(Not only for newbie fishes.)
I have seen various Steem application lists, for example, one in the Steemit “hamburger menu” (“Apps Built on Steem”, upside right on Steemit.com), another is Steemapps by 
Earning and paying
What? Costs? Paying for the use of a Steem app? Not earning there? Yes, or better explained, sharing your income with them. Many applications are receiving a fee, a share, one part of the rewards of the authors, mostly 5-10 percent. This is also called “Payout Beneficiaries”.
As you may know, normally authors receive 75 percent of the payout, and 25 percent goes to the curators. From 100 STU (Steem Units, the amount which is indicated below the posts), the author gets 75.
Table: Payout Beneficiaries' fees
(percentage of author payouts)
| Application, main link | February 1 | Steemit link |
|---|---|---|
| Steemit | 0 | Steemit |
| Busy | 0 | Steemit |
| Partiko | 0 | Steemit |
| Esteem | 10 | Steemit |
| dPoll | 10 | Steemit |
| D.tube | 10 | Steemit |
| Share2Steem | 10 | Steemit |
| Steemstem | 5 | Steemit |
| Steempress | 15 | Steemit |
| Steemhunt | 10 | Steemit |
| Steemhunt.pay | 5 | Steemit |
| Steempeak | ? (0-3) | Steemit |
| Utopian.Pay | 5 | Steemit |
| Actifit | 10 | Steemit |
| Actifit.Pay | 5 | Steemit |
| Davinci.Pay (?) | 10 | Steemit |
| Steemplus | 1 | Steemit |
| Intrepidphotos | 17 | Steemit |
| @marekwojciakcom | 17 | Steemit |
| @richeros | 17 | Steemit |
| Tasteem | 9 | Steemit |
| Dlike | 9 | Steemit |
| Dlike.fund | 1 | Steemit |
Source: Steemworld.org payout data
I made a table of the most known Steem applications, based on the payout data shown by Steemworld.org (from 
Good news or bad news?
Some applications earn double, like Actifit or Steemhunt together with the Actifit.pay and Steemhunt.pay accounts. (Dlike also has some helper account.)
Is this bad for you as a user? This depends on other circumstances. First, developers have to eat, they need income to keep working and improve the apps. A better application is good for us.
Second, many of them are reinvesting this money in some form. Many dApps or their sponsors are rewarding active users with upvotes. Some are also making payouts to their supporters for the delegated Steem Power (for example dPoll). I see huge upvotes, 8-20 SBD in some cases, by Utopian or D.tube. But surely not for all players, I suppose they are trying to select the best posts.
Twilight of the robots?
Actually, I suppose, many developers are working for free and are hoping for better times in Steem price and users activities. Hoping they will earn more some day.
One consequence of this beneficiary fees is that the use of robots makes no sense, it ends mostly with a badly negative ROI. But if you are, despite this, using them, you are supporting the application, the community with it.
The tricked guy
This fees can multiplicate, it seems to be no limit of beneficiaries’ count. I found a guy who is paying 54 percent of his rewards to four different beneficiaries. (See the last photo below.) That seems to be extreme, exaggerated, weird for me. What do you think?
(If you find an error, or wish to see any application on this list please comment or message me in Discord.)
(Cover photo: Pixabay)