RE: HF 19- The Clu$terf*ckening and Unintended Consequences
Once again, this is not how the Steem curation landscape ever was and ever will be. You're assuming that everyone is voting at the same rate, it was never like this. Out of the Top 1% very few ever vote, and earlier it was only a dozen of them that were dominating 99% of the reward pool using less than 10% of the stake.
Even with your own numbers, minnows gain 50 times more influence with HF19 with no experiment versus HF18 with experiment. That's not a fair comparison, as the experiment is just that. Better compare like for like. Feel free to simulate actual historical voting data on the blockchain for a meaningful comparison. Everything else is irrelevant. (Edit - the experiment is not sustainable as it is important for there to be an incentive for large SP holders. Many of whom have powered down during the experiment, by the way.)
With linear rewards, the piling on effect is no longer there, and the top authors will lose out dramatically. The curation rewards are quadratic which in fact heavily discourages piling on votes. Those who are early gain most of the curation rewards, while late voters fight for scraps. That's why curators are heavily incentivized to find new, undiscovered posts to vote on, instead of posts by top authors.
The lower voting power target will have negative short term consequences, but even that further spreads out rewards far and wide once the platform grows and the Subcommunities feature takes off. The age of power curators are over. The target will of course be need to be adjusted upwards as the platform grows.
As others have pointed out, SBD interest has been 0% for months now.
In short, most of your concerns are misplaced.
Upvoted with 10% strength for visibility as we don't want unnecessary FUD and panic.
Also, dont' get me wrong. This is a policy that we may disagree on, but I think ultimately having you on the platform is great for the platform. I admire what you do, and am grateful for your work. I'm also grateful for your time and consideration on this issue. I've prepared some coffee cake for you this morning. You can share it with @donkeypong if you so choose. I'm honored to have you both come visit my wall.
I saw your earlier post. I read it and it sparked this one. I think you're quite bright, but I think you're wrong here. In your post you were comparing whale A to Whale B and seeing that it shrank. Turns out it doesn't matter. What matters is compairng Whale A to Diver A and Whale B to Diver B. That first ratio is 99:1. The second is about 93:1. It's not going to have the dramatic effect you think it's going to have. That's a ~6% shift.
As for a giant increase... it's kinda like I promise to pay you 20 cents an hour instead of 1 cent. Yes, that's a 20x increase, but you still wouldn't want ot live on it.
I hope I'm wrong. If I'm not we'll see it soon. The Kings of the ring should have a 12k post in record time. If you see that I'd ask you suggest we pull the plug. Maybe this will all be swell. It's really hard to model all the variables, but my back of the envelope calculation says that 40 -> 10 is trading a small gain in curation benefits for a massive clusterfuck in authoring.
For the third time, your assumption that everyone votes at the same rate is wrong. It's well known most whales never or rarely voted, even before the experiment. Besides, @steemit owns 40% of the stake and they never, ever vote. The Steemwhales picture you post accounts for estimated value, where poloniex and bittrex hold large proportions of liquid assets which are irrelevant for voting.
But let's assume that's the case, and I'll use your numbers. We'll compare HF19 no experiment with HF18 no experiment, like for like.
800K SP tier - 99.5824% vs 93%. That's a decrease of 6% as you correctly point out.
50K SP tier - 0.398% vs 6%. That's a 15x gain in influence.
13.5K SP tier - 70x gain in influence.
1.2K SP tier - 500x gain in influence.
Once again, remember that whales vote much less than dolphins and minnows, so these numbers are very flawed too. But even with these numbers it's very easy to see how minnows' influence will grow by orders of magnitudes. (Edit - I don't have the numbers, but a developer can simulate it. My guess is 10% of the stake was previously dominating 90% of the rewards; now they will get 30% or something like that. Minnows will gain 1000x influence, dolphins will gain 100x. Those are just guesses given my understanding of the curation landscape.)
There'll be no 12k post. With linear rewards that'd need 1/4th of all staked votes in a day to vote on a single post. Currently that's possible with 1/16th the votes, but after HF19 it will be much harder. It's really clear how linear rewards work, there's no scope for disagreement or "we'll see it soon". We know how this will turn out.
PS: I guess you didn't read my post beyond the opening image, I clearly compared Whale B vs Diver B.
How do we define the term Whale?
At what point does a Dolphin evolve into a Whale?
Or is it just completely relative?
One thing I noticed about Steem Power, was it is easy to buy some, if you care about curating, and making better payback on your time to post.
Even purchasing 10 SP could make a huge difference in your experience, as far as value for your time.
That is motivational, but ONLY for those that really want to participate.
Looks like most Whales really want to have power on the platform but rarely use it..
and are willing to risk not being able to access it all for a few months, in return for being able to heavily influence the community from time to time.
I HEAVILY QUESTION IF WE WANT a platform that attracts many posters that only want to game the system by posting crap and making money from it.
What shows initiative and creativity is being willing to invest in the platform enough that their content is seen and their curation efforts are paid well.
My experience:
a) Joined up, posted a few things. Nobody saw it, no comments.
b) Purchased some SP.
c) Seeing that my voting power was something that carried weight now, it further MOTIVATED ME to participate in the platform.
You state "One thing I noticed about Steem Power, was it is easy to buy some, if you care about curating, and making better payback on your time to post.
Even purchasing 10 SP could make a huge difference in your experience, as far as value for your time.
That is motivational, but ONLY for those that really want to participate."
No. It's only motivational for those that have the financial wherewithal to participate by buying Steem Power.
You seem utterly unaware that 3 billion people live on less than $3/day. Seeing that chart @aggroed posted and the nearly complete acquisition of all the rewards of posting by a handful of posters should give you pause.
It did me. Why should I invest $10 for zero return? Look at this chart and tell me that's a good investment.
I converted Ethereum to buy SP.
I'm here for the long haul, regardless of the money.
As far as I'm concerned, the biggest advantage to Steemit, irrespective of the shit people always pull, is the fact that here, I don't get saddled with the job of polishing someone else's turds.
I only have to worry about my own.
"There'll be no 12k post" Liberosist, 2017
We can revisit this comment in a couple weeks.
I'm a fan of linear rewards. I'm suggesting we implement it.
I hate the 40-->10 vote thing.