I've posted a similar comment on Tom's post here but I felt it would be a good idea to make it into a post. You can read @donkeypong's post here!
- Some top witnesses surely run witness servers for other projects. Maybe they should be forthcoming about all of it!
- They either run bid bots or delegate their witness pay to bid bots which have made a mess out of this place. Large delegations have reduced voting influence, and curation rewards for smaller users. Steemit Inc is also partly responsible for handing out massive delegations which has also reduced influence for us all. Organic votes from whales on community projects is history now as many have delegated to bots.
- Then some of these stakeholders are the same ones crying foul about people like Haejin and all the while expecting minnows not to self-vote or expect everyone to vote on burnposts, while their own stake is delegated to bid bots and they profit by all means necessary.
- There is no disclosure if any of the witnesses are employed full-time or are on a retainer with Steemit Inc.
- What if these witnesses are also running servers that benefit other projects? Irrespective of contractual obligations is this not a conflict of interest? None of my business they'd say but I think the community deserves to know!
- Frankly, you can never know how many projects a dev is working on unless they are honest about it. When money is involved, why would anyone be honest?
- Some of the top witnesses are really good with code and are also helpful to the community, but so are some of the backup witnesses engaged in community building but don't earn a 10th of what these top witnesses do.
- Top witnesses make ~8000SP/monthly which is $20000 at current rates.
- That's 240K/annually when Steem prices are at their current lows and yet I've heard some complaing of not meeting their costs sometimes. I find that rather amusing to say the least!
- For programmers running a basic witness server is child's play. Even an RPC node is easily run if the knowledgeable dev has enough time for it. If you can pull whale votes, it's easy money as well which they will maximise further via bid bots.
I'm not a dev and I stayed away from running a witness server for the longest time. I used to think running a witness server was the most complex thing in the world until I found out it's not. My server makes me about 11SP-12SP/day compared to 250+ for a top witness. It certainly helps me stay afloat around here and pay for some of my time promoting the platform, technology and token.
I've managed to run my nodes (primary, seed and backup) without any issues or missed blocks in 3-4 months of witnessing. Maybe I've had a lucky streak. But running a standard witness server is no rocket science! Full nodes are complicated though but people with ingenuity have overcome harder things in life.
Considering the amount of money top witnesses earn here, I think it's fair that they focus more on Steem blockchain, promote it and continue building apps or support community initiatives on a priority basis over any other project. I suppose this is a good time as any to revisit some of my witness votes. Maybe everyone should do it as well!
Some of the top witnesses have been holding their positions from ~2 years and in the first year they've earned about ~1370SP per day! I'm sure their servers were doing a good job. But some of these older witnesses have accumulated about $100K monthly at current prices of about $2.4-$2.5. So if they still own that stake, I'm sure that'll take care of the costs for a long time to come and that's motivation enough to stay put and work on improving this place.
I have no issues with people profiting. It's a free market, no one can stop anyone from earning money here. Thanks to bid bots, passive income has never been as great as it is now. Earning $$$$ is the whole point of this platform anyway as it was designed from ground up to provide monetary value in multiple ways. It's upto us how we can make some money for ourselves really and that's what everyone is doing including the top stakeholders.
However, I don't think it's wrong on part of this community to expect loyalty to this project from the top witnesses and major stakeholders.
Many of us have spent a lot of time contributing to Steem/Steemit's growth and sometimes making next to nothing for it and then be forced to watch some people at such high positions of trust complain about not profiting enough or not having enough work to do around here or the time to contribute here and ergo feeling the need to diversify.
Ultimately it's all about the money folks. It would be foolish and naive of anyone to think that anyone is here in any capacity simply because they are an altruist and want to do good for others without any interest in earning money. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're all probably hypocrites if we think so. So let's admit we're all here for the money as much as anything else that keeps us here!
It would be good to have some competition to Steemit. Maybe because it will prompt all major stakeholders to up their ante to take this project to the next level. Hopefully, large stakeholders will take care to prevent further dilution of user influence on the reward pool. There's no point in constantly powering up only to find out that all that effort means nothing in the end.
Well, all of this is new and we've got a long way to go. Some hurdles are expected and feathers will be ruffled for sure. Let's remain focused and hopefully in a year or two this place will be refined and provide a better value for all our time and effort.
Kevin Wong has written an excellent post, 'Time To Wake Up and Fix Steem's Voting Problem' which I recommend all to read!
If you like my work kindly resteem it to your friends. You may also continue reading my recent posts which might interest you:
- Let's Watch This Fun Video From International Steem Meetup #1—Malaysia
- Why You Should Vote For @firepower As Witness—Witness Campaign Post From India!
- Steem.Chat Contest #28
Really i didn't knows about this.
Thanks for providing us a valuable & informative post.
Waiting for the next..
Hello @firepower,
Do you need a official website for your witness account? I am offering to build and deploy a single/multi page website which will display your recent posts in very nice UI.
Check Creative Crypto Website for reference.
I am offering the website for SBD 5 only.
Please get in touch with on on my discord : aneilpatel#4929
You spoke well.
Especially, the use of bid bots. I know of a steemian who made use of bid bots on all his post with the aim to gain more reputation and steem power which is used on himself alone.
Not really fair
Hola excelente post muy interesante sígueme @virginiana vota por mi.
https://steemit.com/colorchallenge/@virginiana/my-star-rosal-with-a-dark-orange-challenge
@firepower keep being you.
From your fan @lizbethk
SALUDOS; me siento muy motivado, a pesar de que mis puntos están muy bajos en comparación con los demás.. pero soy paciente y aprenderé.
The steem blockchain is till young, just two year with over a million users and more on the way. I feel that If there is any problem in the system the management should fix it before it becomes a set back to this great project. I haven't benefited much from the platform but I love what the steemit platform represents. I am here to stay and all hands must be on deck as to see steem soar high.
Agreed @firepower everyone is asking for votes but i hardly seen anyone working on steem blockchain. After coming along @kevinyong post i have trimmed my witness list to 6 and votes only to whom i know or saw workibg dedicatelly for steem blockchain. I have still many votes remain unutilised...let see who comes along later....
So this is the truth?
But not all of them do this! I know a particular one that care for steemians and think about minnows more than he think about himself . @surpassinggoogle and he's the reason why I'm still a steemian cos I was about to quit when I made good posts and didn't get appreciation and those that makes no sense post get upvotes
You comment under him, you get updates, you make posts with tags like #teardrops ,#ulog etc, you get upvotes even if you aren't perfect, it's (un)tallented
Great Commentary @firepower. I'm a small guy on here. Probably never hit whale stauts. But I do take proud in adding quality, origianl Content here. As well as Commenting/Curating at least 10 hours or so a week alone.
It is a labor of love and I hope there is room for folks like me who may be small with "resources" but "rich" in what they can add as far as creating good, original Content , and encouraging and supporting ( as much as our SP can muster :) ) other fellow Steemians
Great Commentary @firepower. I'm a small guy on here. Probably never hit whale status. And I'm fine with that. But I do take pride in adding quality, original Content here. As well as being very serious at Commenting/Curating at least 10 hours or so a week.... alone.
It is a labor of love and I hope there is room for folks like me who may be small with " financial resources" .But "rich" in what we can add as far as creating good, original Content , and encouraging and supporting ( as much as our SP can muster :) ) other fellow Steemians :)
It gives me a hopeful feeling when hearing these issues debated openly at Witness level. One of my steem chores is to reexamine my votes with witnesses having support from @freedom. A witness with their support told me it is a secondary account of @ned's . If true the conflict of interest and non-transparency would be beyond the pale.
Although likely a minority, my motivation is not the money. 500 of my SPs were purchased so as to get a sliding voting bar and the first self voting happened with me the other day so as to recover from my first, and unexpected, flagging. The rewards are a great bonus, however.
You may be interested in a proposal put forward by me to the Devcoin Team, in which my position is HR Admin. The idea of an "ultimatum" was not thought to be a positive approach by some members; yet the idea can be considered GPL. 😎
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=233997.msg38975686#msg3897568
Good Day @firepower,
Thank you for this article and I agree that those profiting handsomely from Steemit should be loyal promoters and focus their efforts on the best interests of the community. You speak with passion about situations with the appearance of conflicting interest and hopefully others with passion shall answer. Please continue to ask tough questions, investigate and inform. Thank you for your efforts o help all of us big and small be the best versions of ourselves.
I believe it is a free market. Only economic concerns will rule. Expecting contrary is foolish.
But is that bad. My answer is NO.