It was true of the Dinosaurs. It was true for the Dodo.
We might be witnessing this truth for Bitcoin if it fails to pull something out of the bag in the near future...
...And it'll certainly be true for Steemit if we (and by we I mean 'anybody' and 'everybody' who is or could be involved in Steemit upon any level) fail to collectively realize that the platform is heading towards a precipice.
One could go as far back as one wishes to on this one - but it is important to state first and foremost that attributing all the blame in the World isn't going to fix the crisis that Steemit faces.
We 'can' indulge ourselves in an acidic form of 'Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda' - but in no uncertain terms I shall tell you that this is one instance where being right or wrong is less important than fixing the damage that has been done and may yet be done.
One could talk of the infamous pre-mine of STEEM and speculate over the impact that this undoubtedly had upon the initial supposedly decentralized platform's epicenter of power.
One could talk of the short-sighted and yet encouraged practice of self-voting by all levels of users that was 'designed' into the Steemit platform.
One could talk about the 7 day reward period that basically favors those who post materials of time-limited worth - such as cryptocurrency-related updates - while raising a middle finger to original content of relatively timeless worth (such as novels, or even sharing of scientific breakthroughs).
One could talk about the lack of in-built protections to prevent users from being flagged into oblivion at the whim of anybody with no more right than the self-assigned virtue of having the might to do so at their disposal.
One could talk about the massive issue of plagiarism - which many users are guilty of upon some level or another.
One could talk of the flood of users from all kinds of places - and more specifically - the kinds of content that are put out. This can tie into the previous point.
One could tie into the rise of heavy-weight rivalries that play out upon the Steemit platform like King Kong and Godzilla having a romp about Tokyo.
However it is far more helpful to recognize the importance of such with respect to choosing our next step rather than to seethe over the shortcomings of the past.
With the above in mind - I can propose an alternative.
It is time to design and implement the changes that Steemit (and the dreams that have been linked to Steem) needs to survive.
Now while some people 'do' hold the sustainability of Steemit to heart, way too many people lack an understanding of what that means and why we should head down this path.
What it means: Regardless of how Steemit scales, Steemit will always thrive.
Why it is important: Without it Steemit will diminish and perhaps die.
Is all clear? Good!
It also means a new system and level of rewards redistribution.
Once upon a time, adjustments were made that resulted in a greater pressure being placed upon the rewards pool.
As a result we saw Steemit's worth rise while the Rewards pool diminished.
It is time to rethink this trend.
Through building a pro-common purpose for the rewards pool, a further channel of wealth cycle is introduced - one that utilizes a portion of the pool to provide accelerated purpose for varying levels of new accounts.
I would like to see a more refined model than the following to come to life but the following concerning new users is a beginning:
Initial Delegation of 15 SP
A weekly increase in delegation of up to 15SP
Calculated at 1SP per Post up to five + matching of rewards on post (up to 2SP/ post)
To a maximum delegated reputation of 100SP + (Reputation x 2)
This ceiling may rise and fall from week to week - with a projected maximum of maybe 220SP (100SP + 55 Rep x 2).
Inactivity Penalty: During any week where a user posts less than 5 posts, Delegation may be withdrawn by a maximum of 10SP (or 2SP for every post fallen short that week).
This may be counteracted by simply performing well on those posts as per the earlier calculation.
Easing into Orbit (250-500SP):
Once 250SP (sans delegation) is reached the balance begins to shift such that the up-force begins to diminish - but the ceiling is raised to a maximum of (150 + (Reputaton x 3)).
New User Established (500SP-1000SP): At this point the 'ceiling' begins to diminish by a % equivalent to the proximity of the user to the 1000SP mark. All other factors remain the same. At 1000SP - delegation via this source reaches zero.
Special: References to SP are in reference to the value of SP had a user transferred rewards to Steem Power. Users who simply walk away with the STEEM or SBD will experience a rude awakening.
My personal experience is that it takes a good 6 months of regular effort to amass the 500SP required to gain access to a vote slider. While gaining access to it is hardly the 'endgame' goal - it is a landmark event that makes one feel more like a fully-fledged user of the platform.
With new users covered, lets get to the meat of regular user rewards.
In my view, part of the problem concerning the way in which the rewards pool is being used (and abused) concerns the fact that all posts have a seven day reward period.
It is my view that the time has come to cast this aside, in favour of a more complicated but more sane and forward-thinking system. It shall be necessary to break this down in points.
Rewards on Posts are Listed Primarily in Steem & SBD, not Dollars
It is well-known that seeing pending rewards diminish is a soul-destroying exercise but more importantly it gets people thinking in Steem rather than dollars.
Of course, in the 'Wallet' section of the website, allow users to get a 'current estimate' of worth in the currency of their choice. For 50/50 posts - show both values in a (SBD/STEEM) format (yes, with different colours - which reminds me - introduce colour text formatting to Steemit!).
Flags Affect Reputation but Not Payouts
There exists a ludicrous situation where users are justifying the use of flags upon other peoples posts because they are being too richly rewarded. They have gained some traction through asking people to think of flags as down-votes and therefore acceptable for use even when users did nothing wrong...
While admitting that this sort of comes down to personal philosophy - it is highly doubtful that those who purvey of such reasoning apply it to either those that they like or to themselves.
In other words their views suffer in the 'Consistency' department.
On the other hand, I personally view flags as a means of correcting bad behavior as an indirect means of encouraging good behavior.
I've never flagged a user. Some users deserve to be flagged. I am consistent in my inaction.
Apportion Rewards for Long-Term Cycling
Every post ever created has multiple leases upon life.
In association with it is all the SBD/ STEEM ever attributed in relation to it.
However to casual external users (those who do not plumb the blockchain), the reward totals get reset to zero at various points - with rewards attributed to the individual's reward tally.
This occurs after 3 days, 7 days, 21 days, and every 90 days following this.
Yes - this is a residual income system. It is what Steemit always should have been but fell short.
As per normal there is a profit motive that encourages curators to keep plugging for the best content.
And yes this will require a rebalancing of rewards that are presently designed to be reaped a mere 7 days in.
The point of curation is to bring read-worthy content to the attention of a given community, right?
So let us, to a point, do away with a first-come-best-served system that heavily discriminates in favour of the first!
Instead, let us determine time brackets as follows:
0-15 minutes = Up-Votes Disabled (Username & Post Age also Hidden)
15-30 minutes = Shared 1st Stake (Username also Hidden)
30-60 minutes = Shared 2nd Stake (Username also Hidden)
1-3 hours = Shared 3rd Stake (Username also Hidden)
3-6 hours = Shared 4th Stake
6-12 hours = Shared 5th Stake
12-18 hours = Shared 6th Stake
18-24 hours = Shared 7th Stake
Over 24 hours = Shared nth Stake
Disabled Up-Votes - Blunting the dominance of bots and opportunists comes this measure. It is modestly presumed that a reader dealing in meaningful curation will need a few minutes to read content. Too many up-votes occur for reasons other than recognizing the value of a given post in question. While this behavior cannot be eliminated - it sure can be mitigated.
Shared Stakes Getting in first is less important than pitching one's support during a given 'stake bracket'. Brackets essentially take a portion of a post's rewards and distributes that among those laid a stake upon it.
While there will remain an advantage to curating sooner - the differences with regards cousin curations in the same bracket shall be much less pronounced.
Residual Stake Since persons can (presently) only upvote a given piece of content the one time, I do see that persons who get in on a given bracket will also have a residual claim from that point forward.
Trending... Hot... New... Promoted...
'Home'... and Resteeming...
These are the only built-in mechanisms by which a user's content can reach others.
Let us refine and expand upon this.
If its not a time-bound category (like 'new') then mix it up - a lot!
Posts 'can' be sorted by any of a variety of criteria:
What is missing here are a few more criterias
Or more refined criteria such as:
And lets talk about the filtering currently at play. Is there any reason why a user cannot follow certain tags that may or may not be in the limited 'top paid' list?
Lets decide to get our acts together! Its due to oversights such as the above that so many posts fail to even see the light of day.
As mentioned before, the brackets system provides scope for reducing appraisal of a given post by virtue of familiarity alone. A period of posts not showing who wrote them should help with that (and lets face it, some users have their posts rewarded just because they posted them...).
The same bracket system permits for posts to be cycled and displayed in a manner that does not always show the most recent first. Posts tumble in this fashion as individuals go through them - wondering which ones were written by a reputation 70+ user and which by a newbie.
Of course - people still have a degree of cognizance with regards their 'Home' page - where their followed individuals' posts aren't similarly blacked out (but still would appear so in other sections of the website - until past that initial 3 hour period).
This is a start but a lot more could be done.
The post tagging system could be improved upon to finally provide the reshuffle that is well-needed.
One reason why the tags do not change much is because they are measures primarily in terms of rewards. In this way, less "important" tags simply don't get exposure.
Through a simple cycling system whereby tags placed on the front page change every single time the page is loaded, with weighted preference but not exclusive domain for well-rewarded tags, different kinds of information come to light.
Furthermore, a means of adding tags to a given custom view page would allow users to create their own special interests-focused lists, listed above next to 'promoted' - and multiple lists one could have - one focusing upon news and current events while another focusing on nature and gardening - for instance.
Well... first of all this is not 'only' about reward pool rape - even if it is a big issue. A simple solution toward mitigating that is ceasing the allowance of self-up-votes (d'oh). Of course some might counter that the whole 'residual income' thing is just as bad if not worse. Just because something is desirable does not necessarily mean that it is sustainable.
The key here is to set the balance just right.
Also, ironically, and perhaps the hardest sell within this post - I propose that a cycle-back to pool be calculated upon capital gains per post.
Let us suppose that a single post generates $1,000,000-worth in up-votes.
No, I've never seen anybody earn that much on a post - but lets call it 'thinking ahead'.
Cycle-Back - Reward Bracket
50.0% - $100,000-$1,000,000 & Beyond
35.0% - $10,000-$100,000
25.0% - $1,000-$10,000
15.0% - $100-$1,000
10.0% - $10-$100
05.0% - $1-$10
02.5% - $0-$1
Yes, this looks a lot like a tax.
Like a tax it serves as a 'wealth redistribution mechanism' that serves to reduce the draw of the heaviest drawers capital gains per-post - and it is automatically calculated as amounts rise and fall (since that leaves a less bitter taste in the mouth). Yes, the above would ideally be rethought to be represented in STEEM/SBD rather than $.
The taxed value goes toward pro-common purposes like propping up new active users and also for helping to sustain the residual cycles of income...
This also applies to curation rewards...
And also any rewards on subsequent cycles (although, as mentioned before, cycle-back is calculated upon every reward period.
So, to give an example - Let us suppose, for the sake of simplicity that a post has been around for 40 days.
In the first 3 day period it accrues $250 in gross rewards
($0-1= -$0.025, $1-10 = $0.45, $10-100 = -$9.00, $100-250 = -$22.50: Total Cycle-back = $31.975)
In the subsequent 7 days it accrues $50 in gross rewards, and
($0-1= -$0.025, $1-10 = $0.45, $10-50 = -$4: Total Cycle-back = $4.475)
In the subsequent 21 days it accrues $10 in gross rewards.
($0-1= -$0.025, $1-10 = $0.45: Total Cycle-back = $0.475)
Net rewards following the three hypothetical reward cycles:
$218.025 + $45.525 + $9.525 = $273.075
And there are more cycles to come. What will bring rewards? New people who come across the content and find it to be vote-worthy. With the reward cycles system posts would no longer be completely dead.
Now - all that remains to add to 'this' portion of the mix is to allow users to bring more visibility to these older posts if they so choose - and you'll have the beginnings of something a lot less inefficient than the 'post-and-leave-to-obscurity' approach that Steemit presently adopts.
This is not a full solution but it is a mitigation.
It may well still require for value to be added to Steem via another means so as to better balance the rewards pool books.
But something should be clear.
Yes we can.
As an aside, I may not be a particularly capable blockchainer but I am a reasonably capable thinker. I am increasingly interested in delving beneath the surface. If you have a project that you can see me contributing to then this is not a bad time to let me know.
Well this is one reason why I was a little quiet these past days. :c) I like to think things through even if I have a good idea of what I'd like to say - and this topic has long since been on my mind in some form or other.
Do you have any feedback or comments? Perhaps you can think of further enhancements?
I look forward to addressing them down below. :c)
Also, if you found this post interesting and would like to share this with your followers and friends then a resteem is always greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
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