I've been on Steemit now for around 2-3 months and have a SP of around 50. (All my profit goes into SP.) I've made a few observations about curation that I thought were noteworthy. At first, these observations were focused on how minnows should operate if they want to profit from curation, but as I thought about them more, I recognized that they were observations that everyone should consider for the good of Steemit on the whole.

1. Myths

1.1 Upvote good ($uccessful) content

We're told that curation means finding good posts, upvoting them, and sharing the profit. This is true, sort of, but not really. Consider the community leaders that routinely have $50-100 profit for their posts, typically having 100+ upvotes. (Do they really have 100+ readers within the first 20 minutes of the work being posted? I don’t think so.)

Why upvote them?

To get noticed? If there are over 100+ votes, it is unlikely you'll be noticed, especially as a minnow.

To profit? I've never profited upvoting a popular Steemian. These posts have 100+ voters, many of whom have higher SP than I do.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't upvote these posts, especially if you enjoy the content, but I am saying that you shouldn't upvote them with the expectation of a payout.

1.2 Optimal upvotes come at 27 minutes

We're told that the optimal time to upvote is 27 minutes to maximize curation profits. Basically this balances "losing" profit to the authors versus the competition among curators. Again, as a minnow, if you're competing for curation and trying to find the optimal vote time, then you've already lost because the vote is going to be diluted.

Admittedly, if the author is using upvote services in a massive fashion, there might be something said for upvoting within the 30 minute window, but otherwise this is a losing race.

1.3 Older posts aren't worth upvoting

From what I can tell, once my posts are over 24 hours old, or even older than 30 minutes many times, they might as well be erased for all time. If you're looking to profit from curation, and you are a minnow, then this myth is true, mostly. It isn’t true in the case where authors receive upvotes from comminties such as @steemstem, @utopian-io, etc, because these upvotes sometimes come later in the post’s life.

I find this heartbreaking because it means that almost nobody is reading and upvoting my posts for the content, only because of the potential for payout.

2. Curation for minnows

Addressing Steemit purely as an economic game, you have to think in terms of it being a game. Being a small fish, means that playing the same game as everyone else will result in your losing. Imagine if everyone bets on the same horse at the track, or the same stock in the market, there is no profit.

How then do you win?

You bet on the outsider. Find an unknown Steemian, someone that is active, posting frequently. They should have no more than 4-5 upvotes per post, and preferably they don't regularly use upvote bots, since this attracts too much attention. They should have posts with payouts typically ranging $0.00 to $0.05 with random posts receiving $50.00, which come from sponsors such as DTube or DLive.

Finding a Steemian such as this, means that upvoting all their content will result in your having continual payouts of 0.10 SP per week. This isn't huge, but consider that upvoting popular authors nets you 0.00. My having 0.10 SP profit, while holding 50 SP, means a constant income of 0.2% weekly. My knowledge of economics math is limited, and I might be wrong here, but I calculate this to be around 10.4% APR compounded weekly.

The process of finding outsiders needs to be continually revised. If you did find someone that is successful, they will eventually become popular and at that point you will no longer profit from upvoting them. On the other hand, if you find a dud, a Steemian that has nothing to offer, their rewards from DTube, DLive, etc, will eventually disappear and you need to move on.

3. Greater implications

From my perspective, the observations here are that the curation process is kind of stuck right now primarily due to the myths and economic forces. I mean, highly voted Steemians will continue to be highly voted, for reasons that are not well justified and posts older than 30 minutes old will continue to be neglected. Small Steemians will continue to whither.

How did this all happen?

My knowledge of the history is limited, but from what I can tell post-mortem, during the Steem boom upvote services boosted the curation profits, typically voting at 30 minutes. This means that anyone wishing to take parasitic profits would need to vote at 25-29. Even now, during the crash, as the profitability of bots diminish, the folklore continues to drive this.

It seems to me that there needs to be a cultural reset, if only temporary, to get users to begin upvoting both more diversely and for posts greater than a few days old.

One approach to driving this might be to ask institutions and communities, such as @dtube, @dlive, @steemstem, @steemkitchen, @utopian-io, etc., only vote once a post is over 4 days old, thus keeping the readers awaiting the potential upvote. If other upvote services, such as @minnorbooster, and @smartsteem would be willing to play along, this also would be beneficial. Perhaps an approach that upvote services could take would be to implement a sliding scale based on the time of the vote, i.e., they could charge more for votes occurring before day 4. (Of course this doesn't make economic sense for the upvote service so some other incentive should be considered.)

4. Postscript

Please do not consider this as an anti-bot post. I do think that bots have been overall damaging, but as a new member, I also see that bots are the only way for minnows to get noticed. The upvote circles formed by the first-generation Steemians are exclusionary, and climbing to the point that one can participate means either buying in (During a crash? Nope!) or using upvote services. Basically, there are some serious cultural problems here on Steemit that need to be addressed. Curation, bots, and upvote circles are just the forefront of deeper issues.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this.