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RE: Semi-existential question about the nature of Steemit
It has to do with having the payroll that would be inside Facebook to the engineers and sending that to the users of Steem as a payout weekly. The blockchain rolls in 7 day period of production and accounting/distribution. Welcome to Steem!
Thanks for the welcome!
So 7 days is basically just arbitrary, or rather a combination of how long posts might tend to be relevant balanced on how long people want to wait for their distribution, then, right? Would there be any way to make that variable if there was a desire to do so? Like say you thought your post had legs and wanted it to be able to collect steem for a month and were happy not to see the payout for that long? Just curious.
Also, what happens to posts older than a week that are upvoted? They don't collect steem but does it reflect its popularity in any way?
To some degree the 7 days is arbitrary...a bit over 6 months ago posts actually had a payout period of 24-48 hours (time was extended with bigger votes coming in.) The we got a second payout one month after the first. But there is a singular time frame we do all share for our payout window.
Regarding the question around the permanence of the blockchain being mixed with the 'fleeting nature' of things here with the 7 day payout period:
The blockchain itself is the underlying record keeper/database for anything that connects with Steem (the currency). There are other applications now using this same Steem blockchain, like busy.org, chainbb.com, etc but all of these (including Steemit) are pulling from this same set of records/database. But things that having this permanence of information provides levels of accountability that can be quite useful for a social group. A cheesy example are all the 'ass-hats' that piss everyone off, get their reputation flagged down, who then goes whining about how unfar it was they got flagged.
But it makes perfect sense when you can go back and see them being flat out abusive without end. Even when they tried to edit those parts out...we can still find the original in the blockchain (even if Steemit, the front end, isn't displaying it after being replaced by the edited version.)
This aspect of things really wont change..the Steem blockchain itself is essentially the backbone of Steemit.
Now regarding the rather short period of voting...
Again, it did used to be a lot shorter time...meaning most things had about one day to get it's votes, be shown in various feeds (like trending), etc. The 7 day period still isn't terribly long, but I do prefer it this way myself. Maybe someday posts can receive votes (on an open payout)...but there is extra 'baggage' by having every single post payout remain active...which would be noticeable when the witnesses are slowed way down when running the blockchain (within the prescribed 3 second transaction times.) But since Steemit has been running, the vast majority of votes are given to posts with the first week (even when we had that second payout a month out.)
I'd figure we'd see this payout period get extended at some point down the road, but I'm sure it's going to be a long while. Personally I expect we'll see an option to pay a little steem or steem dollars to extend the payout period..just to every post would stay open.
Yeah, I mean really most articles/blog posts etc really see traffic drop off after a few days though longreads can last much longer so it's not necessarily a bad thing just thinking about it. I think we're starting to touch on how media and technology interact here and that's what I am finding both so interesting and confounding.
This is very much still uncharted waters, within the 'wild wild west'. Lol
The pay system is automated on the blockchain, so no there is no way to adjust the 7 day payout window, we are all under that paradigm. Older posts may still help you gain followers and views, which account for social power but don't lend any monetary gains as the accounting system has moved on down the blockchain.