TLDR: My Steem story , random rant and solutions to make Steem great again. If you get butthurt easily don't read this. If you don't understand something or I didn't go in depth enough, ask me in the comments. This post was not edited because I give 0 fucks, it is what it is.
I started off on Steem on the 12 of July. I liked the project but needed to do more due diligence before investing any money. After I was confident enough, even though I saw many flaws in Steems economics (reading the whitepaper) and Dan's game theory, I decided to invest an initial amount to "test the waters" so to say and see how things would go with curating and authoring.
Things went well with my first few posts and I started thinking about scaling up with my editor (which is a pretty good writer) to fight dilution and maybe even make some. My first investment totalled 10 BTC at an average price of $1.8 per Steem or roughly ~3300 Steem. My second investment totalled another 10BTC with an average price of around $2.6 per Steem. Both "investments" came out to around 5400 which I powered up after buying.
Even though I invested a very big some (for the "average" person) I was constantly questioning things in Slack and then steemit.chat. Many people started attacking me saying I was creating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt, usually evoked intentionally in order to put a competitor at a disadvantage).
Here's where things started to get strange:
Everyone was ecstatic because their writing talent was making them money, they were making good money through their "investment" with circlejerking about Steem and celebrities started joining and posting. As an old timer in crypto this is where I would sell (on strenght) and people's fake hopes of Steem taking over the world. Sadly I locked myself in before this and become a "forced" bagholder for ~104 weeks (the time needed to powerdown).
Getting to the point
For most Steem is a "freeroll" , people investing NO money but their time, through writing content and curating to earn rewards. For a smaller subset of users that invested in Steem (and subsequently SP) seeing the "bigger picture", it's a losing game (one person being me). For the other 1% "the elite" or whales which are basically 2-3 miners that where in the right place at the right time, Dan, Ned and most witnesses (90%) which are Bitshares bagholders (appointed by Dan) to bail them out for their time, money and effort given to BTS (Dans failed project).
I'm not going to go into things like MVests (which is just random bullshit IMO) so you think powering up is worthwhile or how SD is pegged to the $ *cough* (it's a stable coin NOT a dollar pegged coin, that fluctuates A LOT).
Anyway Time for Solutions:
Inflation Solution
Instead of waiting 3 1/3 years to 1/10 reverse split making Steem worthless for the next 3 years (100% inflation yearly) do a 1/1.25 split every 3 months.
Start is 100million, in 3 months supply is 125million, reverse split 1/1.25 back to 100million RINSE-REPEAT every 3 months. This gives investors/traders confidence. The first reverse split will need to be slightly higher as current supply is 153mill at time of writing.
Voting Solution
Allocate a specific $ amount of % of SP for votes for each user daily for 100% power vote.
Example :
A user has 1000USD worth of SP. He can max upvote 0.05% per 24hrs of his SP (or $0.50) as one 100% vote or spread it out (10x5cent votes or 50x1cent) votes per day etc.
SD Solution
Have an additional vote button or an option to convert SD to SP to allocate to another users post.
Adding another one here : promoted products
Image source : Pixabay
Comments are welcome
Hope my upvote is a little bit of support. I have lost money so far with crypto over the last four years and as well with steemit since I joined. But longterm I am positive and now with Steemit I see for the first what potential the blockchain has.
you've said it: the blockchain has the potential for this type of social platform. whether steemit is up for it, we're going to see...
At first glance I like your inflation solution, though I don't know enough about the entire ecosystem to know if it would have any negative effects. You've hit on something I feel though, and I really hope a discussion with more economically minded folk spin up a discussion on this topic. I'd like to learn more.
I also like the simplicity of your voting solution. I question as to whether it could be gamed or not, and if it could, does it really matter. I proposed something similar to it with the idea of voting tokens - as I really think we need a more simple voting setup. Hell, maybe we need to remove money from voting and add a heart button for "like", and like is what you allocate your $0.50 budget for the day into. I will say though, the more I think about this new voting solution, the more I might like it as well - I just don't like how confusing it is.
Great points though. I was a bit worried the post wasn't going to be constructive after the first few paragraphs, but it ended strong ;)
Random musings, but I think there's some solid stuff at the end that can be worked on and improved.
The SD solution sounds good. Perhaps take the price based on last 7 days, to avoid doing that 7 day wait thing.
Random thought for the SD while I was writing, the inflation and vote solutions were thought out for longer. But yes sounds like a better solution (faster always = better)
I like your voting solution. Hope someone "important" reads this.
I'm trying to brainstorm ideas here. Let's call this a "rough draft" for now.
@repholder
Solid plan. Let's hope it hits the right ears.
I have a proposal, reduce the 104 weeks withdraw channel to 10.4 weeks.
That way, the whole system looks less like a ponzi scheme, force investors to be locked up is a weak idea.
I'm with laonie on this one. You could even limit this to the investors.
Personally I can see safety in tying up author reward SP for a longer period. Like in the case of plagiarists who'd cut and run with everything they could. Or in the positive sense of earned author reward SP that's locked in longer getting some people to look a bit farther ahead or feel more invested.
Sry, late night ramblings.
Great post!
yes exactly @laonie i have invested quite a bit of real money into steem power because it is the driving force behind the steem machine surely. I want this too !! But the powering down is too long for us real believers who have put their money where their mouth is. Whereas the people who have invested little but can write get it all and then run to the bank taking all the value with them. It does seem a bit hard on us true believer who have chosen to walk the walk here in this community !! great point i upvote this idea !!
to many it looks like a ponzi, so this, if further considered, might help.
I'm still unsure about the whole thing. I've been here just over a month very new to the whole process so trying to understand what I can. I sometimes wonder am I doing this right
anything in specific you'd like help with?
Everything. The whole process has me baffled.
Thanks for sharing with us @repholder. It was interesting to hear from the perspective of someone that has actually invested a large sum of their hard earned money in the project.
Dans evil twin
Keep steeming!
I like your style.
It is really taking me some time to understand the voting.
what I can do here for u.... except a UpVote as recently I joined here and have to learn a lot of about this systems.
Is all this besides the point while someone(s) is creating fake accounts, having them filled with fake content, and then having them upvoted to a glorious payday? Sort that out, which requires powerful voices to actually curate, to voice qualitative judgements, and not hide behind a dream of some realisable uptopian algorithm, and the rest can follow.
I read with real interest and i think you hit on something with your idea on alternative voting method which you explain !! Good to swim against the tide and think outside of the box !! Steem needs people like you !! Are you really powering down like you said in the beginning.??
Yes I have been powering down for 6 weeks without lose of SP or MVests (yet anyway)
ok thats interesting !! i have yet to power down as i must say i enjoy the curation and like to give the boost to people when i can !! But i must try this experiment to see !! So how much Steem does it produce per day then ? i assume you can see this transformation on a daily basis !! I have heard from others that your voting power remains pretty intact while you do this, is it true ?? So you can stop this process whenever you decide you have the Steem tokens you require yes ? Sorry for all these questions but whenever i see somebody talk of this i am very interested to have their impression and experience of the process !!
great post man!!
Good thoughts. I didn't put as much in nor at as high a rate. I managed to catch it on the way down, but am still set back a large percentage with he recent drop. I should have recognized the celebrity bubble better, but hindsight is what it is.
The SD peg is really nonsense. Lately it hasn't been very close at all. I have noticed that my payouts have been heavier on the SP side lately, which helps reduce the SD supply. Of course, it forces me to more 2 yr+ commitment too.
Answers don't seem easy here. I love the concept and am enjoying the ride. But even with the additional SP that hits my account, my bottom line has dropped a bit in the last few weeks.
I really, really think your voting solution is a great idea and hope something like it gets taken on board. And we'll done for giving zero fucks.. it's a great state of mind!!