I really don't see a problem using arbitrage to earn an income here. If anything its a pretty damn good strategic move imo.
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I really don't see a problem using arbitrage to earn an income here. If anything its a pretty damn good strategic move imo.
I agree, speaking from a strictly strategy perspective it is a brilliant move.
The problem is that it is technically abusing the system to do so.
Yet this is the way to be paid right now.
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That's all well and good, but people don't agree. I enjoyed @msgivings' content, don't care about the identity or business dealings of the writer, and didn't find it to be 'abusing the system' at all.
IMO, the bloggers who were jealous of her success, and probably a few malicious trolls who saw an opportunity to join a cyberlynching, engaged in a witch hunt and in doing so drove away content that I not only personally enjoyed but sincerely believe added value to the platform (as evidenced by the obviously high readership of her posts and extensive comment streams, exclusive even of comments accusing her of impropriety).
I consider that to be the real abuse. I, and I suspect others, will be taking a harder line against this sort of hostility and harassment, as evidenced by my downvote of @stellabelle's post (I was the first to do so). As you say, the system includes the people but the standards of desirable and acceptable behavior defined by the people are not fixed, they evolve and are evolving.
Yeah we're on the same page here and just seeing different words.
Is it fair to a farmer when a grocery store opens up in town?
Is it fair to the owner of the local grocery store when Walmart moves in?
Frankly I thought that most of msgiving's posts sucked, but I dealt with that by abstaining from upvoting her stuff and just staying quiet in general. I may have been in the minority there, but it doesn't matter. However she did have a couple of really good posts too.
She also had a bunch I missed, but in retrospect I would have at least commented on. Part of the problem here may well be that content has a 24hr fresh period and 30 day curing period. Beyond this point there is no way to monetize your content.
So for instance, if an aspiring author wants to come to the platform and post their stuff and gradually build a solid following, all of their efforts on their old content is wasted.
They can't be rewarded beyond that 30 day period. This means that the system is encouraging shock or trendy content. As opposed to high quality content with real lasting value.
This is systemic though and not anyone's fault.
I think what msgivings did was a stroke of genius, she got what she earned.
Some people got their feelings hurt in the process though.
'Technically' how? There isn't an 'official rule against it'. There aren't any official rules at all, other than what the blockchain does, which is money-follows-votes.
If people don't like it, they can vote otherwise, comment about it, post about it, etc. But when this sort of response becomes hostile and negative, then some of us are going to consider the response to be abusing the system as much or more.
The system is more than the code. It's more than the blockchain.
It's the people in it.
People befriended or at least identified with msgivings because she was saying some powerful stuff.
Look at my response to her abortion post. I NEVER open up like that. Whoever was behind the account found a powerful author who could make people feel stuff.
People formed an emotional connection with a non-existant entity. But what's worse about this is that there was a real entity a real person or persons behind the account. So where did that emotional investment go? It disappeared in a puff of smoke when she did.
Frankly, I want whatever author(s) behind @msgivings to know they reached a deep emotional place inside of people. Even me and I don't usually leave myself open and vulnerable like that.
All these people talking like they're mad? She touched a lot of people and they're really just mad she wasn't the person they thought she was.
The system is designed to be subjective and emotional. Exploiting the emotions of others in order to gain a financial advantage is all I mean by abusing the system.
Frankly she could come back tomorrow, say "I'm sorry guys I didn't mean to trick you. I was paying for content to be written. The thoughts and topics were mine but I paid for quality writing so everyone could enjoy it because I'm not that good of writer. Then I bolted when I found that someone I paid to write had plagiarized cuz it freaked me out."
I'll bet you that post would be the highest rated post for the entire day, probably the whole week.
God bless the Steem and person(s)/bots that got away with it :)
@ricardoguthrie, @samether, @williambanks, Do you see Steemit thriving if it becomes mostly arbitrage? I am actually asking. I admit I think it won't. I really don't understand things at this level. It does seem like such a shame that so many people would donate their time trying to grow real community only to have it ruined by brilliant moves. I think I'd be okay with @msgivings getting away with it if I didn't assume that it undermines what so many great people are donating their time to build here. One of my favorite Steemarians may have left already and it breaks my heart. Please tell me Steemit will be around next year if the number of @msgivings increases?
Thanks for your amazing response @williambanks. I didn't mean to imply that you were endorsing @msgivings. I certainly have experienced first-hand the impulse to upvote a person regardless of content and I imagine that it is what will win in the end regardless of anyone's intentions. I don't mind the popularity contest or even it being outsmarted. I know that you devote a lot of personal time to making Steemit a great experience for a lot of people. I'm doing that increasingly, too, and at the expense of my home's cleanliness. What I'm hoping to know..and maybe you said it but I didn't understand...is whether Steemit would be able to support a much higher number of users doing what @msgivings succeeded at. If so, I'm all for it.
Thanks again for your response. You're definitely one of the people making Steemit a wonderland of curiosities. :)
I'm not endorsing what @msgivings did. I'm explaining she was never a bot.
The move was a stroke of genius and I will always admire anyone who can make the rules of the system work in their favor though.
I think steemit will fail if we value the content more than the creator.
We seem to be trying to build our "feelings" around the content instead of the person who made that content.
When we try to build friendships with people, then we upvote their content regardless of quality, because we want them to succeed. When we curate, we try to find content that we think will trend and that usually means a handful of people and again quality doesn't really factor into this. So curation is now pretty much a bot task.
My answer, all things considered, would be to tie earnings to a combination of rep, followers and time on the platform. New accounts should max out at a tiny fraction of the total pool that day, while older more established accounts that have had time to mature and grow would gain a larger slice of the pie. I think that if we're going to have a fixed daily distribution then it's looking more and more like an earnings cap might be a good thing too. Maybe not a daily one, but a weekly one probably wouldn't hurt. Otherwise uncap the fixed distribution amount so people can feel like they have some value for their individual contributions.
I dunno if that's the right answer, but I fail to see why an introduceyourself post should earn one dime more than @gonzo 's epics for instance.
Steemit is a popularity contest though, like all social media.