What would lifetime reward payouts mean for Steem's authors?

TL;DR: Lifetime reward payout for a Steem post is now a realistic possibility. Authors can start thinking about what that means.

Background

In programming diary #34 and programming diary #35, I introduced Thoth.

The concept started out as a 5^th generation voting service that would free investors from the need to post daily by sharing rewards among authors and delegators. The hope was to provide passive rewards to investors and to reduce the dysfunctional incentives that currently lead to a daily influx of spam that serves no purpose except to act as a vehicle that delivers rewards to investors.

That's still on the roadmap, but by a lucky accident, I also discovered that the planned mechanism can also be used to deliver rewards for posts that already passed their payout date. Don't believe me? Check here to see some reward payouts that are directed to posts from 2016.

The implementation still needs lots of work, and even if Thoth isn't the right vehicle for lifetime reward payouts, there's also eversteem. @etainclub was almost half a year ahead of me with his own implementation of a similar concept. You can even support the eversteem proposal here.

At this point, I think it's reasonable to assume that some implementation of a lifetime rewards mechanism will eventually gain traction.

Thus, the mere existence of this possibility already has numerous implications for authors. Let's talk about three:

Overview

1. Even if your post gets overlooked during the payout period, if it's written to provide lasting value, it may still deliver rewards in the future (even posts you've already written and forgotten about).
2. The balance of power for plagiarism and AI detection is changing.
3. As curation focus shifts to value over timeliness, authors are no longer competing within just the current pool of authors.

1.) Lasting value gets lasting rewards

As noted above, Thoth is still in testing, and it needs a great deal of improvement before it's able to have much impact. However, as it improves, I intend to shift more of my own curation percentage to cover historical posts that delivered value. I'd expect that other curators and investors will do the same. This is fair to active authors, because their posts will also be "historical" after 7 days.

Right now, a great deal of value is stored in the blockchain that has been invisible for years. If we (curators) bring it back to life, that has the potential to increase the overall value of the ecosystem for investors.

Basically, the ecosystem has two inputs: the crypto economy and the attention economy. By providing visibility to buried posts, the curation service can increase the value that's coming in from the attention economy with no negative impact on the crypto economy.

So, for the author, this means that if you want lifetime rewards for a post, your goal should be to post in a way that creates lasting value. Getting passed over in the first 7 days is bad, but getting passed over forever might be far worse.

2.) Curators will have the advantage in AI and plagiarism detection

Where AI and plagiarism are concerned, there is an arms war between bad actors and the detection tools. It's currently impossible for tools to detect all forms of inauthentic content, so with a 7-day window, the bad actors have the advantage.

When lifetime rewards come into play, however, the curator gets the advantage. Maybe today's detection tools can't detect today's AI, but in a year or two the state of the art on detection tools will be much better. In contrast, the content on the blockchain is locked in time. So, at some point, the technology improvement means that lifetime rewards will dry up for inauthentic content. If an author wants to remain eligible for lifetime rewards, their content must be authentic.

3.) Authors need to compete with everyone who has ever posted here

Today's voting services don't care about the quality of a post, so some authors have basically no competition, and others only need to compete with the relatively small number of accounts that are actively posting. But now that the Genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting him back. Whether it's Thoth or some other implementation, tomorrow's voting services are eventually going to care about lasting value - past and present.

Think of Google. They don't create the content. They just present it to their search users in a way that draws an audience and lets them deliver advertising. This has led to an SEO arms race where people try to write in a way that makes them relevant by landing them on the top of the search page.

Curators serve the same purpose on the Steem blockchain, but until now, curators have only paid attention to 7-days worth of content. Everything else has been out of site and out of mind.

With the realistic possibility of perpetual rewards now on the horizon, Steem authors who want to maximize their rewards will have to think past the next seven days and guess what the curation services of the future will be looking for. We can guess at some of the things:

• Topics that are broadly relevant
• Topics that are surprising
• Posts that are exclusive to the Steem ecosystem
• Posts that draw human attention
• What else?

Well, we can look at the current criteria in my AI prompt to get an idea:

Evaluate the following article based on quality, originality, relevance, and value to readers. Analyze:

- Writing quality (grammar, organization, readability)
- Originality (unique perspectives, not AI-generated or plagiarized)
- Engagement potential (interesting, informative, thought-provoking)
- Appropriate subject matter for the main topic (no gambling, prize contests, cryptocurrency, or prohibited topics)
- Avoid digest posts, lengthy lists, or tables.
- The inclusion of the author's own experience or thought process.

If ANY of these conditions are met, respond ONLY with: "DO NOT CURATE."
- Content appears AI-generated or plagiarized
- Poor writing quality (confusing, repetitive, disorganized)
- Focuses on gambling, prize contests, giveaways, or any online competitions involving rewards
- Focuses primarily on cryptocurrency, technical analysis, trading advice, or token promotion
- Lacks substance or original thinking
- Repetitive phrases, lack of specific details or examples, or a noticeable disconnect between topic and conclusion.

The idea behind Thoth is that multiple people can run it, and each person will tailor it for their own preferences. Someone else's prompt might look entirely different than this one.

Conclusion

So, right now, Thoth is still very immature and is obviously not delivering much in the way of lifetime rewards, but that almost doesn't matter. As I see it, authors can write today for the curation services of the future, knowing that the capability to discover content will eventually get to the point where anything with lasting value will be found and rewarded - repeatedly.

If your post gets overlooked today, or even if it got overlooked last year, the possibility now exists that it may still generate rewards in the future.

If authors want to get a head-start on that future, they can start thinking about the implications today.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".

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^{Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.}

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