Are you getting less upvotes after HF 19? Or even worse, are you getting a lot of votes but negligible rewards? It's a frustrating period post HF 19 to be honest. Although the value of upvotes has increased but the voting power system has made a way for selfishness and scarcity.
As you may have read from me already, I strongly believe that the essence of Steemit is generosity; which is quite the opposite of scarcity. It's sad to see that very basic value of this community is diminishing.
The Minnow Hopes That Used To Be
The generous and caring nature of Steemit community led to many supportive projects which aimed to support minnows and newbies. Two of the such services which I have used are explained below with their current condition.
The Minnow Support Project
This was (and still is) an amazing initiative by @aggroed , who is a big big minnow supporter. I use @minnowsupport for getting upvotes because there's seems to be no other hope. Let me briefly explain how it used to work and how it works now.
People used to register with #minnowsupportproject and authorize to upvote on their behalf. The voting percentages used to be at least 20 % and mostly beyond 50 or even 75 %. However, due to negligible vote value of minnows ($0.00-0.02 for a 100 % vote) before the Hard Fork 19, the monetary gains were also not much considerable.
After the HF 19, scarcity has plagued this amazing platform and instead of voting at 20, 50 or even 80 %, they are now voting on less than 1 % or even at a flat zero percent. I seem to be the only one who still votes at 20 % despite the concerns of voting power depletion.
The result is that despite an increased vote value, people are (forced to, may be) voting at less than 1 %. The monetary benefits of joining are no different from the pre HF 19 era. Here's a look at the disappointing state of affairs right now.
These upvotes were received 34 minutes ago on my last post as you can see. What difference can these make? I guess very very little. The update is that @aggroed is concerned as well and he's changing the criteria to SP delegation. Let's hope for the best.
Randowhale
You might have heard about it or even used it once or more times. I have used it exactly 3 times and I was unlucky enough to do it all after the HF 19. If you don't know, Randowhale used to give random percentage votes to those who sent 2 SBD or Steem to it with post link.
I have seen posts which received 97 % votes from @randowhale in the unselfish times. That meant a double figure or even triple figure reward from a single vote. Then the voting range was reset to an upper limit of 50 %, which was also not bad considering that 1 % vote from #randowhale still means $1.5-2.5 depending upon its remaining voting power.
Let me concisely share with you the total experience that I had with Randowhale. Remember that now the Randowhale votes only in the range of 0.5-2.5 % range now.
- Transferred 2 SBD and got 1 % vote (worth $1.81 at that time)
- Transferred 2 SBD and got 1.9 % vote (worth $3.4 at that time)
- Transferred 2 SBD and got 0.5 % vote (worth $1.6 today)
Here's the summary for your understanding.
- Total Amount Transferred = 6 SBD
- Total Worth of Received Upvotes = 6.81 SBD
- 25 % Curation Reward for Others = 1.7 SBD
- Total Value Recieved by Me = 5.11 SBD
In short, I paid 6 SBD and got 5.11 SBD at a loss of 0.89 SBD. And that is why I say that...
I am Done with Randowhale!
I will stop using @randowhale until my request of raising voting range from 0.5-2.5 to the new and better 2-5 %. I am done till that point despite knowing that post HF 19 voting power crisis is the real culprit!
Conclusion
Hard Fork 19 is to be blamed for creating a situation of scarcity and selfishness which now largely prevails in the community. People are self voting or voting at close to zero voting weight. The minnow support initiatives have taken a hit as well and are forced to save their voting power.
The great work by @ned, @dan, @dantheman, @steemit, @steemitblog, @curie, @aggroed and many others is endangered and only a few are realizing! Let's raise our voices before we become frustrated enough to stop trying.
Please do resteem this post as it highlights a growing community problem.
I agree on all your points. I'm pretty new here but over the course of the week, I've already seen most of what you highlighted. There is also a lot of articles with little to no content value with lots of upvotes & $$$, . In contrast articles like yours written well and with serious content having little exposure. It's sad seeing this side of Steem.
It's weird though. Seeing @ilyastarar's post though. I was reading some of @dantheman's post about Steem whales and their bots. If your article has a lot of likes whether its small in value it would still attract Steem whales who are in it for the curation.
on a different topic,I actually see the 100% vote value drastically getting reduced as well (that's taking into account the lowering of Steem value ). I guess its the big players dilluting the rewards pool because suddenly everyone is using it to upvote themselves.
The attraction thing happens once a while. One of my posts got 227 upvotes, was listed as 11/80 most undervalued posts (which included posts from big whales mostly) but still the reward has not been relative.
I think there's a lack of understand on the part of whales of how the minnows are suffering, @aggroed being an exception.
Self voting is more common than ever and that means that whatever quality I ensure on my blog will go wasted in terms of rewards.
If you look at my comment box under each post, you'll only find nice words and genuine appreciation. Then look at my rewards and you'll feel sorry. I'm not alone.
I have to agree. I guess at this time blogging or posting here on Steem is more of a part time hobby and not a serious way to earn a living. I'm not sure if you are familliar with the Cryptocurrency world but in here it's the wild wild west where regulation is not present, where criminals are not hounded by the SEC, where serious conflict of interest happen and in this world Steem is one nicest cryptocurrency community out there.
One thing is for sure though "You can never keep a good man down". Please continue posting good content. There are people out there always on the look out for a good read. Cheers mate
Thanks a lot. I am a bit familiar with crypto thing and its trading. Learning that well.
Thanks for motivation and encouragement. I will keep doing my work and bring a positive change with it.
Please do. I'm a no one minnow on here too - but this platform needs people like you. I just discovered your blog tonight and am hooked. Good luck man, i hope you start to get the payouts you deserve.
Thanks @blunderbabe . I have been in discussion with a lot of senior Steemians lately and I see hopeful situation. Our frustrations will be looked in to and you can expect a solution soon.
And I followed you.
I agree with this comment @ilyastarar especially the appreciating part and taking the time to do this :)
Thanks a lot @road2wisdom for your kind words. I followed you to stay connected.
No problem @ilyastarar I like people like you who tell it like it is! I am following you too. We will keep in touch for sure. Enjoy the rest of your day. :)
Thank you very much!
What would happen if there was no self upvotes? Would the whales just make under table deals and vote for each other?
Exactly. The thing is people will always find loopholes to rig the system. It's up to the good guys to carry on. Gain their own steem power and do the right thing. What's good is that a hard fork is possible if what the bad guys doing is rampant and things has to be done to stop it, but these things take time and voting by the witnesses.
By raising the issue from our (minnows and newbies) perspective will help get the big tanks thinking. Obviously, the witnesses are more concerned people than we are and I hope to see solutions coming out soon.
I still find it hard for most whale to give a shit. It is human nature. Not that they are bad people. But we are minnows in a tank that they do not have to be involved in and they have their stuff to deal with between them and other big fish
If we keep doing things right, we will be whales someday. Let's be good whales.
I think whales would then try to cash in on curation rewards; something they can still do with small percentage votes. For example, if a whale upvotes and then resteems this post and it becomes viral, a fair share of the 25 % curation reward will go to him/her. Make it 5 posts a day and he or she can easily make $100-$500 a day literally.
Thank you @frost04 for reading and encouraging. I have left similar comments of highly valuable but brutally undervalued posts quite a few times. Welcome to the community and let's hope for better. I'll start following you to stay in touch.
PS: My blog is full of high quality but extremely ignored content except a few posts which took off really well. I'm kinda used to it now.
Thank you. I appreciate the follow brother. Please get your hopes up. Consider Steem as a young avocado plant for now. It's got great potential to grow to be an amazing fruit bearing tree in the years to come, so we have to be there while it grows, water it with good posts and not be so sad if it doesn't bear fruit immediately. Good luck and I certainly will look forward to your upcoming posts. :)
I am more than happy with Steemit bro. In my first 5 days, I had 2 posts which went past $200 mark in rewards. You can see that I had set high standards for myself. Lol
I keep posting regularly and to the best of my abilities because it matters. The recognition and connection I get from these posts is worth more than Steem Dollars to me. I will keep posting. Sharing such concerns is a part of making our voices heard so that we could thrive equally as a community.
Great post. Let me upvote myself.
Haha! I was shocked to see $0.40 voting worth and 14 Reputation together and had to look at your wallet to find out that you have invested heavily on Steem Power. Rich people these days! Haha!
If you delegate some of that SP or better increase your reputation, you'll be more effective community member I think.
I actually don't believe this project will succeed in the long run due to the structure of minnows and whales. Whales has too much power and if they flag a blog, it's gone from public view forever. So in a sense, this is centralized and controlled by whales.
I laughed at this. Thanks for the laugh
To add to that, the rewards keep going down, so you should have lost more than 0.89, unless I'm wrong about that :P
Thanks for adding that. It's true. I kept things simple and short. But rewards could have gone up too in case Steem goes up. No, you're not wrong and thanks for commenting.
You beat me to it. I was going to write this and I still might. But randowhale has cost me money lately. A minnow cannot afford that
Exactly! If you ask me the SBD required should be very small like around $0.2 instead of 2.0
I mean, if you are gonna help might as well help without getting almost any kind of profit but hey randowhale really helps and better that whales like him help compared to others who actually rig the system for their own gains
Randowhale is becoming less benevolant through no fault of his own. The voting power is a genuine concern. However, if something isn't profitable, why would we use it?
I agree with your suggestion and combining it with mine, there become two possibilities for randowhale.
A. Increase voting percentage.
Or
B. Decrease the amount of submission.
Thanks for adding value to my post with your comment.
@yoda1917 go ahead and write. I'm sure your unique style will bring in something extra. Please do resteem this too so that the voices become magnified.
I just finished it...
https://steemit.com/steemit/@yoda1917/doing-at-present-this-will-take-away-your-steem-almost-every-time
Can you get this out far and wide however you can ;)
And thank you for the compliment
You see my comment there. Great job!
Thank you... I hope I can make a difference
"If you think you can or you think you can't, you are right." :)
I understand what u r saying. My story is my reality ;)
Upvoted you with my measly offerings, resteemed and followed
Thank you and glad to follow you. I hope to see good stuff from you and interact more often.
Finally,someone with the courage to address the elephant in the room. Tough times for us newbies.
Thank you very much. I realized there was a problem after interacting with peers and had to write this. I hope some solution comes up soon.
let's newbies now rule
Where can I get more info about the Hard Fork 19?
The Hard Fork 19 white paper I think or @steemitblog
Noted & Thanks
Welcome
You've hit the nail on the head @ilyastarar. Very disappointing indeed.
Thanks for reading and I hope you resteemed it.
Quite a useful post seen in a while.... Good work... Even I am done with @randowhale as the upvote value gradually decreases from day one to day seven and it's just a waste of SBD now
Thanks for reading and commenting. I agree. It is waste of time until the conditions are changed. Please do resteem if not done already.
I am new in this community and still do not know how is it working. But I agree with you. I saw that members with great power are getting at least couple of hudreds of dollars for one picture! Or post with 3 to 5 sentences. At the other side newbies and those with less power are getting 1 to 2 bucks for GREAT content.
Also, on new or trending page more than a 80% of posts are written buy the biggest members (number of followers + steem power). That is not ok. Simply isn't!
I will resteem this post. Hope many people will see this.
Welcome to Steemit. I'm also in here for three weeks only so high five. Followed you already. Thanks for resteeming.
The facts you mentioned are so true and only add to the disappointment. More SP and Reputation will solve our problems but more SP and Reputation only comes from upvotes and rewards. It's a long road to progress but we will be there.
I was working more than a four months to understand how to invest. Now I want to share everyting I beleive is imporatnt to know about cryptocurrency investing. Unfortunatelly, there is a huge possibility that I will waste my time because nobody saw what I have already written.
Please help me to make this post viral.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptogirl1/how-to-make-money-on-cryptocurrency-investing-a-series-1
This is a tricky time. You are at 47 reputation and pretty much on your own. The only way to make thinngs viral is to build an impression and a faithful following. Focus on quality content. You won't get much reward for now but keep being good.
I am doing my best and I will keep trying. Thank you for encouraging me.
I upvoted and left a comment on your post for support. Good job!
If you look at my rewards, it will be a sorry figure too. But it doesn't stop me from sharing.
nice post,,,i want to read more about HF19,,,where can i get it...???
@steemitblog or the official whitepaper. Thanks for the comment.
its so true...so im waiting patiently
Let's hope that things work out well.
yup
Seems like only the whale's posts get attention
They have more influence and yes, that's true.
really very useful post. upvote your post !
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jun 30. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $29.07 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jun 30 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Your full upvote could make me happier @screenname
great post. much helpful and informative.
Thank you
I have to agree with a lot of your points, I have even questioned why a post that starts at 300$ and ends up paying less then $100 after 7 days. I'm sure like you said its people not voting as much and other good points you made. But from what I have read and learned was about a year ago they went through something similar. I guess we just have to weather the storm for now an steem on! But I feel your pain.
Thank you for your comment. I am steeming on regardless of how many times my posts are mentioned in top undervalued posts or how less my rewards are. Thank you!
Yes me too I think the ones who are serious and keep posting will be the ones taking the reigns over from the ones who did it last year and made steemit what it is today. You are doing a great job and like I said I don't get how a post starting at 900$ I saw ends up after 7 days with 300$ it doesn't make sense and I don't understand it. If it was the price then why don't the post rise when steem rises! I think in the long run we will be fine :)
Agreed with you.
What can be the issue in rewards? Are you talking about a post showing $900 but final payout is shown to be $300? Or you get $300 in the wallet?
Final payout, yes
I'm sharing a link to the post I shared about Reward System. Please see if it solves some of your queries.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ilyastarar/the-mystery-of-steemit-rewards-solved-even-for-a-9-year-old-see-what-you-actually-get-from-steemit
Good post. Followed. Not upvoted cos I spent my quota for the day! Which speaks to your point!
Thanks for all your support. I followed you. I am now worried about my depleting voting power as well. Seems like I'll have to choose my votes too.
The system is adjusting to the reality
Let's hope
Let's hope... Yes. Thank you
Greate follow4follow vote4vote ❤️❤️
That's why you are at 22 reputation despite having 25 at the beginning. Your vote or follow doesn't have any value. Not even mine. This is not social media of normal type.
I suggest that you follow the posts on my blog and learn more about Steemit. This approach will lead towards destruction.
Kudos to you for having the balls to stick your head above the water and speak out. I've only been here a couple of weeks, so I'm still feeling my way around, but based on what I've seen, so far I'm not seeing the value in groveling with my SP for crumbs. Looks more like a good way to ruin this site because newcomers arrive to see this state of affairs and are turned off. What? People are going to leave FB to escape the censorship and exploitation of their privacy only to arrive here to face further exploitation with a different face? Nature abhors a vacuum, so someone needs to fix this before a better alternative raises it's head and people are left holding a bunch of worthless steem. Do you really want the capable and determined individuals that you have attracted to this site to go off and create another that ultimately replaces this one? It wouldn't be the first time that something like that has happened.
Thanks for reading and leaving such a thorough comment. I agree and you are so right about the vacuum. Steemit used to be good and the way it is set up, it will soon be good. I hope so.
I'd rather suggest that you copy this comment, break into 3-4 paragraphs and post on your blog. Makes a good post in my opinion.
I am experiencing people commenting on my post just to upvote themselves. This is annoying. This upvoting yourself should stop.
Self voting is destroying this amazing platform. I agree that this needs to stop!
Good post @ilyastarar, upvoted and resteemed. However, while you rightly pointed out that the hardfork has caused people to become selfish and reserve votes for upvoting themselves, others are working on @smackdown.kitty bot to punish those who upvote their cooments or posts by downvoting it. Everyone should check this post - https://steemit.com/steem/@l0k1/introducing-smackdown-kitty
Thanks @blockrush , I definitely need to look at @smackdown.kitty . Let me have a look at the post you mentioned.
42 votes and only a combined value of $1.8! This if nothing highlights the problem. I'm hoping we, the steemit community, can find a way to overcome this and ones again be a place where generosity is the norm. Thanks for a great post.
Thanks for reminding me of the problem again. Well, I have seen some great people dicussing this problem and talking about solutions. Hopefully, we will see a solution coming.