I would say the problem isn't that whales are too big, it is that minnows are too small.
With a cumulative system as is here, you will eventually get very big accounts and tiny accounts. So, this disparity is inevitable and has to be dealt with.
Whales need to feel that they are big, that they are getting something from their investment.
Minnows need to feel that their vote counts. They need to see some feedback sometimes.
What we have now is neither of those things.
The problem is that we have two power curves being multiplied to eachother. The payout is a power curve, and the distribution of SP is a power curve. Multiply those together and whale are way too big, and the minnows are way to small.
At 10 SP my vote literally meant nothing. I had to be very lucky, and know which posts to vote on in order to get 0.001 curation per week. Imagine the typical new user, who didn't go read about how, when and who to vote for to get a curation reward. They would wonder if this thing was working. They would wonder if they are doing things correctly. AND they would barely get off the ground. Their SP increases by tiny drips.
A whale on the other hand, votes and gets curation. They move the table every time they take a step. Their SP increase by buckets.
When I can get 100 minnow votes on a post and barely get a payout, then the system is broken. When I get 1 whale vote on a post and get a good payout, then the system is broken.
I suggest adding a logarithmic (opposite of power) function to the SP when voting. Figure out the absolute disparity between whales and minnows that you want, and adjust. I would suggest a maximum disparity of about 100 to 1.
Another alternative is to, instead of dropping all payouts lower than 0.001, any newbies who make 0.0001 get bumped up to 0.001, and then distribute the rest as usual.
Minnows are not supposed to be seeking curation rewards. You either seek author rewards or power up to gain SP.
This is the first time I have heard this statement.
If it is true, I should have read about it in the white paper, or in one of the beginner helper blogs.
However, I don't believe the statement should be correct. The white paper specifically talks about the long tail and curation rewards. It doesn't say, and oh by the way, 0.001 is way out of reach for you newbies, so don't bother trying.
you haven't done too badly on your articles. Rather than worry about curation, why don't you focus on doing more posts and building up your SP? I found that once I got over 1000SP then I was getting some curation reward. Until then, I was upvoting and commenting to support others more than worrying about a return.
It might be helpful if there was more guidance for new users to give them an idea of what to expect in regards to what level to shoot for to start seeing some curation return ...that sort of thing. Then they don't read the whitepaper and expect that it applies across the system the same.
SP does not increase by "buckets", even for whales. Do the math.
I did the math, thank you very much.
You are probably thinking buckets means a lot, but I was using bucket as a comparison to drop.
An active new account gets 0.001-0.007 SP per week. At 100 SP you can get easily about 0.050 - 0.100 per week. Continue on...
You need to look at the rate of return, not the total number. Of course someone with a larger investment will earn more money, but the percentages are what matters.
Lately, I have been able to get a return on my SP of 0.06% - 0.1% daily from curation. Most of the whales that I've looked at are earning far less than 0.03% - most of them are around 0.01, or lower.
I disagree. At the bottom end, we need to look at the total number.
How long would you vote if you don't get any feedback on your voting?
When you are constantly below the threshold of 0.001.
Either the threshold needs to be reworked, or some other scheme to keep newbies in the game.
Right now, the long tail, talked of in the steem white paper is not really in existence.
Because of the compounding of power curves, the actual curve is much steeper than anticipated, and the long tail is truncated.
If you wish to talk about ROI about steem, start a whole knew post.
My contention is if you want more, than work on getting a larger user base.
You're talking about returns on SP through curation as if SP is an investment for those purposes, but you want to disregard actual ROI? If you can earn 25-30% annualized as a minnow and a whale is earning less than 10% annualized, how exactly do those returns favor the whale?
As an investor, you look at ROI. If you're not getting enough SP tokens because your SP is too low, there are ways to increase your investment in order to earn more rewards. That's how investment works. Nobody is stuck with only being able to increase SP through curating.
Your argument seems to be: If you make no investment into the platform, you don't get much ROI. Therefore, we need to make it possible to get larger returns without investing into the platform because having no investment is unfair.
It makes no sense.
I'm with @ats-david on this one, I'm not really understanding your point.
Out of order comment, because ... out of depth for reply.
It appears that you do not know what a power curve is, and so missed what I was talking about. A power curve is that swooping up thing. That graph in the white paper that shows the distribution of payouts. It is like y = x^2 from math class.
When a whale votes, they are not just adding their SP, they are making a guaranteed move to the top of the graph.
Basically, what we think of as a whale as having 1000x more voting power than a minnow, really equates to a whale having 1000 x 1000 (1,000,000x) more voting power.
Or 1000 minnows all getting together do not have the same voting power.
And, if the minnows don't feel they have any impact, they will just leave.
Which is the death of the steem.
But that has nothing to do with ROI or any potential investment and curation earnings for "minnows." That's just a problem of perception and expectations.
This is a problem with not understanding how the platform works. The users that sign up, see that their vote "doesn't do anything," then leave in frustration says nothing about the actual mechanics of the system. It's all about expectations, which need to be better managed.
Any "minnow" can make a small investment into their account and take advantage of curating. They can earn a good ROI if they learn the platform and put their capital to good use - just like any other investment. As I previously stated - I get three to four times (at least) the return that nearly every whale gets.
You wrote this above, which is what I initially responded to:
You're talking about potential ROI. With a larger investment in SP, you can get larger returns in SP. But the percentage that you get depends on how well you manage your investment. I'm able to get a current 25 - 30% annualized. I've currently been receiving 10 - 20 SP daily. Only the most active/influential "whales" might see returns of 200 - 400 SP daily, but their annualized return is typically lower than 10%. So, I'm actually gaining on them every day, all else being equal.
If new users took the time to learn the system and learn about these types of returns, they wouldn't be leaving in frustration. They would likely be trying to earn that relatively large ROI, compared to most other investments.
I feel you are missing what is being said here. I am not speaking of ROI.
I am speaking about feedback.
A minnow votes 40 x 7 times a week and gets paid out once or twice.
If you had a slot machine that paid out once every 280 pulls, you probably wouldn't play it very long, even if it was free.
Yes, you are speaking of ROI.
Because they have not made any investment - therefore, they don't get much of a return. If they want to see bigger numbers, they need to put in more money or more time to earn that money.
If my odds of winning increased every time I pulled the lever, I would probably keep pulling that lever. Or, if I could invest a few pennies into the slot machine so that every time someone else pulled that lever, I had a chance to earn, I would probably invest some pennies - especially if I could see a 25 - 30% annualized return on that investment.
It's all about knowing the product. The new people coming here and getting frustrated have not taken the time to learn the product and learn how to capitalize on their investment. And if they're looking at their returns in the same way that you keep explaining them here, I can understand their frustration.
We need to stop perpetuating false expectations and showing people how not to read their returns on their non-investments or their tiny investments. If you want to see how ROI works on this platform and how a "minnow" can increase their returns, take a look at my own numbers. I started with nothing and made no cash investment into this platform:
https://steemdb.com/@ats-david/curation
http://steemwhales.com/ats-david?weekly