Basically, this indicates that the Steem reward mechanisms are completely broken. Steem was not created in order for whales to hoard their votes....
Basically, this indicates that the Steem reward mechanisms are completely broken. Steem was not created in order for whales to hoard their votes....
Exactly.
This is the reason some newbies return to Facebook
I view all my actions with regard to my integrity. And here is why:
MONEY CANNOT REPLACE INTEGRITY.
And here is the reason:
If I were to suddenly lose all my money, possessions, and my house were destroyed by a tornado, I could replace the money as long as my integrity was intact. People would support me, and would continue to reward me for my work. I could rebuild my wealth via my integrity and standing in the world.
However, if I lost my integrity, and lost my wealth, I would not be able to rebuild it.
This is why I operate with more concern to integrity than ROI. ROI is important, but not at the expense of integrity. But I earn money in many different ways, including barter, creating art and services for people.....I'd rather give my full upvote to someone who orders a custom-made GIF from me, because they are a valuable customer.....
As you can see my voting power at 100% is worth 0 to 0.01. No one was seeing my posts so I spend my time on Steemit reading posts and leaving encouraging comments. This has helped my reputation score to increase steadily and quickly. I am no longer able to do this every day but I do it as much as I can. I greatly value integrity, it seems to be getting rarer which is so sad.
People respect and trust me because of my integrity. So that is what I focus on in Steemit. I was hoping that Steemit would be a way for me to support my father 82, his two cats and myself while staying with him full time. I had to give up my job, literally, I had to drop everything one morning when one of his cats was deathly ill. The kitty is doing great and my father is doing better having me here. My emergency funds are almost gone and all the hours I put in here daily for about forty days has brought in about $7.00. I had to reduce my time on Steemit, and I am disappointed with my experience, but for some unknown reason, I will continue to build a positive reputation and encourage others when I can. I came on Steemit putting in much time and expected to contribute to it as a full-time business. I admit I am having second thoughts.
Thank you, everyone, for the very kind upvotes, thank you @justinomora @etuinerx @cyptoninja @stellabelle
This is what you said below though
Here you said
So because they are a customer you'd give them an upvote or in other words because they gave you money.
Without even realizing it you've shown care for money and it would be dishonest to say that you don't, everyone does. Wasn't it the reward incentives that first drew you in? Expecting people to act out of the kindness of their heart is not a viable strategy.
The vast majority of people are here for the money, and when steemit marketing is this you can only expect this number to rise.
The key is to get the incentives right for quality content to rise. ( taking into account that money will always be the first motivator for people)
I use a hybrid approach and I freely admit that I have changed my voting behavior because for an entire year and a half I never even bothered to look at how curation rewards worked. When I found out that I received more SP for rewarding comments and unknown people, I thought it was great, because I am both giving people more directly and also getting more ROI. The combination of those two things make it more attractive. I am not saying that I operate on voluntary basis, as I have an entire family to support (including my parents). I am the only breadwinner and as a creative person, I never understood how to monetize my energy.
Everyone has to eat, I am just laying it out there that I value my integrity more than my payouts....because if I was to lose it all, i could rebuild.
If I did what you're doing, I think it would damage my integrity. We are operating differently.....
You can do what you wish, and I am glad you wrote this post. You writing this post opened up my eyes to something I was totally ignorant about.
That's the goal.
why wouldn't you do this then, at least on a part-time basis?
Because like I said in OP, voting for the content that I like means I would have to sacrifice some rewards. There is no way currently to ally both upvoting the post I like and profit which is why I proposed a solution to re-align incentives.
"I have an entire family to support (including my parents). I am the only breadwinner and as a creative person, I never understood how to monetize my energy. Everyone has to eat, I am just laying it out there that I value my integrity"
I totally get all of that, thank you for sharing. I'm glad I am not alone. What creative asset can I monetize and how fast? I wrestle with that, so many directions, so hard to know, which path is the right path. Thank you for the kind upvote @stellabelle
I want to elaborate on my GIF making service:
I feel guilty for charging people SBD for my creative GIF making service. The reason for the guilt is that I was given a lot of Steem as an early adopter, and I also have given away a lot of my art for free in the past.
In order to for me not to feel guilty about receiving payment for my art services, I upvote my customers. In this way, my customers' reputation score is increased, they are compensated, and my guilt goes away. I still undervalue my artistic talents, and make of this what you will. I feel good about helping people have more artistic stuff for their blog and charging people cuts down on the people requesting me to do art for them. If I made it a 'free" service, I would not be able to do it, as I suspect I'd be getting too many orders.
You shouldn't feel guilty about getting paid to do a job.
I have to agree with @snowflake here, but that doesn't mean you're wrong @stellabelle. You have built a brand out of your way of doing things, and your integrity is part of that. @snowflake have their integrity too but it's not social. It reminds me of the way that George Soros has talked about his capitalist ventures being completely amoral to him. He does what he considers moral work separately. Many in the business world operate in this manner.
You're still taking about ROI and hedging your future on developing your character. That's smart and genuine, but it's still about the same stuff. It's just doesn't always have as high return for many other people.
I don't disagree with you, I'm closer to your way of thinking @stellabelle, but the core message from @snowflake is important because in a game theory world the incentives have to match up. And they don't. The messed up thing about incentives is that you can just "feel" them in the responses to actions you take, you don't even have to understand them or do an analysis like @snowflake did, to be affected by them.
In summary I'd say why not both! When the incentives are better balanced it allows us to have the freedom to choose to branch out and explore how to squeeze the most of things by finding new ways of voting, and by making that difference small enough with more cooperative voting that it has a net positive effect all round. Or something 😅 I'm just some guy with an opinion.
lol any newbie who returns to facebook was never needed here to begin with hah what is the logic in going from getting paid $0 on facebook, to at least getting paid something on steemit, to then going back to being paid $0 on facebook? hah
I swear if you have the hard work ethic you cant loos eon steemit right now. You WILL get noticed if you keep posting everyday and put your heart into it! you WILL find someone to get you SOMETHING youll at LEAST get SOMETHING i rarely see people try and try and get nothing on steemit, i always see people getting at least SOMETHING and in the future we will see steem price go up new users flood in and that little bit of steem people will have e made wil end up being a lot more!
people used to laugh at Bitcoins and how cheap they were, well now you can buy a nice car with 1 Bitcoin and people arent laughing..... i hope people realize Steem will be the same case especially as it is the most ADVANCED crypto currency technology.....
and bitcoin is taking up TO MUCH electricity and Steem is the future
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I don't know about you, but I got a sick, twisted feeling my gut when reading this. It's disturbing to know the truth, but also enlightening.
what feels worse... how many people do you think don't say it but still do it.
Some do a variation of it, thinking hard about how to maximize a few cents here or a few cents there instead of just clicking the damn "upvote" button when they see something that is worth it.
I think the voting power should be linked to REPUTATION, not the VESTS, STEEM, SP and other sorts of things that you can just buy.
Or maybe one person one vote. plain and simple. But in this system i am sure those who are at the top of the power will never give it up.
Until a new system is born with someone wishing to challenge it.
You are right. I've been saying this for months.
Folks on the gravy train don't want it to change, because they like gravy.
@snowflake has seen where the train is going, and he likes gravy too, and wants to keep the train going. He has better vision than most profiteers on this platform.
A problem with reputation currently is that it is too gamable. For reputation to be able to functionally work as a VP weighting mechanism, it needs to be more robust, and less able to be gamed.
Organize like minded people and create a fork of steem which rewards something other than steempower BUT you cannot expect that to ever grow
ALSO reputation is not what you think it is, what happens when people game the system and downvote enemies and only upvote friends and reputations dont accurately reflect anything?
Reputation should be down away with its not accurate measure of anything!
We should get a better reputation score and use maybe a reddit karma type system for measuring who gets the voting power BUT people will just create new accounts maybe you have to buy accounts then??? See it doesnt work any other way buts steempower! it HAS to be money based!
Because yeah you CAN buy it but its EXPENSIVE
I hope you can see why your idea is flawed, i tried it and it fell apart in my thought experiment! :D ask @mughat why a reputation based system doesn't work and why we need to have a system based on money! its only fair!
First I agree that there are too many metrics of power and status etc. there should be one.
All these SBD, steem, steem power, reputation are redundant and confusing for most people. Collect one, and let it be the measure of everything. But counted properly and in short time frames. Then either reset or having influence but not simply added.
For example if it's just SP and let's say power up or down is not happening or not counted, then even the lazy ones who are here for a longer time just by being here and occasionally uttering a word would almost certainly have much more power than someone talented who just started.
But on another note I'd like to mention that while you think that money is everything as a measure, it COULD be if counted properly. As of it right now, its manipulated even more than reputation. Same as you described about collusion of those with enough power to group together and be there mostly for their friends. Well, pretty much the same happening with the money and votes now. Those who have enough power hold it and apply it far from a simple way of voting if they like something. Plus of course the issue of bots that poison everything here. Not much better than advertising. Actually some of them ARE advertising. "Send me that much SBD and I'll do this for you."
Plus ability to buy, rent (delegate), borrow, accumulate and redistribute power distorting everything here.
Money as you say can be a measure of everything if they are earned by merits only and not by manipulation.
Then talent should be rewarded accordingly.
Then a single vote of anybody should not be worth nothing and dozens of simple votes from begginers should not be added up and still be $0 combined.
Whales power might need to be applied differently too. Not only earning but how their votes count.
Voting for themselves needs to be revisited. I think nobody should be allowed to vote for themselves. Doesn't matter how much power I have if I make a new post it should start from $0 and see if it earns anything in its own merit. Not because I'm sitting in money and power if I'm a whale making a post.
All I wish for is more consistency, less manipulation and more fair and leveled approach.
Also the way how distribution of blocks is scheduled between Witnesses I think is grossly unfair.
I just don't think any of it is going to change because it benefits those who have the most money here and they will never be in a position to give it up. And that exactly what slows growth and adoption of this platform.
Totally agree with you@samstickkz
I pray they understand this.. Steemit is not more harder for minnows everyday, all in the name of writing a good contents and earn less to what it is expected , only this is enough to kill someone mural.. That is even okay, but what about if at list anybody we comment some posts are just like enemy text message. Nothing like comment on it even to make the writer feel like yes, people are seeing me.
I agree with you @stellabelle. I have been on Steemit since last June and have been trying to create good contents, some informative ones for my readers. The only incentives I am getting despite the long hours of editing contents came mostly from the redfish and minnows. I´ve seen curation groups and I´m just wondering what kind of stuff do they curate... there are so many new but really good authors trying so hard to get noticed. For me, exposure is so important but seems many whales are curating somewhere else.