My wife and I got to head out for a few hours tonight and grab dinner together, as we were able to have a family member babysit for us. It is pretty rare to have any evening time away from our daughter and hopefully now that she is getting a bit better with her foods, we can do it more often. "Alone time" currently means talking about renovation plans.
Over dinner - we talked bathrooms and laundries - risque.
But I am not here to talk about house renovation foreplay.
There are some concerns that the 
Firstly, the concerns for abuse are generally surrounding the cross-posting of one's own posts in order to get multiple payouts on the same post. At the moment (afaik) the split percentage for author/ sharer/ interface is 90/5/5, so I could cross-post my content which creates a new post, and double-dip on my autos. This is very possible but also relatively easy to spot. If I see large accounts reposting themselves in this way, it will likely be met with flags.
So then, they will cross-post from their alts to abuse the autos instead. Yes, probably, and this is harder to detect. But since this feature is generally reserved for the best content, it will be pretty obvious when it happens again and again on the same author. While this seems like a good way to make some extra Steem it is also likely a very good way to lose a lot of autovoters. I encourage autovoters to make sure to check on what they are voting on often.
The third point is cross-post selling, which would be much like bidbots except instead of paying delegators, an account with autvoters on them could take a kickback for cross-posting someone else's content. Again possible, harder to detect, but once detected it is likely that the account will lose their autovoters due to their scammy ways.
Well, firstly when it comes to the abuse of the cross-posting functionality, it is pretty easy to spot what is a cross-post and where it comes from. When it comes to the larger accounts, more people will have their eyes on them anyway and the potential loss for losing autovoters is far greater. Those who abuse it are either very greedy, or very stupid.
But beyond the abuse.
Encouraging and incentivizing sharing is a brilliant move to get good content to spread. An individual curator who s able to do this well and build up a following can earn without having a lot of Steem Power to curate. Previously, curation was the main reason (from an economic perspective) to resteem a post as one could vote early, resteem and get more votes to come in on top - this is obviously more of an advantage for those who have SP and a following.
However, because this is targeted at sharing through communities, a curator can cross post relevant content into a tailored community and add value to the community by introducing good content and add value through a percentage of the post rewards. Without creating anything, the curator can earn a percentage and the original author earn a lot more without having to market themselves. This value adds to author and sharer, who could become a valuable content influencer within a community.
For example. Let's say I post this piece of content to the OCD community as it is my main community at the moment. However, someone might think that it also fits into the SteemLeo Community and cross-posts it on their account into there. While I wouldn't do this for my own content because I see it as double dipping from my own audience, it is up to the marketplace if they think it fits their audience.
This creates two (or more) instances of my posts that can receive votes, but the audiences might not have any overlap at all between who read the first, and who will read the second. This is content exposure. Not only that, the cross-posted content might not earn Steem at all, but could attract an SMT from the community it is cross-posted into.
Remember that we are here to empower users in many ways and that many of us have been begging for more rewards for good content creators. Providing incentives to share means that users who might not have Steem Power (or other SMT power) and do not have the skill or will to create, can still earn something on their consumption - with no financial investment. And, the incentive is to share good content that the community values. This adds another filter to the proof-of-brain mechanism.
I would be quite happy to be able to have a larger percentage of the gains go to the sharer and further incentivize them. The reason is that they may have access to audiences I do not or do not have the time to share to, and essentially they become a part of my distribution network. It really is no skin off my nose and it is up to them to shill me if they want to earn more. I would predict that most of the cross-posted content isn't going to earn much unless it comes from a large account.
And then we have this. If for example I find content that I really really want to reward and believe that my audience would apprectiate it as much as me, I can cross-post it and that author is going to benefit heavily from the autovoters that I have worked very hard to gain over the last three years. The effort to gain them also means I do not want to lose them, so I do not want to cross-post undeserving crap, as it is not in my best interest to do so.
This is where a large account with autovoters would be very stupid to take payment for cross-posting, because once an auto is removed, it isn't likely it is coming back. I would have to be very careful as each cross-post will be a short gain for the user I support, but a potential very long loss for me as an active creative on Steem and someone who values my time, content, the community and my ability to earn into the future.
Yes, there is potential for and very likely will be abuse, but whenever there is anything of value to gain, there will be those who try to scam the system. If you haven't learned that from being on Steem yet, you haven't been here very long, or you are blind. In society, these abuses and abusers are generally hidden away, but on Steem they are far more exposed and traceable in history, plaus there are mechanisms to deal with them directly, through downvotes, mutes, unfollows, loss of delegations and turning off the autovote switch on those who abuse the trust.
But, I believe that on this one, the potential for far ranging benefits outweigh the costs of short-term abuse as it provides a feather in Steem's cap that further differentiates it from the market place of the attention economy.
For instance, I am one man sitting at my dining room table each night after working two jobs during the day - I am not overly skilled at or have the time for promoting myself - but I do create relatively decent content that seems to add value to the community in some way. This means that you my audience become my word of mouth publicist and can benefit from doing so while supporting your communities and me in a win-win-win scenario.
I will say it again. This has the potential to be a game-changer on the internet as people will be rewarded for doing what they are currently doing for free - taking engaging content viral.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I apologize for the even longer than normal post, but I think that this has to not only be addressed, but given a chance despite bad actors and other risks. However, keep a very close eye on the cross-posters you see and the values they get. Be curious and skeptical - click the link and see what is shared. You might be pleasantly surprised and find some great content, you might have a target to downvote.
