RE: Why Rewards Have to Change... (Fair warning, this is a long one)
Forced curation is a completely broken mechanic and should be scrapped entirely. If someone wants to allow curation to occur on their content, that should be their decision to make and for how much.
At it's core, Steem is a tipping platform. Yes, a lot of people choose not to tip those who are trying to bring value to the platform. They instead choose to tip themselves or form a circle with a small group. This is normal. This is fine.
Literally nothing needs to change. If it were up to me I would make curation optional on a sliding scale and peg SBD to a dollar with Steem collateral just like the MakerDAO does it.
All we have to do is wait. The platform is working just fine. I've been blogging here over a year and I've made way more money here than I would have anywhere else. You might call it a screaming success from this perspective.
We are coming from a place where content creators are trying to sell their product after giving it away for free. Yeah, this obviously isn't the most profitable business model, but it is a good start and a way to get a foot in the door.
Going forward encryption will be used to secure ownership of digital content. Frontends will not allow users to access content unless the blockchain proves that they own it. None of this has anything to do with the foundations of the Steem blockchain and can be implemented in a permissionless manner by anyone in the world.
For example, imagine a game where anyone is allowed to create a skin that makes your character look different. No one will be allowed to use that skin unless they pay the creator x amount for it. Problem solved.
The same concept can be applied to blogging, but it won't be popular, because who is going to buy blogging content? Smarter to just give it away for free and hope someone is generous, especially if that blogger/vlogger doesn't have a big built-in audience.
Yep, I agree. I think these proposed changes are going to do a lot more harm than good to steem and steemit.
I think that's the crux of it at this point. Whether it's right or wrong, the status quo established throughout the first ~25 years of the internet was to basically give away this content. Some companies got wise, made it easy for anyone to do and got rich as fuck off of it by selling ads. The point being is there is value being created via the attention economy that is created. I think it's only natural in a blockchain setting that the people creating that value want a piece of the pie.
for me steem also had a feel of a tipping platform, and only thing you need to do so you can tip is have SP. And i really love the thing that i can give some people that i like some steen for their efforts. Some people love only themselves and tip only themselves and you can't change those people.
You can't change acquisitive people, but you can make the tipping mechanism unsuitable for profiteering by them. Today the whales can cast a vote worth 100 Steem, and sell that vote for say ~60 Steem (not an example. I've never bought a vote, and have no idea what they actually cost). If their votes were only worth 1 Steem, selling them would be far too much trouble for the miserable return on their time it cost them to sell them.
Whales should be seeking capital gains, rather than extracting rewards from the pockets of creators. The rewards mechanism is indeed broken, as @clayboyn says. While I'd prefer curation rewards were just eliminated, @edicted is more right than am I when he says creators should be able to set a curation reward at their sole option. I think curation rewards discourage human judgement of quality from being the basis for casting an upvote - actual curation, and instead substitute ROI as an incentive to cast a vote. The potential financial return from casting a vote has nothing at all to do with the quality of the content, and is actually counterproductive to encouraging content of high quality.
Even so, curation payola will exist, on or off chain, and so it's better that it's on chain IMHO.
While i hand out as many votes to others it is good for people to also tip themselves. This is a core definition of money that all currencies should strive to attain. Per usual when greed takes over then people need the ability to stand together to affect the powerful. A main problem of the current system, among many, is that the power of money creation is only in the hands of a few.
Posted using Partiko Android
and that would not be a problem (well it is a problem but) if they would share. but they have a different view of steem
Posted using Partiko Android
You and I disagree quite profoundly regarding the value of profiteering, but everything else you've pointed out here is, as usual, quite reasonable.
Let's just call it social media and then consider that the the incentive structure is not perfect, that it could be better, that it could have far more honest curation than 70% or more being delegated to bidbots, and imagine that the community is more empowered to check abuse, then maybe we can start discussing the future of it, but as you see, nobody will pay for what is otherwise freely given all over the place, and that's the market we are looking to capitulate on, the content consumers, and image what that would take.
Ode to Imagine all the people.
Well the idea was not that bad but I would say the execution part was a bit awkward . They wanted to fight off the bots by increasing the curation rewards that would make the use of these bots quite useless. Either way it means that the small minnows are not going to be able to progress their growth as quickly because of the fact that a larger portion is going for curation . And believe me it is hard as a minnow to get noticed when you actually do provide good content . I personally do not see myself as a content creator but rather as a commentator and curator .
It was hard enough to get some SP from the start and now it will make it more crucial to have additional platforms such as this one to utilise and help our minnows of whom we might potentially see great incentives in the near future.
Sounds like a reasonable and well thought out plan based on your personal experience. This is why we vote for witnesses. Our representatives that run the day to day operations of the blockchain, but you know that...
Though, not meaning to be nitpicking, but I see that you have only used 10 of the 30 votes available to you and 4 of those you vote for are inactive witnesses. We can debate/talk and give our ideas. Those that can make the changes to our ecosystem are the witnesses.
The voting of witnesses is the only democratic thing on this DPOS Platform. The only way that users can influence changes is through the voting of witnesses.