Debunking the myth that rewards in the pool are scarce
Have you ever wondered how steem is going to pay everyone when there is hundreds of millions of people using it? Surely if rewards in the pool were limited steem wouldn't be able to scale right...
The good news is that rewards in the pool are potentially unlimited, they grow with the price of steem. As an example say the reward pool today is worth about USD 50k. When the price of steem is 10 times what it is today that same reward pool will be worth half a million USD.
Most of the arguing recently comes from this misconception that the reward pool is finite.
Not only are the actions of those who advocate against rewardpoolrape useless but I think they are actually detrimental to the community and growth of the platform because they are anti-capitalist.
Let's take the @haejin example to illustrate my point. @haejin has decided to put his capital into steem because he thinks that's where he will get the best return. In order to get those return he needs to stay powered up, thus he has contributed positively to increase the size of the reward pool. Those who argue that @haejin is upvoting too many of his own posts fail to understand that the very reason @haejin invested in the first place is because of the returns he is currently getting. In other words, if the rules of the games were different and more restrictive he would have invested a lot less money.
Another hot topic that has sprung up as a result of this rewardpoolrape misconception is the excessive use of voting bots.
We've seen the rise of social justice warriors lately trying to put restrction on the use of these bots. To me this is the most anti-captialist thing you can do. In the real world it would be similar to government putting quotas to prevent competing entreprise from growing.
Most bots operates in an anti-capitalist way anyway because they restrict how much capital they can be given. This is akin to a company refusing customers's money...something inconcevable in the real economy.
Instead of restrciting users they should let them bid each other like an auction type thing, this would be real free market.
What do you think? Should steem be a communist society with loads of restriction or should it be capitalist driven by a free market economy?
Also remember one thing guys, the reason your posts are worth anything at all is because...capitalism
Here's the thing though: nothing can restrict anything on Steemit, except a code change. Everyone is free to vote as they wish, either up or down, and no one - NO ONE - can restrict them.
Some people do listen to arguments, and respond to flags, and they change their behavior, but it's up to them to do it.
It sounds like what you're really against is argument-based social pressure but that is a fact of a social network. People don't have to listen to it. @haejin and @berniesanders definitely don't!
I've said it before (and to you if you remember) but the problem with so-called "excessive" self voting is that it's against a primary aim of Steemit, to use the wisdom of the crowd to evaluate and reward posts. If you can just buy that for yourself it doesn't really work.
Those who only vote for themselves will receive less support from others so to me self voting is a bad strategy if you are active in the community and want to connect with people. @haejin used to vote all comments in his posts for this very reason, he knows that voting for other is ultimately the strategy that will pay off in the long run.
What really hurts the platform is not letting users use their SP as they wish, it reduces demand for steem.
No one is stopping @haejin from voting how they want. No one can stop anyone. People do however down vote @haejin, so really what you're getting at is a critique of flagging?
It's not clear if you're saying we shouldn't espouse what you consider to be anti-capitalist concepts in posts / comments or if we need to either voluntarily stop flagging or remove the feature from the system. Am I getting warmer?
We have freedom here, but if we want Steemit to succeed then we need to use our power for good. Voting up your own content, no matter how bad, does deprive good content of rewards as there's only so much to go around each day. Bots don't discriminate on quality. The result is the same people on the trending page every day. I know whales want a return, but they can get something from curating others. The potential of steemit is being squandered. The big whales have the power to deal with abuse of the platform
Make a captcha before voting.
That can't be enforced by the blockchain as people can use other apps. Even disabling self-votes would not help much as people use proxies
we need a new blockchain
How would a new blockchain help? It couldn't enforce captchas either.
Anyone could start a new one, but building the community takes time.
Agreed with you completely. Self voting as the name itself implies related to psychologically speaking with the ego. Self vote crowd are egoistic beings. <3
I think this is a misrepresentation of the economics in play here. The rewards pool is not a fixed sum to be divided, but it is constrained by the value of the network and people's willingness to invest in it. That willingness to invest is largely determined by belief that it's sustainable and will continue to grow over the long term.
If people buy Steem exclusively so that they can use it to upvote themselves and direct inflationary rewards from the rewards pool to themselves, then Steem is nothing but a ponzi scheme. That is not a sustainable approach.
In order for Steem to be sustainable, stakeholders must vote to reinvest capital in real productivity by upvoting quality content that helps make this a community worth investing and participating in.
Tesla has been very successful in raising money, and they've invested that money in massive infrastructure expenditures like the gigafactory. Imagine if instead, Tesla had used most of the money they raised from new investment to pay dividends to all their previous shareholders. That's what many people are trying to do with Steem now.
Right now user retention is absolute shit and will continue to be that way until people find reasons to stay here over using other social networks. You know something is wrong when none of those other websites compensate the user, and it means that the network effect here and the content alone is not strong enough of a draw for new users to stay engaged. Also, the necessary "capital" required to interact on the site are essentially pulled after a month, ensuring that people come here, find the content lacking, and even if they attempt to stay are rewarded by not being able to vote or do anything after a month.
Tesla isn't a very good example, they receive big government deals that aren't at play here, but yes they attempt to innovate with some of the money. There are attempts to draw people into the steemit economy with all of the apps that are being created, but apps are plentiful and user attention is not, and if the baseline economic model of the steem coin itself is distasteful to the broader market (as you put it the perception of it being a ponzi scheme used to pay out the big holders) then it will not see greater adoption.
I'm leaving to lending platforms, my marketing is also not appreciated.
I brought a few people here,most think it sucks. I am leaving for equality and love: lending platforms
I've used the example of investors in a broom factory who are lured into investing with the promise they can take brooms from the production as a form of dividend.
Rewards for content creation are the product of Steemit, the mechanism that causes it to grow. Just as a company that has no brooms to sell will prove a bad investment, so will Steemit if rewards are similarly unavailable to deliver to content creators.
We see that Steemit loses ~90% of users YOY.
This is why.
Agreed with you completely. Self voting as the name itself implies related to psychologically speaking with the ego. Self vote crowd are egoistic beings. <3
One should expect that if something can be done, it will be done. People like Bernie and Grumpycat are trying to enforce "unwritten rules" which tend to be selectively enforced.
If voting bots are bad, change the code to prohibit them.
If self-upvoting is bad, change the code to prohibit it.
If "X" is bad, well then change the code.
I appreciate their desire to keep the platform clean and viable, I just believe they are going about it the wrong way.
capitalism is defined as private ownership of capital. Under capitalism the idea is this ownership can be directed in any way the owner pleases. Steem is this private capital, and the use of flags against those who "abuse" the system are just another use of that
the economic system is defined by who controls the means of production, not how they use it.
flags and disagreements shouldn’t be confused with each other. Unfortunately, I’ve seen that happen around here.
uhhhh why not?
I didn’t think I’d have to explain this but ok....
Threats, damage, theft absolutely warrant a flag.
A Raiders fan flagging a Broncos fan just because they don’t like the same team, that’s a disagreement and in my opinion, doesn’t warrant a flag.
that’s why I say they shouldn’t be confused with eachother.
(Hopefully I cleared that up)
flagging is used for disagreement over rewards, even in the first cases you gave.
Is that not disagreement?
Maybe it’s just me who has no idea what it feels like to click that little flag symbol thingy.
Hey but thanks for Upvoting me not, you rock!
I like your style @anarchyhasnogods - you pick up flawed logic quicker than a Socratic mind! :)
thank
"What do you think? Should steem be a communist society with loads of restriction or should it be capitalist driven by a free market economy?"
communism is defined as worker control of the means of production, how the private owners of capital choose to use their capital does not make it more or less capitalist.
Since there is no code that is put in place for some of the issues you are concerned about, the free market is promoting such activity.
People are allowed to be SJWs in a free market environment, people can go on flagging campaigns in a free market environment, people can buy upvotes in a free market environment while those that sell them can impose any restrictions they want to in a free market environment.
If code is law, as long as the developers and witnesses are not restricting transactions between individuals, then we are practicing capitalism. No one is entitled to the rewards pool, thus people can play with their stake as they please. If you want change, you have to alter the code. That being said, should we change or keep going with this open system?
An interesting and refreshing look into the reward pool shenanigans. Let it be a free market and have the people decide!
Nice to see a voice of reason in between the battles of self promoting outrage bloggers. Keep up the good work, in following you now.
I've got mixed opinions on this. The reward pools HAS to be distributed, and I think people are more concerned with where it is going and if that person is withdrawing funds out of the network in a way that doesn't promote the blockchain.
While we all agree that it is your personal stake and you can do what you wish with it, its also the idea of "if all the free range cattle live on my land, I can slaughter as much as I want". Theres a point where you are doing a disservice to the community.
Thats where flagging comes in and plays a major role in controlling people who are doing something that's unproductive to the community.
take @haejin for example. Do you think his content is worth the amount that people upvote him with?
Perhaps to some, but not all. Regardless, he is making a KILLING in terms of steem, but thats the same reason why the finance market (in real life) makes the most amount of money. But the real question is does he add value to the platform at the rate he was earning?
That's the main debate.
There IS a reward pool and is finite!
If you look at https://steemd.com/ you can find the number total_reward_fund_steem. This is the so called reward pool. Everytime a block is generated (every 3 seconds) 1 (or 2 I'm not quite sure) Steem is added to the reward fund, if then someone upvotes a post or comment a percentage of this Steem is 'assigned' to the comment or post. If the reward fund is zero, a small percentage from all users is taken and given to the one who was upvoted.
If anyone here remembers the time when HF19 was deployed, you know that the rewads were extremely high, much higher than now. The reason for this was, that before HF19 with a 100% you were only able to consume 0.5% of your voting power, and after HF19 2%. Before, much voting power wasn't used and thus more and more Steem began to accumulate in the reward fund, after HF19 much more VP was used and the supply of accumulated Steem was distributed fast.
So what I want to say is, that if someone has thousands of Steem in pending rewards, it is taken away from all the other users!
Note: upvoted only for visibility.
🗅
you can't define communism can you?
It's not really about fairness or giving everyone the same amount, it's about properly incentivizing the activities that increase the value of the platform, and making sure things that decrease that value are not rewarded. If we allow spam to be profitable, we can expect to attract a community of spammers. If Steem comes to primarily be a community of spammers, it will not be highly valued. Activity that makes Steem more valuable long term must be kept more profitable than activity that will make it less valuable in order for the value of Steem to increase.
+1
Communisum does not mean restriction, capitalism does not mean freedom. Fascism is restriction, anarchism is complete freedom. These are two different dimension. Anarcho-capitalism exists as well as anarcho-communism.
I see that there is a lot of envy in some users, that is, I did not earn money here as many others do, who really earn figures that I consider good. But that is due to one of two things: 1. They invested their money, and therefore help the whole community, because they assume a risk that others do not take, or 2. simply their publications fulfill an important objective for other people, which It makes them vote for them. Those are basically the two ways to win at Steemit, or invest money, or invest time, effort and knowledge, the best thing would be to do both.
Personally, I do not care what absolutely nobody does with their votes, I do not care if they vote or not, I do not care if they win a lot, or if they win little, I do not care if they formed a private group that votes with each other. Everyone can do what they want with their account, based on all the tools that are intrinsic to the page, and which the creators designed for us.
Live and let live.....
Hurrah, to @snowflake, and @dwinblood, for trying to get this reality out there. I don't know guys, I am starting to get discouraged. The focus is just not penetrating. But every time I see an attempt, I try to support it. To say I wish you luck is such an understatement.
new information for me
thank you so much
If it seems to me, all this should be bejuang from zero to hero in order that his struggle feels. do not use auto vote.
Thanks brother d health may always be with you.
whai the bai klat
Oh! I've learnt something new today. Truly I never knew about this.
Everyday, new posts keep springing up about people raping the reward pool (the @berniesanders and @haejin feud as an example) and this matter has b en debated on this platform over and over again.
Hopefully, this post will serve as a source of reference and to explain things better.
Ofcourse! Steem should be capitalist driven by a free market economy.
I mean, that's why we chose crypto right? Plus decentralization to add to that. We don't want the communist market at all cus the whole idea of cryptocurrecncy will be futile and we don't want it to happen on this platform either.
Thanks @snowflake for this educative and eye opening post. As usual, your posts are always apt and meaningful.
Happy Steeming
un bonne travail bravo a vous flocon vous méritez mon vote
I would love to visit there. Great article!
Good observation @snowflake and steem should forever be a capitalist driven community because each and everyone should be free to run the finances of the community without any control because immediately there is control it will get to a stage when hoarding of necessary things will commence and it will create a set back .and from general observation a capitalist community function better..i guess this is a post where steemian should air their view too..thanks for your update and seeking our opinion. 👏👏
Cmon people we ve got a chance here to throw away capitalism. We ve got technology! No child should have been starving in 20 fuckin 18!
Let's see how Steemit continues, only time can tell.
I completely agree with you except for your opinion on the voting bots!
I have been wanting to let people know about this MISCONCEPTION of the rewardpool BUT because I am a minnow, NO ONE will take me seriously!
The rewardpool is a misnomer and it really doesn't exist! The supposed definition of a rewardpool is the collection of potential votes that is BEING stored in an IMAGINARY POOL and NOT used to reward Steemians for their contents. It doesn't matter what people vote for but as long as people vote and the vote rewards posts or comments it will generate Steem or SBD. Therefore it is recycled back into the community. In that sense, the votes leave the rewardpool which is really not a pool but unused votes.
Rewardpoolrape is an excuse for people like Bernie to justify their hateful and prejudice actions for flagging others. It is also a way of silencing others that is completely abusive.
Steem is the future, either you want it or not!
And take your time to accept that, because what really matters is that "we" are part of the community and we are helping it to improve. And later we will enjoy our money getting multiplied by X (in a near future).
Interesting.
The purpose of limiting voting bots and their ability is to PROMOTE more user curation instead of something artificial like bots.
In that sense it will also promote Steemians to be more active on Steemit such as reading contents and making a decision to vote.
Thanks a lot @snowflake. You've done very useful job! Your arguments are very convincing and I'm agree with that because of this great community anyone would do something for their own interest. In the future time steemit would be one of the most popular society. If everyone just try to do their best. I'm very positive of steemit's future. And I have a request for all the steemians if you dont mind I'm going to put my post which I've shared a few days ago when you are available please check it out I really appreciate that with my all respect @aknur.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@aknur/can-steemit-be-the-future-s-monopolist-platforms-social-page
Thank you @snowflake. Somewhat a newbie and have been trying to get informed properly from non-bias contributors as I work with colleagues on a new community. Useful insight.
Cause everything in life is either capitalist or communist, obviously
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I am not sure this is a matter of capitalism vs communism. It is not like blockchain or Steemit Inc dictating anything.
It seems to me there are many strong opinions among influential members of the community, which is making it controversial topic. At the end of the day all investors/whales need to work it out amongst themselves, as they will be the ones who will decided the future of the platform.
As for average members like myself it is better to stay neutral and not get caught in cross fire as this has become a very delicate matter.
If I was a whale I would have invited them all for a social retreat, where they could bond, work out the differences, compromise and make Steem work for everybody.
Off topic, may I talk to you on steemit.chat?
Well, you certainly got a conversation going. Kept looking for a rebuttal or two, but I guess you felt you have started the ball rolling and now you want to see what others think/feel.
Thanks, it has been interesting.
Good analysis. The way it works right now keep investors away, which is not good. I earning a lot of money with crypto now, but negative attitude makes me not to invest more in steemit. I would like but I'm sick of hiding, forced posting, delegating and pretending. I find some new platforms which support investors. I lived in socialism many years. It doesn't work.