Personally, I don't think steemit.com will change how Trending is organised any time soon. They like the big numbers next to content, even though it does not represent what the author (who's bought votes) is actually earning.
The view count was likely removed due to it being massively inaccurate. When there was only steemit.com it made sense, but now with so many windows to look though (which do not talk to each other), the count was no longer give a fair picture of the number of eyes on the content (likely way to low). Also, I could refresh the page and add one to the count before it was finally removed :)
All those things could be tweaked and fixed. If its not the view count, it could be something else.
The point is that a superior model does exist and it can be figured out because this clearly isnt the one that is working.
And really, i believe that if you did actually do this, even though the numbers would be slightly smaller, they would still be significant. The big numbers now dont even show anything.
If it is true what you say that they want to have big numbers on the trending page, then you could make the case that they are actually scamming potential users by showing them posts that arent labeled by the front end as "promoted content" and lying to them about the earning potential here.
Do you think there could be something there legally speaking?
I was also wondering if the inflated payouts would eventually become a legal problem. These numbers give a very false impression regarding earnings. A post that has a $400 payout may return the author only $1. There are posts that have a negative return. Steemit should include an approximation of the actual payout. The website should pick up payments for posts from links placed in memos to bots.
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Someone with legal knowledge should probably look into it. US has stricter rules then the rest of the world and steemit.inc is a US based company. This could force them to fix the trending page if there is any legal basis for what you point out.
Some, albeit not much, of the content in Trending hasn't been promoted. It would be cool to stick a label on every post that had received a bought vote, again though, I doubt this is on steemit.com's priority list, but could be easily implemented and appear on other front-ends.
I don't think there is anything to discuss from a legal perspective, but agree it is false advertising :)
Label promoted posts as promoted and you give secret bid bots/manual bid bots power and we're back to 2016's trending.
Yeah. Can't win.
Hey, didn't you used to be on Trending in 2016? :D
Only a few times, wasn't much into posting back then. Chose the harder path: curation. :P
This is a good idea and makes it more transparent.
Well, false advertising is regulated by the FTC....
@abh12345 you hit the nail on the head. I was here when they took away views. Even though I made very little I knew other eyes were reading even if they were not whales to vote it up. I believe they had to take views away. Really some people get a huge number of upvotes and the views would be way off. So much automation in Steemit.