Trending at the top of the front-page are two articles that have a combined reward of $27,951.88 after only 10 hours. With five hours remaining, I imagine this number to go up substantially.
Before I get into the crux of my post I want to make one thing clear: I welcome these authors with open arms and hope they enjoy steemit as much as I do. This is not a personal attack on them.
I just want to express how I'm feeling, and I don't feel great.
If only we were all famous, then we'd be equal
Jeff and Brenda have something in common: they have status and a following outside steemit. This is a huge deal for steemit because it presents an opportunity to spread the word and grow the community. For those who believe in steemit and want it to succeed in the long run, this is a good thing.
But do these posts deserve a large reward and is it fair?
The introduction in the steemit whitepaper lists three principles that guided steemit's design. The second principle states that all forms of capital are equally valuable:
This means that those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash. This is the sweat equity principle and is a concept that prior cryptocurrencies have often had trouble providing to more than a few dozen individuals.
I pride myself on writing thoughtful, quality content that Steemers will find interesting. I spend a couple of hours writing each post. I also spend a substantial amount of time engaging with Steemers on steemit.chat and curating content.
Yet both Jeff and Brenda have earned a much higher reward and have a higher reputation for much less work and much less engagement with the community. This is especially clear in the post by Jeff which stands at just eighty-two words.
And this leaves me feeling dejected and disappointed.
The status and followers that the authors have are another form of capital being brought into the economy, but they are being rewarded disproportionately to other capital, violating the second principle.
If you are famous and have a following, you don't need to work as hard to be rewarded for your effort; you start on a higher level. Perhaps that's just life?
Am I suffering from cognitive dissonance?
Yesterday I wrote a post about cognitive dissonance suggesting that some authors accuse steemit and whales of being unfair as an explanation for their posts performing poorly to avoid having to accept that the post wasn't good enough.
The steemit whitepaper describes a similar behaviour, expressing it as a benefit to the economy:
The economic effect of this is similar to a lottery where people over-estimate their probability of getting votes and thus do more work than the expected value of their reward and thereby maximize the total amount of work performed in service of the community.
Is this happening to me? Am I reconciling the fact I spent hours writing posts that have done poorly when others benefit with little effort by blaming steemit? Have I really overestimated my worth?
I don't think so.
The post I wrote is the second in a series about cognitive biases. Both are written in a similar style, with a similar structure, and related titles:
Whilst the first post did quite well earning $576, the second post only managed $28.05 - a substantial difference. I would expect the second article to do as well as the first given that they are very similar in style and content.
Recognizing contribution
Whenever my post doesn't do as well as I imagined I always respond the same: what can I do better? I spend more time on each post to make it better than the last. I provide more useful comments on other posts. I spend more time talking on steemit.chat getting to know the people who's articles I read every day.
As Boxer in Animal Farm says: "I will work harder".
Except it doesn't get better for everyone. And it can't. The system can't support it:
The impact of this voting and payout distribution is to offer large bounties for good content while still rewarding smaller players for their long-tail contribution.
There have to be small players to allow the large bounties. While you believe you will be rewarded for your effort and quality content, the system can only support so much; in the meantime, you feel you just have to work harder.
But because a lot of the large bounties go to the same author or those who have unequal capital, it creates the feeling of imbalance.
Everyone’s meaningful contribution to the community should be recognized for the value it adds. When people are recognized for their meaningful contributions, they continue contributing and the community grows. Any imbalance in the give and take within a community is unsustainable. Eventually the givers grow tired of supporting the takers and disengage from the community.
I'm growing tired of working hard while seeing others earn big rewards for less. I'm growing tired of always thinking: "If I work harder, the next post will be recognized".
All Steemians are equal, but some are more equal than others.