As expected, there is going to be a patch to the system that subsidises Resource Credits, essentially making it 10x cheaper for interactions. This essentially had to happen but, there needed to be feedback from the chain in order to workout what that rate would be. What is pretty cool is that some of these algorithm tweaks are possible on the fly which makes adjustments much easier as more feedback arrives. Let's see how it plays out.
But, onto the case at hand.
There have been a lot of complaints that goes something like "My alt account with 3 SP can't post" and I say, good. That sounds unsympathetic to all of the small users with very low SP who are struggling to do anything but, these are alts, not small users. If someone doesn't have the SP to delegate to their own alt for it to be able to post as they would like, perhaps considering the viability of the alt itself should be asked.
When delegations were introduced it allowed for people to essentially create their own accounts cheaply (0.1 Steem) and immediately. What this resulted in was lots of alts. The recommendation was to give alts at least 14.5 Steem so they had bandwidth to be able to interact to some level with the blockchain. Steemit delegated this precise amount to new accounts and then removed it gradually as those accounts engaged and earned. The problem was, that people didn't do this.
Rather, what they did was create alts and accounts for friends and family and then remove the delegations later leaving accounts with 2 or 3 or in some cases ZERO SP, making the accounts very, very weak f not untenable. Then, prices increased, the blockchain was flooded with people trying to get some overpriced SBD and, tiny accounts as expected, ran out of bandwidth. There were frozen accounts all over the place.
Ah, but that wasn't all.
People had delegated so much to bidbots that during this time their accounts became unusable and I personally and others had to go around delegating to accounts that had effectively been frozen because they had no bandwidth to act. Bandwidth isn't a free resource and the old system didn't calculate it accurately enough so essentially these accounts were delegating all of their own bandwidth to maximize profits while piggybacking on the bandwidth of others for interaction earnings.
There are thousands of accounts that have significant SP now but they delegate the large majority of it to bidbots. While a few days ago they could still go around commenting, posting and voting at 100% with 5 SP in their accounts hoping for votes on their posts, now having to pay real price for their bandwidth they are stuck. In these cases I am sorry, not sorry. Getting 100% votes and comments from people with 5,000 SP but only 50 'effective' SP is pretty demoralising considering the vote I am going to give their comment is worth 100 times more than they give my post and, they aren't a small startup account.
So, where are we?
What all of this eventuated in is an estimated 60,000 active accounts with 30,000 of them being automated. There are 1.2+ million accounts on Steem so, these numbers are pretty significant as it means on average, every account has FORTY alts. Yes, there are plenty of dead accounts of people leaving but having such cheap account creation didn't result in mass onboarding, it resulted in mass alt creation. There are some users like dart/tard who have 8000+ accounts alone.
Having an account on a blockchain that offers value in return for comments should be somewhat of a scarce resource and even though the parameters might have been a little draconian, there should be incentive to continually power up and there should be incentive to power up enough to FIRST engage with the community before having enough to delegate out to bidbots and maximize earnings.
If the excuse for bidbots is for investors to passively earn that is fine because passive means no need to interact with the blockchain, delegate and there is no need to consume other resources. If the bidbot of choice casts votes from ones own account however, there has to still be enough active SP in that account to cast enough votes. If it is a straight delegation, not a lot of RCs are needed because passive means no posts, no comments, no votes cast. There of course has to be a little to occasionally claim earnings though.
Finding balance
My hope is that now people are going to be forced into thinking through their strategy meaning that if they want to earn through posting and comments, they are going to have to work to have SP, buy SP or, pull back their delegated SP from bidbots. Those with many alts with low SP might want to think about how thin they are spread. What this should do is bring a little more active SP into the pool that isn't being used by the bidbots on 0.6% of posts to distribute 29% of the pool. Perhaps once people understand the real cost of being part of the community, they will better appreciate those who have been here all along.
As far as the alts with 3 SP are concerned, if you are in that position and it doesn't grant you enough resources to use the way you want it to work, you now know that it was always intended to be that way to limit armies of nothing accounts. The value in the community here is the value in the community here and these accounts aren't adding value, they are almost purely extractors with many being spammers. Yours might be but, how to tell the difference? Active SP.
Of course, there are other reasons to have these accounts like to separate real content from shitposts or Actifit updates but again, if one doesn't have the resources to maintain all positions, one has to consider how their personal resources are distributed and, their own position in the community. If your shitposting alt can't interact but you don't want that kind of content on your main, don't shitpost. If you want to earn tokens from 
There is an opportunity cost to every action and up until now, people have been over extended without actually knowing it. Essentially, many accounts have been running unsustainably but it was subsidised by the poor calculation of the costs of the blockchain. Now we see how unsustainable some accounts are but people still forget that transactions on this blockchain are free as long as one has enough SP to make them.
Going forward
This also relates heavily to those inviting people into the community and then leaving their account with 3 SP. That was never a smart move. But, what might get interesting later is if the Dapps take control of most onboarding activities, can create and approve accounts immediately and have resource credits and SP to reward users, most of this is not a problem as they will be able to make sure that the accounts that sign up through them will be able to adequately function if they choose.
Although all of this might change the behaviours of many smaller accounts and should force some accounts to pull back some SP from bidbots (it takes 5 days to get the undelegation power back now, not 7), it will hopefully mean that there is less spam, less nothing accounts voting, posting and commenting while they are concurrently earning from delegations to bidbots and perhaps, more genuine and well thought out comments from accounts looking to earn that way. The spamming "nice posts" and "great pics" hoping for a vote on their comment are effectively neutered meaning they will have to step up their game and think about the way they interact.
I know that the way this is happening isn't ideal but at the same time, the intention behind the updates is to improve user experience for a stronger community, not a a community diluted by many accounts with 3 SP. At least not yet. This means it needs to encourage users to power up, to earn via activity and those looking to only earn passively can still do so. This update is a platform game changer in many respects meaning that how the game was played on September 24th is no longer the way the game is best played now so individual action is necessary.
Everyone's a loser
The interesting thing is that no matter what happens, people aren't going to be happy with the results if their strategy for playing the game is affected and they have a sense of loss. For other users who have long-term goals here, the challenges faced are hiccups and potholes but are all working toward a better, more sustainable and more rewarding experience for the members of the community who plan on being here in the future.
There are many nuances not mentioned here and you don't have to agree with my view and perhaps my predictions are wrong but, I am going to keep playing, keep learning and keep adjusting as the environment changes around me. And rather than focus on present pain, recognize and accept it for what it is, growing pains.
How we act when change happens defines us.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]