quick thoughts on HF 21

Actually, v 0.22 will launch in less than 4 hours already.
Technically this is a hardfork like v0.21 was, but realistically, 0.22 is just a hotfix.

The main changes came with hf 21:

1. The SPS could be great. I have not looked into it.

2. The Convergent Linear Rewards Curve is a bit of a mystery to me and I would love to actually look at the curve, and where the turning points are. It feels a bit random, though recent_claims is a parameter.

3. The curation rewards are too high. My 3.66 $ post gave me a payout of 8 SP. At the very least, steemit inc could update the display on steemit.com to reflect this change better and not give a false impression to authors about their actual payout.

4. The Downvote Pool should be the most important change (in conjunction with the new 'curve').

Downvote Pool

Every user now has two different, separate pools of 'power' to influence the payouts with.
To let any one fill up and sit idle would mean to lose influence (and interest).

While downvotes do not generate curation rewards, they can be used to reduce the rewards of a particular post, which will go back into the reward pool, to be distributed to all other posts.
You could say, that downvoting will increase the value upvotes now (slightly).

Since you can not exactly predict how others will vote it will always be a gamble, but ....

Looking to increase impact of your upvotes, there should be a sweet spot for getting the most influence on posting rewards out of your votes and a different sweet spot for maximizing your curation rewards.

Without the numbers, I can only safely say, to increase your impact on the rewards, it would be the best strategy to go for popular content, that is not already overrated. Downvoting something beyond 0c is definitely a waste of 'power'.

Inconclusive

As this blockchain's history clearly shows: users don't necessarily go for what's economically most efficient. Just over time those who do, will grow their influence faster.

Any economic situation that can be gamed will end up with the cheaters ruling.

Perhaps it is enough to make it a 'curvy' function and sprinkle in some free downvotes, to make it too complex to be gamed like before.

We will see, I guess.
At least I can see an effort going in the right direction now.