I haven't thought this through much so I could very well be wrong but it seems those who buy delegation can always be more profitable than someone making money solely on curation because they will try to make as much money as possible on self-voting.
Those who buy delegation can then always offer to buy delegation at a higher price than what curation can possibly pay back to its owner if the owner doesn't self-vote as much as what the delegation buyers will.
I'm not sure exactly how clear I was. I hope you got my point.
I think the n^2 reward curve might have solve some of the problem you are underlying with the Steem. Even though it seems totally counter-intuiative.
If I understand this correctly, n^2 curve incentives people to avoid splitting their votes and splitting their stakes (delegation)?
It make the largest accounts more powerful than the others in a none linear way.
Under such rules, stakes control the reward pool in a none linear proportion changing a very fundamental part of the Steem dynamics.
It's pretty hard to try to understand how it effect Steem as a whole but I think I can see why it make sense overall.
Self voting is another issue and I don't think services like blocktrades will increase self voting. If people want to self vote they can just buy SP and do it.
The thing I want to solve is curation incentives so that people stop voting for the same authors over and over again and starts supporting new authors. Vote diversification basically.
My suggestion with curation percentage would actually discourage self voting as people could earn very significant rewards by voting other people. The reason people self vote is because curation is not really profitable anymore, currently there is a huge gap between rewards you get from curating and those you get from self voting.
I disagree and made a post about it:
https://steemit.com/steem/@onthewayout/why-steem-power-delegation-services-are-bad
I am with you on the gap between curation and self voting.
I didn't know that @blocktrades's service is only profitable if you upvote yourself, you did a great analysis. I've resteemed your post.
Also I'm pretty sure @blocktrades started this service because like everyone else he thought curating was not worth it any more, he used to curate great content. The change to 25/75 was detrimental imo.
Your idea in regard to curation percentage is a very interesting one.
@abit is making 200 SBDs a week more in curation rewards, than @snowflake made selling his vote to @minnowbooster - this is great news for the platform imo!
"Self voting is another issue and I don't think services like blocktrades will increase self voting. If people want to self vote they can just buy SP and do it."
Lessors will always be able to sell their delegated SP for cheaper than it is for the lessee to buy it outright themselves. Otherwise there would be no reason for anyone to lease out their SP reserves.