After two tremendous spikes in the last month, Steem price has been decreasing steadily and it seems to be in a somewhat serious situation. A worse thing is that posts per user is dramatically decreasing. This means that users are not enjoying this platform and may leave to other attractive platform very easily. What makes these outputs?
(Image source: @atomrigs 's post)
Although Steemit sounds very promising, as advertised "post it and earn reward", the reality to regular users is very disappointing. Many of them only got below $0.1 regardless of their efforts on the posts. Obviously there were some junk posts and copy-paste things, but some maybe really worth to be rewarded. I think that there are two main reasons. First, whales are few and they can read a very small number of posts. Undiscovered posts by whales sometimes get over a hundred upvotes but the reward is still below $0.1. Second, reward system is too biased. As mentioned in the white paper, the reward system is bench-marking a casino scheme. But statistics and user experiences so far may tell this is wrong. We should remind that while a few jackpot winners are very happy, many losers are desperate and sometimes give up their lives. The similar thing is happening now in Steemit.
Then what should we do? I want to suggest three points.
1. Limit whales voting power at a certain percentage of total Steem Power
(Original idea is from @slowwalker 's post)
For instance, we can restrict whales voting power at 0.1%. Then if a whale have 5,000 SP out of 500,000 (1.0%), he has the same power with those who has 500 SP (0.1%), but he can vote 10 times more at the full rate. This may cause some whales to split accounts, but this splitting for increasing voting power can be considered as an abuse given the system. This suggestion can make dolphins stronger and results in more distributed power system.
2. Reduce biases in the reward system
Currently the parameter is 2.0 (square) and it brings in a very high head and long tail. But what we need is thick tail. We need to test and simulate other parameters between 1 and 2, focusing on some socially meaningful measurements (e.g. median payout, mode payout bracket, 90/10 ratio, etc). Do not undervalue seemingly-worthless posts. If we can make people happy and retain them, the reward is not a waste. Remember that attracting new user also costs, and ex-users are very very hard to bring back.
3. Reputation-based display should be default
Although payout-based sorting has some importance in terms of system security and users' perception, it's side-effect is also significant - a feeling of inequality. I would suggest a reputation-based display page as a default. People are able to have more influence without having a great amount of money, so that everyone can dream about becoming an important person in this platform. If needed, we surely have to develop better reputation system.
Steemit is mainly a SNS, not a marketplace nor a gambling system. Our first goal should be making as many people happier, then those people will make us succeed. I would really appreciate to developers who are working very hard under the water and many friends who give bitter advises for Steemit.