in their path. There is a promoted section here that seems virtually useless.
I also agree that he saw what it was and just played ball.
I think the bigger issue here is that the current system is the primary cause of tit for tat arguments on this site (around this central issue) over and over and over again. And rightly so. Something that is so easy to game by anyone with cash deters from (what I understood to be) its main purpose.
In the short time I have been here I have come across a slew of arguments being promoted like this. People fighting over bones or scraps because at the end of the day, the system is busted. There is never a perfect solution, but to have a single guy dominate the trending feed every is very silly. His work is basic and standard (its just elliot wave after all, don't get me started on it), and there are better ones out there (as there are for me - I'm not claiming to be better at anything but I always believe someone can do what I do better in this world). But he gets in people's faces. So he wins. That's the world here. And its odd.
Thx again.
And thats exactly how the world works, people with enough money to pay ads will trend in google or anywhere for that matter, doesnt really means they have the best content...
Steemit is still a new thing, and the system is far from perfect, but it gives authors way much more opportunity to build a follower base and earn some reward than any other traditional social media...
This is by far the most eloquent description of Steemit I've read so far. I'm a content creator. I've done my experiments as well. I've posted content where I didn't use bots and it sank to the bottom of the heap. I've had some luck where my content broke the top 15 on the trending page with the use of bid bots but eventually started losing a lot of money using them. Bots are the least of the problems in this platform - the circle voting between whales are an even bigger issue.
I don't know how long I'm going to stay but if my account isn't gaining any sustained growth proportional to the amount of time I dedicate on Steemit, I'm also going to withdraw.
If you find another platform that will give you better revenue that steemit, its perfectly fine to spend more time there... But still you could keep posting for content here as an extra, there is nothing that would stop you from doing that... Getting 3$ extra and some 20 more views for your pictures is still better than nothing, considering that those 3$ could someday become 30$ just for market reasons...
There's always that possibility, SBD did jump to $34 at one point. But it could also go the other way.
What he meant is, just by sharing your content here, you make pennies you wouldn't make if you didn't. It will cost no money or effort on your part. Because of fluxuations, SBD may get to high value one day, maybe for just a day. If you take notice of that, you cash in and you made your gain.
No money or effort? But you are still investing in a platform. Safest is posting to your own website and be the owner.
Im talking long term here... steem should go up there soon or later, at least to 10$, and thats very reasonable...
@adonisabril I will apoligize ahead of time, but i have a question. Once again I am sorry but i saw you were a 67 and your comment struck me as strange that you were not making enough to stay here so i got curious and looked at you wallet. Under auther rewards you have for the last 7 days
203.071 STEEM POWER
0.000 STEEM
675.533 SBD
at current steem prices of $2.70 that puts you just a hair over $2300 for the last 7 days. How much more do you need to make to WANT to stay? I am sorry if i intruded or am coming off as being a dick, that is not my intent. It just seems like to a minnow piece of shit like me you made more in a week than my account will be worth in a year.
If you take another look, you can see I'm pumping my own money to get these so called rewards. I use bid bots and the ROI is negative 90% of the time. Long-term if Steem doesn't go up while I"m waiting for the rewards to roll in I'm losing money. Simple as that.
Okay, i got ya. I see what you are saying now. Thank you for honestly replying without beating me down.
This is also another disturbing pattern. You SHOULD not be afraid to voice your opinion. Whales have too much power skewed their way that they can destroy your account to oblivion. Flagging wars like this just serves to remind us of what's going on.
yeah. I'm sure you checked https://steemwhales.com
For anyone else that hasn't, please understand that 2% of users (bots) on this website own 95% of the wealth.
thats the economy of a failed state, or a robotic-shitpost dystopia. not a revolutionary social media platform.
That wasn’t the one but the list was he same - posted by a 1%er sometime last week. Thank you for the comment and yep, if this was a country there would have been a revolution already. It’s more like your standard US corporate giant
There was a revolution, it was HF 17.5-18 or whatever they call it anyway when the reward structure was changed to linear instead of exponential, which previously gave whales unprecedented power and soon after we had another Revolution which was the Whale Experiment. When you called it that Steem is only a toddler that couldn't be more descriptive. There's some growing up to do and competition will make sure that the most stable and well-balanced platform reaches to the masses. This is the wild west, except here we don't have guns but sticks, and the bigger the man the easier it is to clobber everyone to submission.
I think you make some valid points. SteemIt is a distribution tool for Steem. It is currently being used in many ways, but rewarding the highest quality work by Authors isn't one of them. It can still be a great tool for those who are working on building an audience and those who want to fund another element of their writing.
If you see nothing of value here, I think it is a perfect decision to quit before you get started.
I respect that and thank you for commenting.
I hope there will be a "blogger" and Author community once we have the ability to support that.
On a personal note, as an investment, I am glad we have a broader reach.
Once we have communities it will be easier for people to see and reward the content they want to see. Authors should be able to find price support for their work. We will see.
Thanks again. I hope so too.
Regardless, the bots and power mechanisms here are noxious. They throw acid on quality authors striving to succeed, and in the most direct way possible. As long as they exist and power tilts in their favor, little is going to change. Example: Google goes great lengths to eliminate SEO spam and other abuses for ranking. My Google rankings have shot up over the years sheer through the elimination of spammers that used to outrank me. Here, it is the complete opposite and they are openly promoted for use.
Authors have it rough, and they are at the bottom level of the publishing food chain, money-wise. It is just very strange to see a platform that was created to rectify this issue become its biggest advocate. Thanks again and not to sound harsh - I LOVE the open discourse but I'm just calling it as I see it.
Understood and I don't disagree with anything you've said.
Right now I just see it as supply and demand. There are more people willing to write (not saying they are all equal) than there are people willing to pay for content under the current business model.
You're totally, right. I hope the platform will change for the better. To bad to see people like you leaving the platform.
@swinn You are correct about steemit. we will see this year group of people building applications with specific focuses. One may be TA, another fine Art. From there, depending on what you are interested in, you will have the ability to use different apps for curated feeds. All that powered by Steem. It is hard to predict the impact of steemit bots as it pertains to other applications.
perhaps reach out to @andrarchy on this matter.
And... please do not leave, the community will be stronger as more people like you join!
I think it would help if we could elect witnesses that want to eliminate bots. I'm not sure who they are. Is @andrarchy one of them? Who else? Please inform. I've only voted for 2 witnesses so far and one only because I use his website all the time. The other is @aggroed.
Complete BS... You can blog on your own website and earn by ad revenue and all that shit, and still keep posting the same content on steemit and earn additional money and additional exposure... Blogging in Steemit wont stop you in any way to continue doing all the stuff you where doing before joining here... Seems to me like you are complaining because you are not getting as much money as quick as you wanted...
As for my self, i will always prefer a blog where i don't get exposed to shitty ads all over the place... And community here is way nicer than in any other blog...
It took me 2 years just to find any moderate traction with my blog. Up to that point it was a tiny group of cult-like followers just reading my stuff...so you gotta be kidding me. I thought I would get called out on a few things here but impatience wasn’t one of them. I dug into the system, saw what goes on. It’s basic math. Top two posts right now are pushed by one of the strangest economic systems I’ve ever seen. Just picture these articles at the top of any other reputable spot. It’s like night and day.
Some posts can take up to 12 hours to write. Organizing, checking sources, proofreading, etc. That’s a lot of time for a post and I want something out of it. Most people are like me. Otherwise I’m just another blogger pushing retail shoddy product who loses his base over time, because people eventually see it for the crap it is. Those guys never last.
Still you are totally ignoring my point... Blogging on steemit does not keeps you from continue using your site and your traditional system, this is just something extra and something new, and i can assure you it wont take you 2 years to get a followers base here... Your "im quitting" state is complete BS just for that...
If you write an article and it takes you 12 hours, you can post the same article here and on your main website, there is no reason you should make a different one for each platforms... You will be getting revenue from your site, and some little extra here, at some point you will be making more money here than in any other site...
Take youtube for example, videos there need millions of subscribers and views to make a small decent amount of money, the same video here will make a shitload more reward for the average user, and the experience of watching videos here is way more enjoyable than YouTube where are are tormented by ads every 2 minutes...
No you can't just copy paste and stop saying everything is BS - I mean, what's the matter with you - don't talk to people like that. Be constructive, not sloppy. Its fine that we disagree. Nothing wrong with it. Its normal.
Ask me questions, don't verbally hit like a caveman. Now its a lot harder for me to take you seriously.
This is why: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content - you don't put duplicate content out there with a lot of traffic without dinging your own site. If there was a noindex option for Google our conversation would be a lot different.
But you're bring up another point here. Tit for tat fights over this issue all the time on here. This is just one of many. Something you don't see anywhere else. You take one side, I take another. This guy takes one side, that guy takes another. There is huge division around here centered on this.
D.tube seems like another story. Totally different curation tactics there.
I admit i was not too much aware of the duplicated content issue, still, there are many ways to post on both sites and overcome this issue: Like posting on your main website first, and then just making a a spotlight here linking to your main site, driving traffic to your site or vise versa... And thats just talking about blogging posts, as you have much more options like dtube as you mentioned...
The main reason i thing its just BS, is because you bring this issue in a total unrelated post, and you are calling to quit because you made some Experiment, you are just arrived, you dont have enough followers to really know, and you are already making conclusions...
Again, if you really are doing huge money on ad revenues on your site, whats the point on even trying to replace it with Steemit? stay with what works for you... If you where planning to replace your complete business model then you are just doing it wrong... Steemit ultimately is just a social media experiment, not a platform to build a business model, so its just like quitting facebook or instagram...
Agreed - social media experiment: this much it definitely is.
And you also bring up a good point about spotlights and replacing the whole business model.
Now we're getting somewhere.
And that's the thing. My first weekly reaction was like an alarm going off. I see a front page dominated by upvote bots and a "cryptocurrency" section (where I would probably be posting all the time) dominated by this guy playing the system as it is (literally almost all the time his posts constitute 3 of the top 6) and I say, what a joke.
Obviously I am already spending more time here than I planned on already. What I have found: several guys that should be making way more money than they are. Brains and work ethic.
My biggest problem is the bots. Not even the fact that they are doing what they are doing, but rather the fact that they are openly encouraged and able to accumulate massive hoards of power in such short periods of time. Its insane. So more of a big picture for me and a huge part of it is ethical.
I get your points re: making x here vs there, too. Google Adsense is a total screwjob (they take everything and leave scraps on the table). I built up my base to a point where I have better options (there are a number of ad networks that pay substantially more but refuse you if you only have x uniques / month - I'm on one of them), but newer bloggers do not. So in a way, you can make some direct comparisons here, minus the bots.
steemit is not only about the money, but mainly... There are many other several reasons that keeps people in this platform, and even with all the downsides and bots and spam abuse, it still much better than anything else out there... Of course there are changes to be made, but i honestly think you are just making a prejudgement based on an experiment and not really looking into the potential of the system... Once you get enough followers here, you wont be needing to use the bots, its up to you if you do, but for personal experience i can tell you that using them is not profitable at all, mostly like any other business model, spending money on ads is most of the time not profitable at all...
Don't Go
I hope you don't leave. I am a simple man, and the only reason I am on Steemit, is because it is newer. I believe Steemit is more promising than all the sticky A.I. messes that come before it.
When I started reading your replies to this article/content I had no idea that bots were even and issue here.
Funny things is, I saw that vote up tic box, when I was writing one of my first posts and thought, 'why is that there?'. It seem odd to me, and somewhat questionable, or even unethical. It hadn't occurred to me to up vote myself; I've done so since.
Then I noticed that almost everyone up votes themselves, and I was a bit confused as to why.
Now thanks to you, and your eloquent responses or defenses in a few cases, I know.
Although I don't really follow investment/money topics, because I believe monies and most financial instruments are tools used to keep us divided, blinded, and bound (bonds) into slavery. And, I also believe that these concepts serve to form and maintain a perpetual gravitational anomaly of never ending want, which in turn exudes an illusionary fog like environment of loss/scarcity. In fact you may have some insight into this. I believe you hit on this matter when you said that there is a spirit of "...squabbling over bones" perpetuated by those individuals using bots to maintain the Steem Power with the few at the top. Not the best paraphrase, but I hope you understand the spirit of what I am getting at.
I believe this phenomenon that you have seen at work here, is a mirror of everything that is wrong with our "real world". It is virulent in its ability to spread especially with regard to those platforms governed by "Algorithms" and one of the reasons I came to Steemit in the first place; dreams of decentralized gum drops in my head.
Did I mention, I am a simple man.
However, that being said, and in getting to my point.
I wanted you to know, I followed you.
Of course, you may not care, which would sting, but hey I'm a big boy and I'll get over it. I'm not so sure the Steemit community would do so well without you, and more people like you.
Why?
Why would I say this to someone I don't even know.
You didn't fall for the ad hominem attacks from others with reactive rebuttals, like so many others would now a days. Rather you responded with poise, confidence, and even kind hearted redirection. Not only were you collected and kind in your responses, but your responses were rich in content, I actually learned something from your replies to nonsense like 'your full of BS'. This is exactly the kind of substance and character a new platform like this, hell the whole world needs.
Steemit, those who have interacted with you in daily life, and those that may interact with you on this platform in the future would benefit from your contributions; now and in the long run.
I have.
If you do, or if you don't stay, I hope for you all good things.
Above all, thank you.
In Light and Love
Giant Hugs<3<3<3
I wouldn't worry about duplicate content @swinn. The so-called "duplicate content penalty" isn't so much a penalty but something that forces Google to make a choice as to which one of the two versions is going to get posted in their results. If you are the author of both, you will be the author of the one that shows in search results. Google is smart enough to know that many authors post the same content on several different websites. They don't have a problem with it. If both articles are attributed they can figure out it's the same person. I've been posting the same material on both Steemit and on my own blog with impunity.
To clarify, i just dont think you are doing the big bucks on ads revenue, please prove me wrong and i will regret calling your comments BS...
i did not know this!!! This explains a LOT!
I think your comment is driving a bit more traffic to your profile
You all correctly say, but you should agree that analysis from this narrow - eyed-SHIT!!!!!!!!!
Hi @swinn, thank you for your interesting analyses of the current situation on steemit. It is pretty much that what is hapenning here right now. I total agree. Im having the same issue with the contents that i want to post. I am not comfortable with the idea of spend a lot of time and effort to post contents that it won't fairly pays out my work. Is like, in the society that we know, greed start to take over. You are right, the current Steem power holders are bots and the Steem team itself, wich, in my opinion is doing a very bad job (Steem team). I am not happy. And my votes will change. Or I will move at any opportunity that might apear in the future. Yes, I am talking about of Dan Larimer and IOS.
Any way, for now i m glad having people like you and @coldbolt talking about important issue and creating value to the community. Following both for more. Cheers