The cryptocurrency markets are down and Steem is no exception. For all of us great and small that has equated to taking a pay cut each and every day. The stress is starting to show.
If you are a blogger you have likely seen the dollar amount of your earning decreasing with no end in sight. If you are a stakeholder you've watched your Steem Worth steadily dropping.
The site has seen less activity and participation and it feels bad.
There has been a flurry of proposals to change the economy of Steem.
I like the idea that the community is attempting to find solutions and stop the bleeding of the value of Steem.
The 50/50 debate is among the most interesting proposals I've read because it is counter-intuitive.
Currently, we see a 75/25 Author/Curation Split.
The proposal changes the distribution of rewards - if approved a $10 dollar post would pay roughly $5 dollars to the poster and $5 would be spread to the curators. (upvoters)
At first glance, it seems that Content Creators would earn less. However, the idea is to change behavior. If you could earn by curating excellent articles and engaging with them, maybe people wouldn't feel the need to post as often, which might create fewer posts with more engagement.
The theory is that there would be less motive to post and more motive to curate and engage.
No one knows if this measure would work and there is a lot of discussion about it. Many predicting they are the only one who really understands how this will work.
It could work as intended and create fewer posts with more engagement, lower the profit margin on voting bots and reduce the number of shit posts. Or on the other hand it could backfire and become a gameable way to "bet' on who's posts are going to earn the most and direct most of the rewards to Authors that people assume are going to be successful. This would happen as a result of chasing the now more profitable curation rewards.
My thoughts are we are going to have a long grind waiting for SMTs and I see zero indications that there will be a huge Crypto Pump in the near future. (not seeing it doesn't mean it will not happen) So, I am glad to see anything that pumps some life back into Steem, gets large stakeholders to come out and discuss and debate topics. Those who are pushing these changes would have the motive to help make the changes successful. Although it is risky it is a calculated risk, and I am FOR changing to 50/50 rewards. That doesn't mean anyone is going to code it, drop it and ask that it be included in a future hardfork. None the less, it is great to see animated discussions and attempts to bring value back to Steem.
In the meantime, there are plenty of things we can do to improve our current situation without code changes.
Fight abuse via flags
Support Engagement
We already have the tools to reduce the flow of Steem out of the system by bad actors. I made a post a couple of days ago about an account that was obviously fake and plagiarizing content and had been voted up via the bots, although my post got quite a bit of engagement, very few followed up with flags to return those funds to the reward pool. I guess because they think it is cheaper to watch the value of Steem drop than it is to break out their flags.
In addition, we bleed users because many stakeholders are busy stacking tokens, and are uninterested and uninvolved in ensuring the rewards go to those who are putting the effort in on the site.
I manually curate every day with both flags and upvotes. I engage and comment, if your stake is sitting around doing nothing or you are choosing to burn it, why not delegate to someone who is actively trying to make this site work? If you don't want to delegate, feel free to follow my votes.