Are you a Steem 1 percenter? Do you know who is?
Today, I was chatting with @abh12345 from @steemcommunity about what I see is of supreme importance, building a middle class of Stake holders. There are several reasons I see this as important but the main ones are that they will have the ability to demand and support much smaller niches and spiral their distribution out accordingly. People talk a lot about the importance of distribution and it is very important for stability and decentralized governance.
Previously, I had the feeling that the middle class we need is a large group of accounts that hold between 30-60,000 SP. I said to someone yesterday, that with just 100 community-oriented middle-class, this place would look completely different.
I don't know where this post is going to go now and I am a little annoyed so, there is potential for offence and blunt words....
@abh12345 pulled a number for the accounts that held between 50-60,000 SP. Take a guess at the number.
58
Yes, 58. 1 million accounts and that is the number. A few moments ago I asked him kindly(ish) to pull a more comprehensive list. Ready?
< 100 - = 980776
100-500 = 13026
500-1k = 3442
1-5 = 4275
5-10 = 776
10-20 = 511
20-30 = 191
30-40 = 88
40-50 = 57
50-60 = 58
60-70 = 35
70-80 = 20
80-90 = 19
90-100 = 18
100k+ = 147
Do you know what that means? There are 9637 accounts with more than 500 SP in their wallet and THEY ARE ALL 1 percenters in regards to total Steemit accounts. Yes, you there with that 10 cent vote, you are a 1 percenter too.
Now of course, not all of the 1M+ accounts is active (or human) but, many of those accounts in the 1 percent are held by the same people. Many of them are alts.
This post was originally going to be about the small accounts that claim to be community focused and powering up. Community is about a future position and if you aren't consistently powering up, your current position isn't one of community. That sounds harsh and I understand that there are various life situations but just look at those numbers.
I have been here since January 2017 and sit at the lower end of the 20,000 SP range. I have worked very hard but, with prices of Steem what they once were, the levels of earnings people were getting and the recent SBD Spikes, there could be a great deal more in the 1000-10,000 range, but there isn't. Perhaps if there were, this place would look a lot healthier than relying on 1000 accounts to cater for every other.
Once upon a time it used to be that networking well with the smallest accounts would be monetarily valuable as they would eventually grow into larger accounts but, that is no longer true as we can see from the numbers. So few of those accounts powered up. There was something like 20,000 active accounts when I started here. That covers everyone from 100 SP up. What happened? Why did So few power up?
I mean fuck. Really?
Take out the alts, the circlejerks, the self-maximizers from 5000 SP and up and what the hell is left? Are you one of the community talkers who could have powered up and balanced the books a little? Pulled some of the weight of the community that has supported you? Harsh? I don't think so anymore. There could be several more thousand in the 5 - 10,000 SP range but, they powered out however, there is still a great deal of entitlement and outspokenness on how this place should be more community focused. I am here, where are you?
We look to the top as they are the ones with stake but just seriously look at those numbers, if you have been here a year or more and haven't been able to earn 500 SP considering SBD had a ratio as high as 11:1 in December, you are seriously doing something wrong. But, there is less than 10,000 accounts above 500 SP....
How many accounts have had @curie knock on their post, @ocd, @utopian-io or @blocktrades tap on their shoulder? How many have had @steemstem support them, or random votes from @acidyo, @kpine, @thejohalfiles or @glitterfart types over the last 2 years yet... so few powered up and kept it there, so few thought that being part of the future of Steemit meant being able to support others to be part of Steemit.
Perhaps there should be another two indicator next to rep:
- Percentage of earnings Powered up
- Currently powering down
Why if I am a community orientated person would I support people who are not community orientated people at this early stage of the platform when I think that a healthy middle class is what is needed? Why would I continue to care for the thousands of others and struggle to grow myself if so few are willing to do similar? If I had taken advantage fully I would be in the 35-50,000 SP range, not the 20. Played for a fool...
I had an idea once upon a time about Steemit Loans where Steemit would give loans to community nodes who will in turn use it to build themselves and distribute to others and when at a resonable size, the loan would be cutoff and delegated to another. For example on a 100,000 SP delegation:
- 3 x 100% self-votes per day
- 7 x 100% value to the community
- 50% of liquids earned must be powered up (there must be some available to use)
- No voting on alt accounts
- A board to investigate actions (stop circlejerks etc)
This could also include safety net things like, identification for loan recipients and of course, any abuse of the delegation means immediate cut.
@abh12345 said that monitoring this could be largely automatized and done similarly to his engagement leagues.
Ready to build a middle class @ned? 10,000,000 SP gets 100 delegates and if chosen well, will become the most transformational force the community aspect of this site will ever have seen or is likely to see. With SMTs coming, this would build a foundation of very strong internal support. I can name 10 people off the top of my head who I can near guarantee would use that delegation well without abusing it. @ned? Still there?
With an extra 200 dollars to distribute each day, each of the 100 could effectively put 4 new 500+ every month. That is 400 new ones per month. They could support the community leaders and projects that are struggling to help the lower reaches again. They become serious nodes that distribute their 7 million of the vests each day to the community and grow with the other 3 so that soon, they can support unaided.
You wanted distribution? There it is. Oh, with 10 million SP being distributed into the community for free, the bidbots are going to have to adjust their numbers a little too. Not many commuity orientated people would need to buy votes to survive as the 100 will find and help them soon enough.
If there is ever a way to use the ninja-mined stake, it is to develop the community. Not going to happen though is it?
This place needs an engaged middle-class that can support the others higher and lower but, it just isn't happening fast enough. I have seen some numbers from @taskmaster4450 about distribution and the platform working as it should but, with the numbers of accounts in the middle reaches so low, 1-2 percent growth is relatively insignificant. It would be different if there were 5000 accounts over 10,000 but there are not, there are barely 1000 and 147 of them are whales who could also have alts that are orcas and dolphins.
I don't know what this all means and I don't expect anything to suddenly change or any significant number of people to actually care but, I do still. So, I am now going to have to rethink my rethink of my strategy to develop a healthier community. I know that if people aren't powering up something though, they aren't thinking about the community at all. That is fine, that is their path to walk and we must all live with the consequences.
There is a positive to all of this though. Ready?
There are a lot more 1 percenters here than people believed and pretty much anyone over 100 SP is a 10 percenter. Steem wealthy! Congratulations. But really, what it also indicates is if this place does go mainstream and onboarding happens at the level expected, everyone here right now has the potential to be in the 1 percent of wealth on the platform. Sure, not everyone is going to be a Steem Billionaire equivalent but, there can be many, many thousands of millionaires.
But, they have to power up and pull their weight.
Looking at these numbers makes me feel pretty useless here...
Rant over.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I am not sure how to comment on this post without coming across as a hypocrite. The post is absolutely fine but the problem lies with me.
Whatever little Steem and SBD is there in my Wallet has been generated here on the platform. Now the question of pwering up comes in play - the thing is that I have waiting for the whole month to power up but ratio of exchange for SBD and Steem is not coming back to 1:1. In fact its moving farther away. It looks like I missed the boat in early April and it might come back ever again.
I want to power up desperately but even 1 steem matter's a lot and maybe I'll wait another month to get a better ratio and if not, then I have no idea where do I go from here. My original plane was to get 500SP mark in 2018 itself (thus bringing myself closer to 1 percentile)
The ratio is all part of the game and it may never get back to one or, it could go back to 11:1 and you will be really happy. Hard to say and Haejin doesn't know either... ;)
There are many different positions held here and it is up to each but, there are people complaining about community who have been here longer than I, earned more than I, yet hold under 500 SP in their accounts. Everyone has their path and challenges they face, me included.
Isn't a bit misleading to use all 1 million accounts? Surely 80% must be bots haha. We would need a real human calculation to check the real rankings. I agree with you that a strong middle class is exactly what is needed. They should have the most influence on the platform. And many people love to be middle class. Since it's safe and has a large audience.
there are something like 200k unique people estimated you are right. which means everyone from 500 SP is in the top 5% and the 1 percent is from about ~3000 SP up. However, those bot/alt accounts hold SP and vote too and the blockchain doesn't differentiate them.
Whatever way you loook at it, there shouldn't be more whales and orcas than middle class and it isn't because there are too many whales or orcas.
That sounds better. Yes you are right. How do you bridge the gap that is an interesting question. Clearly you can see that the big accounts can feel threatened and they decide to not work on the middle class. Also know some others that get paranoid when you start to talk about building a middle class. Clearly people with 100s of troll accounts that provides 0 value in building up a community but just wants to cash out.
But I think that the larger accounts if they see a middle class truly being developed that they would help out a lot. Since that is in their best interest. But I'm sure we can see a solid middle class in maybe a year because I can see that the whales relax back a bit and doesn't take up too much room. I think they just want to see something that is really inspiring. That means the smaller accounts will have to sacrifice a bit for some time.
200k unique users?
How does this match the 127k from arcange post?
just an estimate. both are.
I doubt it that it will come back to the ratio 1:1.
Yes there is lot less SBD than Steem, 50 mil SBD compared to 273 mil Steem. But when the SMTs comes out, they need the Steem for their bandwith and will not care about the SBD. So my guess is that SBD will drop to its orginal plan and go back to $1!
I hope it does go back to one (after a massive spike :D). Yes, there is going to be pressures coming and the people who think it is hard to earn now haven't really understood what is expected to arrive.
They indeed have no clue.
If I take a look at the cryptomarket I can already predict that there will come a decline in the number of posts!
And like you write they couldn’t be more wring!
These days people want everything instantly and want what everybody else have, without knowing how much effort or investment was needed to achieve this.
I could envy your wallet and want it also but than it is up to me to do something!
While I don envy it, it encourages me that it is possible. It is more like a motivation than jealousy!
I am in the same boat . However I will wait and hold. I will not take anything out so I don't think there is anything wrong with that . when the ratio hits 1-1 then power up and with all the saved SBD hopefully will be a nice power up
I used to be a waiter, but then I was kind of schooled/educated by a bigger steemian, he did not care about the ratio, he got SBD, he powered it up. I do the same now, and view it as the, (I guess) old school method of dollar cost averaging. The more SP, the more curation reward, the more vote power, the more potential earnings. But then again, I do not know very much at all about cryptocurrencies, and how they really work.
The only way to grow and have an impact here is to power up or have money to buy in . As ones SP grows so does the earning potential and help others to make this a great platform .
I have only been involved in this for a couple months so I spend a lot of time catching up on knowledge . I missed the boat years ago when I could not get any help in investing with the little I had . That little would have changed my life . lesson learned .
Like taraskp said, there are a few times that SBD bought a lot of steem, and thee are times like now when it does not. And like everitt told me, if you want to make money on steem, you need to have SP to vote, the more the better. Right now you SBD might only buy you say 2 steem, in a month it might still only buy you two steem, or it might buy you 5 steem, not even god knows how much it will buy then. But during that month that 2 steem is working for you, not sitting idle earning nothing, growing nothing. If you are going to hold it, I don't know how often they pay interest in the saving account part but maybe look into that, Of course if you need funds right away, I think it takes 3 days to with draw from your savings account.
I'll wait for another month and hope that maybe we'll see a better exchange rate before that.
(Sorry for an incredible amount of typos and grammatical errors in my original comment. Forgot to edit them before posting)
I am sitting here hoping too .
I can see you have never seen any of my post ROFL your good !
I was hesitant to vote you to the top without Taraz' permission but since they've already done it you can have one from me too. I looked at your account a while back and thought it was quite good; I hope you will stick around.
Thanks man! I plan to stick around here for a good long while (hopefully not a like parasite).
Glad for your support and apologies for so many typos in the original comment.
This is one of the reasons why I talk to the helpienauts weekly, attempting to preach the importance of powering up, of thinking long term and not so much of the now.
As you say, so many get a curie... make a post or two after that with little success and then, they power down sell it all and call it done.
This little experiment of ours is not for everyone, I get that, but I tend to think that its also a lack of culture, meaning the right culture. The community culture, the "we are in this together" ethos that "real life" seems to have lost.
But... this is good, good message to put out there and if it offends someone, then that someone needs to get off the internet. I hear its full of opinions.
That's it right there and something I know has been discussed on the Curie discord:
As someone who has been Curied twice so far it is great. It's a rewarding jolt and certainly does motivate you to continue writing great content. But after the Curie you have to use bots to get more eyes on your posts.
People are more focused on creating content and few actually go out and support other writers. I think we need more Curie like groups backed by some whales or middle class accounts that continually curate the content, reward great posts and inspire more writers to step up the quality of their posts.
That's my uneducated opinion anyway.
This is a social platform, it isn't good enough to just write great content. I know, that is what I tried for the first 8 months (not saying my content is great but it isn't the worst at least). What helped me was learning about the system and building/joining a network of people looking long. I am not the biggest or fastest growing but, I have been consistent.
I have always wondered why more people don't post in a social way on Steemit like they do on facebook as it would be a lot easier to develop a following of friends and family who would certainly upvote your postings on a consistent basis. I have found that it is difficult to develop a "following" unless you have an area of expertise that people who you don't know find of value. It seems as though the blogs/vlogs/comments on Steemit are either very good or totally useless. Your rant today was a very good one as I have enjoyed reading all of the comments/discussions that it has generated.
The reason is that unless ypur friends and family buy in, they have very little value and the content on Facebook isn't seen as hlding a high value so attracting voters willing to consistently support it is hard.
Everyone has unique perspectives on things, use yours.
re: friends and family
I can see your point in that it would probably be fairly hard to get family and friends to buy in as the crypto exchanges can be somewhat intimidating as well as doing transactions in something other than dollars can be confusing at best. Then you would have to convince them to buy at least 100-200 sp just to have a 2-4 cent upvote, yeah I can see why it's not likely to happen. Most of them already think that I'm not very smart for investing in the crypto's as it is (clearly I don't have that same opinion, I like to think of it as being an early mover for once in my life).
re: unique perspectives on things, use yours.
Thanks. I currently have settled in on posting about things going on in my life and if people find some of my postings interesting/entertaining/of value and upvote occasionally, hey great. At first I got discouraged as you would put a lot of work into a posting and no one would upvote it or you would only get a penny or two. I've since then learned not to worry about it. I was having a discussion yesterday with @glenalbrethsen in regards to his post "RE: Want To Grow? Make Meaningful Comments And More Of Them" and he made a very pertinent comment to this... "The bottom line is, the more you get out there, the more people see you interacting, the more people you will get to know and the more likely some of them will follow, autovote, or consistently engage with you." Seems like pretty sound advise to me.
On a separate note, how do you copy and paste in other people's comments the way you do. I like it.
I take the same view. I have 'waited to see' too many times.
You mean the quotes like this?
(>)arrow right + text
just remove the ( ) brackets and it looks like this:
Ha, got it, thanks :)
Yep, if they aren't powering some up, they aren't thinking long. everyone who earns here can power up a little...
I am going to change my approach to it all and start really thinking long and doing what I can to grow and support other long thinkers.
I power up not by selling SBD in the market but by recycling the SBD in bots - from say 100SBD of bot voting I get maybe 60 SBD back and 20 SP. With the 60 SBD I can promote a subsequent post
Sob! Never got a @curie. I wrote so many posts and all they found to say was that "I'm not properly sourcing my images" ... :(
I would not sweat it my friend, you've done very good for yourself anyways. I think i got it once or twice... its like finding a $20 in an old pair of jeans, but its not a salary!!
:)
It's not about the money. It's about the pride and recognition. I'm a vain person, I long for public displays of respect and admiration!
:-)
OOOhhh!! I get it now!! In that case... I will raise the pitchfork with you my friend... lets go!!!
;)
Hi Taraz. That is not the figures I expected. I am a little red fish at the bottom of the pile but by being involved in the community I know I will be a one percenter sooner than later. it makes sense why people re using bots now as they have no idea how to grow otherwise. There is a total inbalance and basically the middle class is non existent. The platform needs a strong middle class desperately to support the smaller accounts and help them grow. You cannot rely on a system that has literally less than a few hundred to help a few 100 000 grow. The imbalance is suffocating the platform and is the reason why people give up. This is bloody hard work. Enjoyable but hard.
Yep, it has to happen but it isn't happening fast enough and with so few engaged there now, it isn't going to speed up.
The pre-mine situation with STEEM was less than ideal. I do like your idea of the 10 community leaders though. That could really work if you picked the correct people. Or maybe just air drop all mr delegation SP to all active users!
99% will power it down and sell it for 50c
lol - no faith. Still might actually help the distribution. Realistically that is a pipe dream. Steemit inc has a death grip on that account.
there is an unwritten law that it isn't to be used or something like that.
@tarazkp Well I have to honest I did not expect these numbers. I am active on the Steem blockchain and have been converting all my SBD into steem and powering up. I am doing all within my power to get to the Minow level.
My current Steem power is around 238. It could have been more but like written earlier I am running a World Cup Contest, where I do pay out in SBD. So I am putting 50% of my earned SBD to my savings and powering up the other 50%.
I am also active in a community, okay it is sport betting related which is not everybodies cup of tea (@sbcbot). We are trying to unite sports bettor, give them Steem tips and supporting them with upvotes of our bot. Our members do buy upvotes from the bots, but once they are whitelisted by us, we will give them a daily push in the back. This all wouldn't have been possible without the support of a Dolphin! This support is incredibly important for a community. Not only by the power they could spread but also because they know how things work around here!
While I could write that I cam for the money but I am staying for the community is partly true. I really enjoy building our community, thinking about ideas how we can support our members even further and so on. The only problem we are facing right now is that all the members do interact with the founders but not so much with each other! We are still trying to find ways to improve this. Any ideas?
To bad we can't force them :) we can only offer them the platform and encourage them, the rest is up to them.
The World Cup Contest I am hosting also has two purposes, 1. trying to give our community as much exposure as possible and 2. doing something big to put my account on the map (a price pool of 100 SBD really helps :) But also here this wouldn't have been possible without all the sponsors!
Because the more power I will get, the more power I can spread. I am still acting like a dolphin, but I am still a small red fish!
Sorry for the rant from my side, but it appears that you touched a nerve!
I also don't understand why most starters not are powering up in full force!
Cheers,
Peter
There is no issue with it al but if you look at all of the contests run on this platform over the last 2 years and then have a look at those numbers again, it will show that even those who win don't power up. I ma not discouraging you of course and I think what you are doing is really good but, this platform has paid out something like 50 million worth in the last 2 years yet not many seemed to have held.
These numbers are very disappointing considering I know many of the people in each group. I shouldn't, there should be way more.
There should be indeed much more. I am number 501xxx something on the steem ecosystem and if I do look at the stats you are presenting to us, I should not be this high in the rankings. For sure, if you know that I do consider myself a bad writer, so if even I can make something of my Steem account, why can't others?
Well there are several reasons for this. On one side you do have the people who don't trust the system and on the other hand you do have to people who still do believe that it is a quick rich scheme! Expecting a daily of weekly upvote from a whale.
Well I did got my first one a week ago and this stupid Steemian did donate a big part of it to the prize pool.
You are not discouraging me. I do know that there are a lot of contest going on, most participants and there for the quick bucks and probably most of the participants in our contest will be the same. But I already had some friendly banter with some people I did not know before, which is worth all the effort!
What does discourage me the most, is to see how some people vote, following a curation trail blindly, while I do see people around me, trying to make the best out of it, without getting noticed. People are just trowing money out of the window!
I really think that the Steem blockchain is a great idea, they just did underestimate the greed of people.
Besides great articles like yours and some other, interaction is what this eco system really needs! The comment/post ratio is ridiculous low. It is that low we should not be allowed to call steem a social media platform!
@tarazkp
You're right. There's a lot of contest chasers just looking to earn some sbd/steem, but there's a few that use the winnings to power up.
@fullcoverbetting and I, are in the same boat (and the same community 😃). Our accounts are not growing as fast as they used to because we are financing different contests, but I have nothing to complain about. I believe that in general, the good outweighs the bad.
We have success with our community, most members are powering up. We are operating at a loss supporting the promising members and most are responding well. Their engagement is up, the quality of content they produce is up,... They believe in the platform.
You'd be surprised how little investment it takes to encourage someone to take this platform seriously and starts investing effort and time into the community engagement and improving the quality of content. A few kind words, some advice, and a regular upvote is all it takes.
When writing our bot, I left us open to abuse on purpose. A member can tag 10 of his/her posts with the sbc tag in a day and the bot will upvote it all. But we have a rule that you can use the tag just once a day on a sports/betting content only. Do you know how many times the bot got abused?
Not once!
Two times the bot upvoted two posts by the same member in a day because they've made an honest mistake (that they apologized for), but there's not been a single abuse of the bot done on purpose.
Show people that you trust them, support them without asking them to return the favor, and your trust in humanity will get restored 😃
I have an idea :D
This is what I am hoping would happen with the delegation idea but, the ones that receive the delegation need to be above board. That way, they will find how to distribute it well to people who deserve/earn etc.
i am glad you guys are doing this though as I think there is going to be a lot of future in it that will pay off for you.
If you have the ear of the powers to be, this is the guy you can't go wrong with: @costanza
The Sports Betting Community is his brainchild. Take a look at the post he wrote 5 months ago. His support for the promising steemians has just increased since that time.
It already does. Having a vibrant community of like-minded people is worth a lot.
It is pretty amazing how important a community is and how few people treat it with respect. Engagement is nearly all down to the people, not the money.
As told before, I am blessed with some free delegation. But I do know that the people who did delegate the power are taking a close look on my actions! I am doing my utmost best to prove to them that I am worth it :)
The problem we as a community are facing is that our niche really detracts some people. Betting and gambling are still placed in some dark corner, lost of people do it, but few dare to admit it! Being afraid that people will change their mind about them!
But for the more serious ones, there is a lot of comparision between betting, investing and maybe even steem.
For all three counts that don't put more money into then you can loose!
I do think that in the past year more people got into trouble by investing into cryptos than placing bets on sports!
If we would have been a sewing club, it would have been much easier to get some support :)
We do feel that it is important to educate our member to become great Steemians, regardless of the content about which they are writing!
The more niches are available on the platform, the more people would feel at home!
For us it not about making a profit from the community! Otherwise we would have already stopped! Also all power the bots earns is invested back into it! We do like creating and supporting the community. It is great to see something grow!
It is our little baby :)
I think this will change with communities. You guys will be able to have your own and the 'walls' will mean a little more feeling of privacy if tat makes sense.
It does 😁
For once I do want to try to be a front runner in stead of feeling sorry that we didn’t go for it!
And like @beat-the-bookies wrote: if it fails we had a blast and ae gained some friends, which is more valuable than all the steem in the world!
Well @tarazkp still happy with your delegation of SP a while ago. Brought me to a new level and enthusiasm while writing my last posts. 🎉
@fullcoverbetting can you explain what you think why it is wrong following a curation trail?
@guchtere
Remy, well my 2 cents. It is not about good or wrong.
But most people following a curation trail don’t know what they will be voting on. The leader of the trail picks the posts and gets the most curation rewards from it.
Also most members within a curation trail are in there because, probably the curation trail could also upvote their posts, what for some would be like hitting the jackpot!
I know that the idea behind it is genuine, just like the idea behind steem is, they just did underestimate the greed of people.
Just like using an autovoter, it decreases the level of interaction, which for me is utmost important!
I would always prefer a genuine comment above an upvote, but getting both is the max!
I still do all my upvotes manually because I don’t want to upvote every post from an author!
Still I would be trilled and happy if an influencer, like for instance @tarazkp would auto vote me 😁, just like I would do a happy dance when @curie would upvote a post of mine!
I do like my freedom of casting my votes.
Like I wrote in the beginning I don’t judge people who are taking part in a curation trail, it is just not my cup of tea! We all are trying to make the best out of it, here on Steem!
What’s your opinion on it! Do you follow one, which and why if I may ask!
@tarazkp what is your opinion about it?
@fullcoverbetting Thanks for your quick and long reply! Need to get in a daily standup now. Will reply later today.
Looking forward to it. Really hate those daily stand-ups :(
It happens since majority of humans aren't really content creators. That will say that eventually majority of the Steem will end up in real content creators hands. The passionate ones. Since they see the value more in a community and not just the investor side to it. Clearly the market with Bid Bots will balance itself out eventually especially when it comes to people that has a short term strategy to make some quick cash and then leave to some other place.
Only issue is that below 15 SP it really feels pointless to try to get up to 50 SP haha. If you can make the process more fun and engaging that will surely help. More cool stats for example and cool stuff that people can collect that doesn't have to be real Tokens. Surely the blogging system is not what will drive long term value but it's just here to verify that humans are legit and can create real value. The ones that should have most value is people with a long term Steem strategy that will stay for a longer period.
For me I would have no issue with a price crash since it would probably drive out a lot of the greedy and the ones who are the most passionate can then stay and truly build up a middle class. Would be a bit like building up a city after World War 2. Currently right now it can be a bit problematic to delegate out power since it takes 7 days to get the value back. So there is less incentive to do it. But in the future we will probably have better wealth trickle down systems that will work more effective.
But @tarazkp is right. The should be a broader middle class. Just like in the real world the middle class keeps it going.
If we take a look of the number he did present us, there just below 10K accounts, which do have enough power to support others, projects or communities. Probably at least 10 to 15% are bot related. So that leaves around 8K accounts who can support the rest! All of the other 50K daily active accounts are fighting for their attention, just neglecting each other, which is real pity!
We did see it during mid feb, when the steem price was dropping incredible! Lots of people didn't think that it was worthwhile to continue being active. Well I kept on going, which for me was easier, because the value part is merely a nice side effect! Most of the power I own at the moment did came from those days! People forgot that it was back then much easier to get noticed and to het a share of the reward pool!
Regardless of the price, each day a less than 800K steem is generated!
A price crash is a 2 side cutting knife. Yes a lot of less serious money hungry wolves will leave but also this will hurt some of the investors who really believe in the platform, and the question is how they will react on this!
I also don't understand all the account, which barely have 50 SP, but around 100 SBD. Why did they not convert them into Steem? Those days that SBD had more value then Steem are passed and will probably never come again!
Edited: I did read most of the comments. And I did see lately a lot of post of the quality of posts! The quality of a post can't be determined based on the value of the post but based on the interaction which is going on under the post! The more interaction and the more interaction between the commenters, the better the post is in my opinion!
So based on this, this a one hell of a post! Keep them coming!
Great comment. Yes this is all very accurate. Geeks usually forget how complicated all this is for the average human to get in their head. That is why most people don't power up. It's scary and complicated and there is no help if something goes wrong. And go from 15 SP to 50 SP feels kind of pointless for a beginner.
Also what will massively drive the price of Steem won't be the content but as you say the quality communication between the users of the Steem currency. That will say the more connections you can do the better. The network effect. Every comment is a form of advertising between the users but targeted advertising that is so smooth that it's invincible. It's information that people want. The content is just there to form more connections.
Thx @phoneinf
I do still remember those days. Only been around since the beginning of January. Just like you it appears. I was always trying to take small steps, for to get rid of the delegation from the platform, then getting it up to 50 and so on!
I do hope that at the end of the year I can reach minnow status. That's the goal, we will see how it will end up!
You are right that it is some kind of advertising but it only works if you are genuine. If you are not, you could do more harm then good. We all only have one chance to make a first impression!
So, let me do some advertising :) Feel free to join the world cup contest I am hosting!
It is free and like it should there are no upvote, resteem or follow requirements :)
Well, I never thought I would be ever included in a 1% club... interesting. I have been trying to figure out how to make the biggest impact on the platform, help lift the good content to drowned out the bad, and I’ve realized that one can not do it alone. Imagine what the middle class could do if we pulled together, I never really thought of it that way.... thanks for this.
if you want to make a difference here, you have o be part of a coommunity of people who want to be part of the community.
I agree 100%, I’ve been lucky to find a few.
You need to find people that are truly dedicated for the long term and that has an excellent ability to build up trust, quality relationships and quality communication. The value needs to be streamed to them in a very optimised way. Not too much and not too little. Also we would need a place to see where real discussions are currently going on so you can quickly jump into that place and add real value.
The content will be limitless in the future. The real value will be genuine real care. Because that is very scarce. And something that also will be scarce is our Time and Attention. And building up a quality community will take lots of selflessness and sacrifice and also that we practice to give more value than we are used to give out.
Hopefully Smart Media Tokens will increase the incentive to truly engage in a deeper way. We also have lots of simple content that lack depth where you really can't add anything to it. So it's important that people really take some time and consideration and create something that is of high quality.
i think people really dont understand the importance of SP
if i only knew the things i know now in last december... i would have like 1200 SP hahaha :( but these exchange ratio wont come back so easy...
Steem power is that important that it could even help you to make a live from steemit in long term... if that doesnt makes you wanna power up then what?
People don't think there is a future.
This - and because it's on the level where I feel I can be effective right now - is why @doctorworm is focusing on boosting accounts to 500 SP. You're right that we need more people in the dolphin/orca tier, but we need to get them started first. Hopefully once I start graduating accounts from that either I'll be big enough to give them another boost or some helpful orca will come along and pick them up.
Since I don't have 100k SP from Ned to do it - just 1500 from myself right now - it's a much slower process than the one you're outlining. But at least it's going, and there are several other projects out there with similar goals.
It has to happen at all levels and this is why the middleclass is important but missing as they would support the next tiers and so on downward.
.. oh, if they are community middleclass.
This post made me care, and I'm grateful for this @tarazkp. I came to your profile after a suggestion made by @celestal, and I wanted to share my thoughts—as a middle-class 10cent per vote Steemian.
I try not to get too caught up in the politics surrounding Steemit these days, but you make a strong case of the unbalanced distribution of stake on the platform. I had stopped my own power-down I recently started to cover moving fees, after I learned that plans have changed... But after reading your article I feel that it is genuinely in my best interest to power up the majority of my future posts.
I don't dive deep into any of the many specialty communities on Steemit, as I often find misalignment with a message I can't all-in my efforts on or personal availability at times, but as far as Steemit as a whole community is concerned, I feel that I am learning what it really means to care on the fundamental level.
There does need to be a middle class, not just the wealthy and marginalized in this eco-system. It would be cheeky at best to plug myself here, but I gotta have courage and stand up for myself.
If you @tarazkp, or anyone else wants to lend me a delegation, I would be willing to help curate high-quality content over various categories and bring up more good authors and new users from across the platform. I believe that I'm a unique content creator, who can help lift others up if given an opportunity to do so.
I won't lie, I feel that my votes currently are completely powerless, so I try to write engaging comments to make up for the missing value. I also feel that I lack purpose here, but your idea is something I would want to be a part of because I can believe in this. No biases, and caring for Steemit is different than pushing a group's agenda.
I am shello#1548 on Discord if you want to chat c: Thank you again for this lovely post, rants are the best because it shows how much you care!~
With love,
@shello
It is interesting how engaging this place can become with a little personal time invested into being part of the community.
i am not delegating at the moment but I will keep you in mind for the future. :)
Overcoming personal fears and trusting your peers, I feel is a huge part of being in a community.
Thank you for your consideration in the possible future. I just realized, that I don't need to receive a delegation to start making a difference. Imma start now, in ways that I can!
A bit harsh... in that it doesn't take into account people's offline realities. Also that SBD spike was relatively short lived.
I've been here since August 2017 was incapable of blogging due to work commitments Sept to just recently but have powered up 100% of my earnings, and bought steem offline and traded it in and look where I am.
Steem's also now about 60-70% of my crypto investment.
I think the reason there aren't too many people with 10K steem power is because there aren't that many people prepared to risk $30K on crypto.
In the real world that's a fuck of a lot of money even to me - and I earn more than 90% of the UK population, with no kids to worry about!
Then of course there aren't really that many people into crypto... there are 2 of us at work with any (<1%) and the other guy's the college database manager.
The skew just reflects the extent of relative poverty and risk aversion offline.
I like yr delegation solution tho'
Also i did just power up $500 of steem today but that's so much more than my recent earnings which recently have been 0.01% of the reward pool - once you faactor in how much the abusers take that's a MASSIVE % of what's left - and even that's a pittance.
Anyway.. on my phone loosing the thread - but I think making on here is harder than you make out and not powering up is just rational.
And that's without taking into account the banfield-repulsion factor. I mean he's enough to make anyone want to power down.
I did say everyone has their challenges and, the people I am mostly talking about have been here since 2016... I came start of 2017. There could definitely be a much healthier middle class here without them ever having to use fiat to buy in. I put a couple hundred € in in Novemeber last year. Other than that, I have earned it here, traded it up on exchanges etc.
Again, many of the people that could have been in that middle class have earned on the platform more SP than I have and in some cases, much, much more.
Real world is different and I even understand that people take some to make their life easier but, if they really, really need it, what happens if Steem fails?
The delegation would be awesome to see in action if the right people held it.
:)
Hope you aren't driving ;)
If only I'd been fre during that spike!
You've done well here. I'll be buying in more shortly - worth the risk for me.
Not driving just putting off going to sleep. !