Make People Happier and Let Steemit Succeed
After two tremendous spikes in the last month, Steem price has been decreasing steadily and it seems to be in a somewhat serious situation. A worse thing is that posts per user is dramatically decreasing. This means that users are not enjoying this platform and may leave to other attractive platform very easily. What makes these outputs?
(Image source: @atomrigs 's post)
Although Steemit sounds very promising, as advertised "post it and earn reward", the reality to regular users is very disappointing. Many of them only got below $0.1 regardless of their efforts on the posts. Obviously there were some junk posts and copy-paste things, but some maybe really worth to be rewarded. I think that there are two main reasons. First, whales are few and they can read a very small number of posts. Undiscovered posts by whales sometimes get over a hundred upvotes but the reward is still below $0.1. Second, reward system is too biased. As mentioned in the white paper, the reward system is bench-marking a casino scheme. But statistics and user experiences so far may tell this is wrong. We should remind that while a few jackpot winners are very happy, many losers are desperate and sometimes give up their lives. The similar thing is happening now in Steemit.
Then what should we do? I want to suggest three points.
1. Limit whales voting power at a certain percentage of total Steem Power
(Original idea is from @slowwalker 's post)
For instance, we can restrict whales voting power at 0.1%. Then if a whale have 5,000 SP out of 500,000 (1.0%), he has the same power with those who has 500 SP (0.1%), but he can vote 10 times more at the full rate. This may cause some whales to split accounts, but this splitting for increasing voting power can be considered as an abuse given the system. This suggestion can make dolphins stronger and results in more distributed power system.
2. Reduce biases in the reward system
Currently the parameter is 2.0 (square) and it brings in a very high head and long tail. But what we need is thick tail. We need to test and simulate other parameters between 1 and 2, focusing on some socially meaningful measurements (e.g. median payout, mode payout bracket, 90/10 ratio, etc). Do not undervalue seemingly-worthless posts. If we can make people happy and retain them, the reward is not a waste. Remember that attracting new user also costs, and ex-users are very very hard to bring back.
3. Reputation-based display should be default
Although payout-based sorting has some importance in terms of system security and users' perception, it's side-effect is also significant - a feeling of inequality. I would suggest a reputation-based display page as a default. People are able to have more influence without having a great amount of money, so that everyone can dream about becoming an important person in this platform. If needed, we surely have to develop better reputation system.
Steemit is mainly a SNS, not a marketplace nor a gambling system. Our first goal should be making as many people happier, then those people will make us succeed. I would really appreciate to developers who are working very hard under the water and many friends who give bitter advises for Steemit.
Count me in as one of the desperate ones. I know I shouldn't be saying this and usually I don't, since I am a highly patient and positive guy.
But recently I am having this feeling that no matter what I throw out there, it just doesn't seem to be enough. I write high quality posts that get a lot of upvotes but the payout is just demeaning! One look at my blog will tell you this.
There is a limit to patience and I worry that user retention is going to be difficult. For now, I can only keep trying, hoping for the best.
Yes but at least for you getting plenty of upvotes , really helps your reputation go up, which can then atract bigger money. For alot of us we go unoticed with little upvotes.
you are still doing better than an average steemit user. What do you want? be everyday in trending page? :)
ahaha! I don't crave for trending daily, but I do crave for fair rewards.
It's not about doing better than others....it's about the perceived value of your content...
well if users who upvoted your content dont have enough sp to increase the value of your post, maybe they should buy steem power? its not the fault of steemit. If i see a good post , and I want to see it get the rewards it deserve, i would definitely buy sp to influence its value. easy peasy.
Whales curate. Upvote posts and spread the wealth, which is great but it would be great to see posts from them too, creations of their minds we can all enjoy and feel more engaged with them as they 'represent' Steemit, which in the end creates engagement with Steemit. (Don't say that would get them even more rewards taken away from the people. They give it back and I surely hope to see that GUI author_payout_value factored in to remove post rewards).
I miss @dantheman's posts. He was one of the only ones posting. It shows he really cares.
I'm saying this because some may believe that whales sit back in their comfy chairs, in their nice beach houses and look at what other people create and selectively upvote, etc. being all re-active instead of being pro-active.
The same feeling can be generated by Steemit's lack of integrating any of the great apps we have around directly into Steemit. We pride with them, they give recognition (through upvotes and sometimes mentions) but is that enough? It seems like Steemit is expecting others to build great apps, while internally there's a lot of (secret) development happening.
I know creating all of Steemit and keeping it whole is not an easy task, but we have great people around here too, valuable people, starting from devs, marketing specialists, researchers, data scientists, communication specialists etc. Why isn't Steemit Inc. tapping into this value in order to grow faster, respond to it's community faster, respond to the market faster (and recently, competitors)?
Delegation is the secret and I hope @dan and @ned understand this and adopt it and directly hire the best Steemians around to bring the business to the moon. I don't think they don't have the money and I also don't think most of the Steemians would mind getting Steem or SBD as paychecks if needed be.
I like all of these but number 2 is most important .
Squaring is so arbitrary why not raise to the 1.75 or 1.50 power?
With active users now shrinking maybe he devs will be open to this. My fear is that they are bizarrely focused on the good post rather than the active users. People can read without joining. If they want users they need to focus on activity. Your solutions would all help (again #2 is easiest fix and would not alter much about the platform.)What about mass marketing to get more people on steemit plus an actual "share" button so that your own followers can read a post of somebody else's that you thought was great? Thereby getting more viewers to each worthy post.
Yep, some kinda internet advertising needs to happen. Some whale should drop a grand or two, or someone should create a post with ads already made and promise to use all funds gotten through upvotes on posting those ads. I'd do it myself but I don't know how to transfir money out yet.
Shared feed would be good.
Well, it's even worse than a casino-experience for most I'd say.
While throwing tokens down a slot machine one at a time, with very little emotional value attached to each token, imagine having to sit on a treadmill for one hour instead of each token you put in.
It's not so much about the actual "chance" of a huge payout (which is way higher at Steemit), but the "perceived" relationship of work-put-in vs payout rate that gets people frustrated.
Let's say you take 100$ (at 20$ wage/hr that's 5hrs of work) to a casino and sit in front of a 1$ machine. That gives you 100 chances to win and the perception of building up your chance to win the more you put in (which is statistically wrong, but emotions don't care about statistics).
The 5hrs of work you put into earning those 100$ is in your past, so you're not as emotionally attached to it anymore at the time you enter the casino.
Assuming you put the same 5hrs of work into writing 1-2 articles for Steem, the value of your work is emotionally way more "closely attached" to the payout chance, which is basically reduced in the perception to only 1 or 2 chances for "winning".
That's what gets people frustrated way more than if they'd "waste" the same amount of value in a casino.
Good suggestions almost over my head honestly - but man, it seems like half the content on here lately is on how to improve the system! And especially to make it more fair for the newest users.
I'd just add that "working" this site is still a job, so good old fashioned networking and being social is the way to grow an organic following. I got lucky on one article hitting ($300 right before the price fell a bit recently) and while I feel disappointed a bit that my follow up articles since have gone nowhere, I still feel it's up to me to keep plugging, and build a base, and not be so dependent on windfalls from whales, pennies from heaven, lottery upvotes, etc. The system needs work yes, but since they're still calling it Beta I'm trying to refrain from being the newbie telling them how to run it - I still look at the platform as something of a gift actually.
I think the problem is that people treat the site like a job. I can waste tons of time on reddit without thinking about money and I think I write better content on that platform!
The problem is when new users look at the front page they see crypto shit, steemit not working shit and anarchists. How is this going to attract the average person? Its not. Its a catch 22. In order for steemit to be popular it needs to become popular enough to represent more interests than it currently does. People should look at the money as an added bonus.
Part of the problem with Steemit is the interface. There is a lot that could be done to better syndicate content. It is too hard to get noticed and there are too few people with the clout to make a difference for the vast majority of content. The influence is not well balanced. Since there is not a great way to aggregate content if you don't happen to hit with a piece early and happen to catch the eye of some of the chosen few then you are likely to never be seen. I choose to post because I find that writing is its own reward. But we are going to loose many fresh voices because they don't have a pot story or don't have make up tips.
So the idea now is that whales will gradually bestow their powers upon select others in the community. And then I suppose that group will pay it forward and do the same. So how long do you think that will take for the whales to create this second level of whales?
I think payout will also decrease if the voting power of the whales will be decrease. Creating more whales I think is among the good solution.