Hi Everyone,
I have been using Palnet for about 6 weeks. My initial impression was it felt a lot like Steemit when I joined back in 2017. However, there are many important differences between Palnet (frontend) and Pal (token), and Steemit (frontend) and Steem (coin).
- Pal rewards are split 50/50 between content creators and curators.
- Users have one downvote a day that does not consumer Pal voting power.
- The Pal rewards curve is superlinear, instead of linear.
- Rewards are paid out in PAL rather than Steem or SBD.
- Posts promoted using Palnet appear on the promoted, hot and trending tags.
- Posts are not currently promoted by bid-bots.
- Palnet has community rules, whereas has Steemit Terms of Service.
- Palnet hosts a forum on palnet.tokenbb.
- Pal can be mined.
These are just the differences I have observed and read about so far. Palnet is very new and I expect that it will be constantly changing and evolving. In this post, I discuss these differences and express my opinion about the differences, which I have feel I have sufficient knowledge to discuss. I also include some references to previous posts where I have discussed some of the changes in the context of Steem before Palnet was launched.
Rewards split 50/50 between content creators and curators
I believe this is a very important difference from posting on Steemit (you can post on Steemit and your post will appear on Palnet if you use the Palnet tag). Steemit uses Steem, which splits the rewards 75/25 in favour of content creators. Giving just 25% of the rewards to curators is arguably one of the reasons that users excessively self-vote and sell votes. If the top witnesses approve Steem Hardfork 21, Steem will also split rewards 50/50 between content creators and curators.
Palnet can be considered a small partial test run for the 50/50 split. I consider this a partial test run, as when users vote for a post on Palnet in Pal, they also vote for the same post using Steem. Therefore, Palnet does not fully incentivise users to curate more content. After Hardfork 21, I suspect more people will be curating content on Palnet.
Overall, I consider the 50/50 split to be an improvement over using 75/25 split currently used by frontends such as Steemit where votes are cast using Steem. In my post, ’Is the Steem ecosystem in disequilibrium? (Part 2 – Content Creators and Curators)’, I discuss the likely effects of curation rewards on behaviour. This post also goes into quite a few of the problems that both content creators and curators face with Steem.
The free downvote
Users can downvote once a day without consuming Pal voting power. This is another difference that aligns quite closely with proposed changes in Hardfork 21. Hardfork 21 proposed a downvote mana pool that is 25% of the upvote mana pool. This equates to 2.5 downvotes a day. I am unsure if downvotes are currently being utilized on Palnet; I suspect probably not. As with upvotes, downvoting also uses Steem. Steem currently uses voting power and therefore, people are unlikely to utilise the free daily downvote. If someone is heavily invested in Pal and not Steem, they are more likely to use the free downvote. After Hardfork 21 is implemented, downvoting on Palnet is likely to become more prevalent.
Overall, I consider the inclusion of a free downvote better than consuming voting power but the success of this change relies on the implementation of Hardfork 21. I discuss separate upvote and downvote mana pools in my post, Is the Steem ecosystem in disequilibrium? (Part 5 – Combination of solutions). This post also discusses a combination of other solutions as well.
Pal superlinear rewards curve
Pal uses a superlinear rewards curve (i.e. type of non-linear rewards curve). Steem currently uses a linear rewards curve. After Hardfork 21, Steem will be using a convergent linear rewards curve. I suspect this curve will be quite similar to the Pal rewards curve.
For a non-linear rewards curve, as more votes are cast and more reward shares are allocated to a post, the faster the pending payout of the post climbs. Non-linear rewards curves encourage users to vote on posts they expect to earn higher payouts; this effect is compounded by a higher percentage of curation rewards being allocated to early voters. Therefore, It also discourages self-voting. A non-linear rewards curve could encourage collaborative voting and excessive buying of votes. Buying votes from large accounts (i.e. bid bots) is currently not a problem on Palnet, as I explain later in the post.
The extent of the advantages and disadvantages of a non-linear curve depends on the extent of the non-linearity. The N^2 curve previously used by Steem generated huge rewards for some posts and close to nothing for others. A much gentler sloping curve would be an improvement over an N^2 curve. However, the curve needs to be sufficiently curved to have any noticeable impact on behaviour. I do not believe this change will add any significant improvement to Pal or Steem. I write about different reward curves in my posts, ‘Steem Rewards Curve - Bend or not to bend?’ and ‘Taking a closer look at the EIP 2e12 Reward Curve’.
Rewards are paid out in PAL rather than Steem or SBD
Considering voting is made using the Pal token and voting power, it is only logical that the payout is made in Pal. The key difference I want to emphasise is that rewards of posts on Palnet are paid out in just one currency (Pal). Whereas, Steemit pays out in SBD and Steem Power for content creators and Steem Power for curators. Both approaches have pros and cons.
Paying out in Steem Power enables a user to grow their influence on the platform. Paying out in SBD enables a content creator to be paid in a stable currency (SBD is intended to be pegged to the US dollar). Unfortunately, pegging SBD has not always been successful. A higher price of SBD favours content creators, as they receive part of their payout in SBD and curators do not. During the period of very high SBD prices, content creators were receiving as high as 90% of the posts payout. I discuss this problem in my post, ’Steem(it)’s Economic Improvement Proposal (EIP)’
Paying out in Pal maintains the balance of distribution between content creators and curators. Content creators and curators also have the option to stake their rewards, leave them as liquid or convert them into Steem. For these reasons, I consider paying out in just one currency (Pal) to be superior to paying out in two currencies.
Promoted posts appear on the promoted, hot and trending tags
DApps and frontends should enable users to promote and advertise their posts to gain more attention. Steemit has a promotion tag but this is rarely used. Promoting posts on this tag almost never returns the cost of promotion. Palnet has a more effective promotion system. Promoting a post using Palnet puts the post on the trending and hot pages as well. The post with the highest paid promotion appears at the top of the promotion, hot and trending tags. The post with the second highest paid promotion appears seventh on the hot and trending tags. The post with the third highest paid promotion appears thirteenth on the hot and trending tags and so on. The Pal paid for the promotion is burned, which benefits the whole community.
I consider the Palnet approach to promotion to be an improvement by including promoted posts on trending and hot tags. This inclusion has been done in such a way that these promoted posts do not dominate these tags as they are spread out.
Payouts of Palnet posts are not distorted by high bid-bot upvotes
Currently, posts on Palnet are not upvoted by bid-bots. I am not sure if this is a permanent feature of Palnet. I imagine a similar system of vote selling could be possible as Pal users are able to delegate their staked Pal through Steem Engine. Indirect vote buying is occurring on a smaller scale. Someone can buy votes from Smartmarket and their post will also be upvoted in Pal as well. The value of these votes will depend on how much staked Pal the upvoting accounts happen to have. Minnowbooster operates a small-scale Pal vote selling service. I think the Steem upvote is the value users are buying rather than the Pal vote. I am not sure the extent these types of services will grow.
At the moment, the lack of vote buying enables a more natural growth of content. The level of engagement of the top posts on the trending tags appears quite limited. This could be because Palnet is still very new and building its user base.
Palnet has community rules, whereas Steemit has Terms of Service.
The Steemit Terms of Service focuses on legal issues such as copyright infringements. The Palnet community rules focuses on conduct. These include abusive language, spam comments, vote farming, bullying behaviour, harassment, posting child pornography, and several other abusive behaviours. There is some overlap with Steemit’s Terms of Service but the Palnet community rules appear strict and less tolerant of abusive behaviour. These rules can be enforced through downvotes and for some severe cases, a platform mute.
The Palnet community rules appear quite fair. It is possible that such rules could be twisted to restrict someone’s freedom of speech but I feel that this unlikely.
Other differences
Palnet also has a forum. I am not sure of the direction this forum will take. It appears to have been inactive for the past 12 days. It appears content and discussions can be voted on. I can see the value of forums for discussion. It will be interesting to see what happens with this feature.
Another method of accumulating tokens is through acquiring Pal miners (PalM) and Pal Mega Miners (PalMM). I have not acquired either but it is an interesting alternative for accumulating tokens, which is not available with Steem.
Conclusion
Palnet has many similarities to Steemit but also has several differences that should make it appealing to users that want to grow their brand organically and want to access content that has peer support. Several of the differences align with changes proposed in Hardfork 21 such as free downvotes, 50/50 split of post rewards and non-linear rewards curve. Allowing users to experience these changes before the Hardfork will help users transition to the new Steem (Post Hardfork 21 Steem).
Palnet also offers content creators and curators an alternative form of income from participating and contributing to the Steem ecosystem. Once Hardfork 21 is implemented, the incentives to be active, using Steem or any other Steem Engine token, will be competitive to remaining passive, which has been one of Steem’s greatest problems over the past 2 years.
Another very interesting new DApp is Steemleo. From what I have seen, it appears quite similar to Palnet but with a focus on cryptocurrency and investment. I am using this tag for the first time with this post. There are several other Steem Engine tokens, which have appeared in my wallet, which I have yet to explore. I will write another post regarding my views on these tokens and their respective DApps.
More posts
If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These posts will be updated frequently.
New Economics Udemy Course
I have launched my first Udemy course ‘Economics is for Everyone’. The course focuses on how economics affects everyday people, the decisions they make and how they interact with the world around them. The course contains 24 video lectures (about 4 hours of viewing), 64 multiple-choice questions (3 at the end of most lectures), 32 downloadable resources (presentation slides, additional notes and links to relevant Steem posts), and 2 scenario questions. The course is currently free-of-charge. Click the link above to access the course.
Steem - The Future of DApps
I've been confused lately about some comments that seem to be displayed on Steemit but I cannot see them on PALnet.
Let's take an example: post by @hotsauceislethal
He is PALnet user, his post is also using tag 'PALnet'.
However on steemit I see several comments: https://steemit.com/steem/@hotsauceislethal/creating-good-content-vs-spamming-the-blockchain?sort=new#comments
At the same time when I looked at this post via palnet then almost no comments are being displayed. Including comments coming from author (also not displayed).
Any idea what's the reason behind it? I've been thinking that if I need to change front-end to Steemit or steampeak to reply to comments not visible on Palnet.io, then obviously I won't use this front-end to engage with audience at all :(
Yours
Piotr
I have some days using palnet. but I didn't really realize that the messages disappear. if they are written from another fronted, they just don't appear.
I think that's a big weakness to work on.
That is interesting. I noticed that the number of comments shown on my page on Palnet is less than Steemit. When I open the post, the comments seem to be there but the tally is not including responses to comments. I will look through the posts to see if any comments are completely gone.
Posted using Partiko Android
hi again @spectrumecons
Since you seem to have some decent knowledge and experience, would you mind if I ask you to share your own opinion on my latest publication:
"DID OUR "WORLD LEADERS" JUST PUSH GLOBAL RECESSION AWAY from our doorsteps?"
https://www.steemleo.com/economy/@crypto.piotr/did-our-world-leaders-just-push-global-recession-away-from-our-doorsteps
I would appreciate it greately.
Yours
Piotr
I read your post and provided my response in the comments. You ask a pretty good question. The other responses in the comments are pretty good too.
If you use palnet to comment and vote, the vote will also not be shown on steemit, might be neither does the comment.
🤔💕
Posted using Partiko Android
That's strange
Posted using Partiko Android
Dear @spectrumecons
Thx for sharing your experience with PALnet.
Thank you for such a great explanation. I have an impression that current superlinear rewards curve will make it very hard and not-efficient to upvote comments with small votes. Am I right?
Does it also mean that upvoting with 10% voting power doesn't make really sense? And it's always best to use full upvotes to reward both (author and curator) the most?
Again, great read. Would you like me to share it with several friends, who also are trying out PALnet? I can get you some extra traffic to this post.
Yours
Piotr
Hi @crypto.piotr, thanks for stopping by. I am quite sure comment rewards will be reduced by a superlinear curve. I still think a few small upvotes here and there is still good to encourage participation.
I think upvoting at 10% should be ok as long the post receives high valued upvotes from other users. Upvoting at 10% just means you have to work harder to find more content that is going to be rewarded.
I would love to have a few more people reading this post. I think Palnet and the new tribes is one of the most exciting developments on Steem this year.
Thank you for your prompt reply @spectrumecons
I really appreciate it and it will be a pleasure to share your publication with my own followers (especially knowing that you're so responsive).
Yours
Piotr
Hi @spectrumecons first I really appreciate the way you have explained the idea of the linear curve.
It kind of adds more clarity to the topic of rewards.
I know you are the goto person for matters of economics at least here on steemit.
I do not say w.r.t only this post but I have been following your earlier posts though on and off where you have explained the concepts of economics in simple words.
So coming back to the main topic. I personally feel that palnet and other such tribes are great experiments.
How they fare in the future is something that only time would tell.
At least they are attempts to build something that takes the good things from steem and builds upon them.
It is quite premature to say if a lot of them would succeed. Though Palnet being one of the ones with a strong backing has a better chance of survival.
It does seem to be doing a lot of interesting things such as the 50-50 reward split.
Though the token volumes are slim but it does set an example as to what all can be done in terms of building your own specific tribe.
Yeah, PALnet is what STEEM should have been pushing for during the bear.
One more thing that you forgot. PAL holders often get airdropped TONS of Steem-Engine tokens. It's awesome! What do STEEM holders get dropped?
The airdrops are great. That's what got me started to begin with. I bought another 2,500 Pal to get me up to 5,000 staked Pal. This then resulted in a nice airdrop from Steemleo.
Like others I expect that the superlinear rewards curve has the opposite effect of what you predict as it's increases the votes of whales and diminished the votes of plankton.
I rather expect a suplinear rewards curve like √x to have the effect you named as it supports small contributors and limits the power of whales.
Especially after the air drop has less failed and there are only a few holder of PAL token.
Well, time will tell.
From what I can see from the Palnet posts, the superlinear rewards curve is quite gentle. The proposed rewards curve for Steem is also quite gentle. It is difficult to tell if this curve is an improvement over the linear one. I am very confident it is an improvement over the N^2 curve. I am still concerned that people will use bots to maximise the rewards from the curve. We will have to hope people use their downvotes to prevent that happening.
You mentioned a √N rewards curve. This type of curve should put an end to people using bots to put their content on trending. However, it would probably start a self-voting craze. The large stakeholders would probably split their Steem into thousands of accounts and self-vote thousands of comments to maximise the curve.
Everybody seem to fear account splitting. But that's a lot of work and the situation won't get worse because account splitting happens already.
While every account which won't split is an improvement.
Hello @spectrumecons
Interesting information you raise in this publication. With regard to the differences between PALnet and Steemit, I notice an improvement in the quality of the publications, I assume that this happens since people have generated skills in Steemit, and in PAlnet they are putting them into practice.
In relation to the Udemy course, I sign up for that in that workshop, I hope to answer many questions and increase my knowledge in economics.
I thank you @crypto.piotr for inviting me to go through this post
That's great, thank you.
Posted using Partiko Android
If downvoting is not happening now on palnet, yet it is still an issue and almost daily occurrence on steemit, I do not see why after HF21 the downvote habits would change on PALnet. As you mentioned in another section steemit has TOS, PALnet has Community Standards. Perhaps the reason for the downvote difference is not so much a person losing some steem vote power, but that the users on PALnet feel there is a safety system built into the community to prevent abusive downvote behavior.
The primary response to abuse is still likely to be downvoting. Considering Palnet is new abusive behaviour may not have had a chance to take root. It would be great if community rules are the answer and downvoting is not necessary.
Posted using Partiko Android
I'm not so sure that vote buying would become excessive if possible, since the creator gets a lower % than we now have on Steemit.
My concern is regarding the non-linear curve. People could promote their posts into the higher regions of the curve to get the highest return. The higher curation rewards will encourage frontrunning which will further increase the profitability of buying high valued upvotes.
Dear @spectrumecons, i got your post link from my friend @crypto.piotr and i can see you are writing very interesting things.
Unfortunately and i do not know why, Palnet did not gave me the airdrop and i am still waiting for it.
I was one of the first investing on Palcoin and it is a pity thay are still not giving me promised airdrop..:((
Sorry, I can't help you with that. You should probably raise this with the Palnet team.
Posted using Partiko Android
I have been looking for a detailed review/description of Palnet and luckily this post just popped up on my feed.
Thanks for the effort you put in the article.
No problem. So far I am enjoying my experience on Palnet. Therefore, I thought I might as well summarise my experience and opinions of various differences between Palnet and Steemit.
Very good write up about the advantages and disadvantages of Palnet compared to Steemit.com.
I really enjoy that we are now experiencing the possibilities of different communities here on Steem. The new competiton will drive development and therefore more user ability and features will be the result.
The future of Steem looks a lot more brighter with all those new developments.
Cheers and Steem on!
Thanks @masterthematrix. It is great to have alternative frontends as well as other options of earning. We have exciting times ahead.
Thanks @spectrumecons for this interesting and detail review of palnet. Saved me a lot time trying to understand the differences between steem and palnet.
Thanks to @crypto.piotr for pointing out this post.
I am really glad I could be of help. I am hoping that Palnet and the tribes can be the start of the big push to mass usage of the Steem blockchain.
For mass usage of the steem blockchain we need the network effect to reach a critical mass. Possibly the tribes could be the start of the big push towards the critical mass. Currently the active users, in my estimation, is less than 50,000 (in the last 30 days) and the total number of accounts is in the region of 1.2m. In any one 24 hours the number of users is less than 20,000. Most of these inactive accounts are
accounts held by bidbots for voting and resteeming,
accounts with premium keywords prebooked for later use or sale,
accounts that have been given up by previous users and
other miscellaneous accounts.
Because there are many who hold more than one account, the actual number of people holding accounts is far below the 1.2 million. This happened to every social media platform, like twitter, facebook, googleplus, instagram, pinterest and others. It was far more acute in these platforms because onboarding was free and much easier. In steem blockchain there is a steep learning curve and is not free if you want an instant account. Additionally the learning is made difficult because the learning resources are not in one singular place. New entrants would look to steem.com for learning resources but unfortunately that website is practically of no use to a newbie who is not technically savvy. It should at least make a reference to a third party website (like https://steem.center) where non-technical newbies can learn about the intricacies of steem in a structured manner.
If steem gains in price, imho, we can expect perhaps another 150,000 or less people to resume their inactive accounts.
When we speak of mass usage we are speaking of millions of users. 50,000 or even 200,000 is way below that figure.
What I observe is that most of the new dApps are targeting the current users for their user base. Whilst this is okay for the starters, they need to go out and get new subscribers to steem blockchain to achieve the critical mass.
There is very little marketing of the Dapps outside the Steem community. This is sad as many of the Dapps offer users an experience very different from the original one offered by Steemit, which is blog focused.
I recommend to users to share as much of their content as possible on other social media. This content can be from any of the Dapps.
Posted using Partiko Android
Excellent work, explaining the benefits that palnet offers. for me is a great confusion when deciding which frontend to use when making my publications.
each one has its benefits but some important details have not been resolved in their majority. We will have to wait for hf21 to make a final decision.
It will be interesting to see what happens after hf21. I'm sure not if behaviour on Steemit will align with behaviour on Palnet or any of the other tribes. I guess we will know soon enough.
Posted using Partiko Android
What they mean is that miner token buyers keep the Palnet servers alive
Posted using Partiko Android
Ok thanks. I have not been involved with this aspect of Pal.
Posted using Partiko Android
I have been using Palnet since it was released. It is really an innovative project and I use it alongside Steemit with palnet tag. I didn't know the one downvote in a day, that should be good.
Posted using Partiko Android
It could be good. We probably need to give it sometime to see how many use the free downvote.
Posted using Partiko Android
Thanks to @crypto.piotr for sharing link, nice overview of the two accounts, this clears up a lot on workings.
Comments below: I agree the commenting does not always show up on both platforms which one would expect, using PAL mainly I do find you need to check on both sides in case you miss some people.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your findings, very interesting read @spectrumecons
I've had a look through the comments. They seem to be showing up in the posts but the number of comments shown at the bottom of the posts is different. I think the responses to comments are not showing up in that figure.
Being new front end I am confident small problems will be ironed out in time. Very promising and enjoying PALNet, thanks for prompt reply @spectrumecons.
Hi! @spectrumecons
Very interesting the analysis on the palnet platform and the PAL token. There are a lot of things that are obviously Chinese for me, as the non-linear curves. However, I enrolled in your free course on economics (it's free, right?) to understand a bit about the economic aspect. 😄
Thanks for sharing
Thanks, I hope you enjoy the course. Yes, it is free.
Posted using Partiko Android
This is a great review, well written and detailed out in terms most people would understand! Well done!
This vote provided by @adsup a division of @adsactly
Thank you @adsup.
super interesting and useful article. thank you. go palnet!
Thanks @magicmonk
You mainly write, comment using palnet now?
💕
Posted using Partiko Android
I comment from several different websites. I use Palnet, Steemit, Stemgeeks, Busy, Steempeak, and Partiko.
Posted using Partiko Android
You visit each of these sites?
Posted using Partiko Android
Yeah, they have their different strengths and weaknesses. I am replying using SteemPeak with this comment.
Really liking the idea of this new tribe thing on steem blockchain its the next big thing : )
I think it could be. I still need to explore Stemgeeks, Intrepreneur, and SteemAce. The tribes will make much better use of tags.
Hi @spectrumecons!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.764 which ranks you at #1518 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 1 places in the last three days (old rank 1519).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 155 contributions, your post is ranked at #63.
Evaluation of your UA score:
Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server
Hi, @spectrumecons!
You just got a 1.18% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.