RE: My take on Self-voting, Vote-buying and Reward Pool Rape
Before, when the reward curve was n^2, Steemit wasn't nearly as popular as it is now. You needed to be upvoted by someone with 1,000,000+ Steem Power to get any decent rewards. But now, someone with just 20,000 Steem Power can upvote you and get you a few bucks.
Today, now that the platform is so much more popular (and the number of posts is many times greater), there just aren't enough people with 1,000,000 Steem Power to receive a vote from one of those users. There are 10 new blog posts each minute and just a handful of whales.
I believe if we returned to the old reward curve, almost every user would become dejected after they realized how difficult it'd be to earn any meaningful amount of Steem. Today, it's tough enough for new users to become successful, and with an n^2 curve it'd be many times more difficult for new users.
I'd like to see some more ideas thrown around regarding downvoting and making it more popular. There's a lot of highly-intelligent people on this platform, and I'm sure we'll come up with a workable solution.
It's not about Steem's popularity. Not everyone can get paid on Steem. That's a mathematical fact.
Only the Steem concentration is changing. That's not the issue here. Reddit and wikipedia are 2 of the most popular website yet they don't reward any of their users.
Dan explained some of the reasons why non linear is needed in a comment under his latest post and I commented about it.
https://steemit.com/eos/@dan/proof-of-good-governance#@teamsteem/re-dan-re-mikepm74-re-dan-proof-of-good-governance-20180101t023815634z
Followed your link(s) and read up. Lots of theory relating to an idealized perfectly functioning Steemit, but a bit short on objective and achievable goals.
@shenanigator presents us a convincing case about negative long term consequences for non-linear voting and your reply gives me the impression that you oppose non-linear simply because it can't make an imperfect world perfect. On the surface that might sound like defeatism, but, when really thinking about it, it sounds even worse to me - it sounds like you're saying that since it's impossible for everyone to get paid, it would be better to pay even more to those who do get paid!
If we go to that other extreme, is there any justification for further increasing already large reward amounts? Can we justify in a democratic setting the idea of giving even more to those who make the most, and less to those who make the least?
If anything, the only thing justifiable in my view would be non-linear in the opposite direction: the fewer votes received, the more relative power behind them. In theory, voting power should equal, regardless of who has it or how much has been receiven, but if we're going to try to ethically justify a modification to that ideal equality, wouldn't it have to be progressive, and not regressive? We are living in the 21st century, are we not?
I'm really befuddled here.
Certainly you aren't arguing in favor of increasing the relative power of each vote as the number of votes per post increases, are you?
Is wikipedia is a good comparison? Are we looking to become something that resembles wikipedia? Or something more like Facebook, with circles of collaborators that grow, intersect, multiply and that have open membership? The later would be a Steemit where small groups could actually distribute meaningful rewards among themselves, as well as participate in more well known authors' threads, for example.
I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well since my main point is the same but I'm getting no feedback on it.
Don't you think it's best to aim for the most widely distributed reward structure possible? Even if it's not possible for everyone to get paid?
Or, perhaps, precisely even because everyone can't?
I don't pretend to know the absolute truth on this matter and I respect the opinion of everyone. I'd love to be convinced either way whether it be for or against.
Steem aim at is making the most useful information at the top of Steem. The most useful information is specific to each individual. We don't have the same perspective.
Those who have the most to lose, the largest investors, must have larger votes.
Someone cannot claim the labor of others nor can they claim the investments of others.
Those who advocate for non linear reward aren't looking to destroy their own investment which would happen if we don't get the economics right.
That's the issue here. If it cost more to police Steem than to abuse Steem then in the long run the abusers will own most of the Steem.
This is what Dan is arguing in his latest post. He's arguing that it cost more to police than to abuse Steem thus the abusers are at an advantage.
If he's right then it needs to be corrected.
I've shared some other thoughts in a reply below to @shenanigator.
We're on exactly the same page.
Is this an absolute target, as in on the main page? Or is it a relative and distributed target for each tagged topic?
It seems to me that they already have an appropriately weighted advantage: they have voting power correspondent to their investment - everyone has that same "equal" percentage that we've all agreed is fair.
The task would be to present rational arguments in favor of giving the richer an unfair advantage by making their relative percentage stronger. I think the progressive counterargument would eventually win out, but first we must debate the ideas.
As for the rest of what you said, I have problems following what's being said. I'm not even sure if policing is necessary, but that's a whole other argument that I think is premature at this point.*
Before moving forward I think we clearly need to decide if we're in favor of making the equally distributed percentage based voting power of richer Steemians stronger relative to poorer Steemians - which is what I understand you to say when you say "the largest investors, must have larger votes". Correct me if I've misunderstood.
*See my most recent post for an introduction to why policing is a throwback to centralized authority and not necessary in a positively aligned environment - Steemit would be grass roots at its best if allowed https://steemit.com/steemit/@cryptographic/enlightened-self-interest-and-steemit
Just a random thought here. The old system made it beneficial for people to just upvote the same old people all the time. This doesn't mean they are creating good content. Just that people always upvote them.
I think that the issue is we are upvoting individual, and not content.
So many people are auto upvoted, they could post a PoS, like a literal picture of a PoS and get over $100.
This isn't helping Steem. And I think that people with bot armies, aka, the person I have been posting about lately, would get extreme rewards just because they have 1000s of accounts.
I've shared some more thoughts on the matter in my reply below.
I don't think people are coming to Steemit because it's such a great website (like Reddit and Wiki). I think they're coming here because of the revolutionary concept of getting paid for online contributions.
Not everyone can earn a lot, sure. However, everyone who contributes to the success of Steem can earn a little. If we make it nearly impossible for people to earn a little by going back to the old reward curve, I believe that will negatively impact Steem's popularity.
Furthermore, if we return to n^2, that will have a negative effect on the value of Steem Power. Today, if the average user goes out and buys 1,000SP to increase their voting power, that 1,000SP has significance. Under an n^2 curve, an additional 1,000SP would have no meaningful effect on the value of your vote (It might go from $0.04 to $0.05). How many people are going to go out to purchase SP, when they can't see it adding a worthwhile amount to their vote? I don't know the exact number, but I'm certain it's fewer than today.
I don't pretend to know the absolute truth on this matter and I respect the opinion of everyone. I'd love to be convinced either way whether it be for or against.
I agree with your first point that people don't come here because the Steem content is great and that's an issue.
I've been looking at the youtube trending page everyday for years now and someday I don't even click on any of the video because they're all bullshit video created to make money without any real substance. That's the second most popular website where all the supposedly best content creators are and yet all the population of the world is sometime not enough to produce quality content.
We can't expect Steem to create super duper content right now even on its trending page because there's so few content creators compare to Youtube or reddit but it will come. A lot of it is a question of numbers.
As for the main point, if everyone vote for themselves, Steem become pure POS minus the reward that goes to the witnesses.
The minnows would make cents as this is the value of their votes but that's not even the issue. When new Steem are created, if no new buy orders are created on the order books, newly created Steem dilute the price of Steem and doesn't increase it.
If there is 1 buy order at 5$ for 10 Steem those who receive the newly created Steem can now sell at that price too but in the end not every Steem can be sold at that price, in fact as I said, the price of all Steem has been diluted if no new orders are created thus the reason why it's important for us to get the Steem economics right.
So I do feel the n2 curve disincentives self-voting and if it doesn't then it's easier for larger shareholders to police the abusers.
Right now it's profitable for anyone to abuse the system while under a n2 curve it's only really profitable for larger shareholders and these will be easier to spot because there is infinitely less of them and they will also be easier to police them by the even larger shareholders.
One more thing, Steem popularity shouldn't be part of the equation here. Steem should aim to become addictive whether or not there's a money incentive. Other website have achieve this and there's no reason it can't be achieved.
Let's not forget, the inflation is going down overtime, meaning there will less Steem for a growing number of Steemians.