A new balance
Let's make blockchain publishing great again
Producers add value
It must have been about ten times that I rewrote this article from scratch. As I do tend to act cynical, sarcastic and get more and more angry, when it comes to the subject of Hard-Fork 21 {HF21}. Well, actually mostly about one part, the change from a 75-25% payout split to a 50-50 one. This will drop the potential rewards of the substantive publishers by a massive 33%, while the up-voting consumers of their work can look forward to a 100% (or even more) gain. Which will go to the most extreme wealthy Steem accounts, for the largest part, that are backed by the most Steem Power {SP}. Steem will become more and more like a Game Of Bots {GOB} and so much less of a freedom of expression publication platform. This does worry me, besides that it angers me when I think about it too much, especially after doing some calculations. And even though I do actually still feel quite pissed off, I want to do my best to keep it 'real'. Therefore I will do my best to stay away from subjective words like 'fair'. As this has a different meaning for a lot of us. To one it is dividing the newly created Steem in equal parts for every publication, about 12 $ or 10 € at current rates. For the other it is competition up to a level where 'greed is good', 'law of the jungle' and 'it is a dog-eats-dog life'.
How to find a balance between extremes? Well, that could be done by finding a common ground for all to start from. What comes to mind is that probably all Steem members want a solid market-price. It being rather more close to 12 $ / 10 €, dan to zero, nothing , zilch, njente, nada. (Except for the haters, but they will hate anyway.) Now, the question remains, no matter what the emotions are on the Crypto-currency market, how to get the value of Steem up. Then it has to be clear first up front, I think, that Steem is not Bitcoin. Yes that may look like me trying to kick in an already open door, but it is an important pre-assumption to understand, I think. Bitcoin and Steem both are working Block-Chains and that is it. BTC is a value holder, like gold, that needs a second layer for fast payments. Steem is a Social Media Platform on a Block-Chain, that offers Freedom Of Expression and can be used to build dApps upon. The activity connected to these functions will define the value of Steem. Publishing is the most important part of the Steem platform. Without publishers that produce creative work, where they put in time, energy and effort, Steem as a platform will become just another speculative Block-Chain Token. Ruled by a Game Of Bots. Now, I want it to be the original idea.
How to do it
A 98-2% payout split
Producers of publications are the most important part of Steem as a Social Media Platform, without them there is no Steem. Those who consume the works and up-vote it can get some appreciation for it. Just like loyal customers of a store. But with a 2% reward to share among the up-voters I think that is quite enough. Although a payout split percentage slider could be added, if wanted. Then the substantive publisher can decide how the consumers are rewarded for being a customer that appreciated the created work by up-voting it.Detach SP from voting
Leaving MANA (Resource Credit) the way it is. This would mean that every Steem account will have the same voting strength, which could still go from 1 to a 100%. Yet, is does not directly matter how much Steem Power {SP} a vote casting account has. Then somebody will drag Sybil in and warns about her attacking the reward pool. Yet currently we have a reversed Sybil situation, where a few ultra wealthy Steem accounts can do whatever they want. (With the 50-50 payout split making it even worse.) And a Sybil attack, as it is known, is less of a worry since we have MANA or Resource Credits. As even Zombie account botnets will need to have enough MANA to be able to vote a lot. Now a rogue entity in control over an ultra wealthy Steem account would need to fill those thousands of Steem Zombie accounts with enough Steem Power {SP} to even have the slightest effect. Costing SP interest and MANA for the main controller account. Having MANA will become more important, staking Steem Power for that too.Resource Credits / MANA rule
Steem member accounts that are friendly towards others and the community will thrive. Rogue entities will start to lose influence, even if they control witnesses in the top 20. As SP got detached from voting strength a rogue entity with a lot of SP can not keep itself in the top 21. Things can be balanced out. Bid-bots will be a thing of the past too, massive vote sellers will be as much useful as 'resteem' selling to 20K accounts. There is not enough profit to make on trail-voting or sponsored up-voting. And the Steem accounts that made profits by offering Bid-bot services will probably go for dApp development. That is also a nice way to earn some Steem, say 10% benefit for the usage, for instance. (So I do not worry about them, they'll be just fine.) By making MANA (Resource Credits) the most important way to interact with the Steem Block-Chain it can balance things out quite nicely for everybody. And dApp owners can be happy to know that their product and or service will still work the same as before. Maybe even better.Buy MANA, burn Steem
One thing that might be considered a downer for the price of Steem is the inflation rate. 250 million Steem was issued already in the first year. A lot of the ultra wealthy Steem accounts came into existence within a year and they became a huge source of might. The newly created Steem per year already dropped to below 10%, slowing down inflation. With more new members wanting some payout for their publications, the possible average payout value now is at about 12 $ or 10 € for every publication. So if your payouts are close to 9 $ or 7.50 € (75% part of the split), then you are on average. Unfortunately with the Bit-Bot services it will be hard to even get close to that value. Also using Post Promotion seems to have become pretty useless. Even though Steem accounts using it do actually serve the whole Steem community, instead of those using Bid-Bot services. Why? Because using Post Promotion, to get attention for a publication is actually 'burning' Steem in the proces, by sending it to the @null address. That will make Steem more scarce, or in other words it is creating a rotation economy. That way new Steem can be created, without to much to worry about devaluation. And now imagine an account is out off MANA, but still wants to vote or publish, interact with the Steem blockchain? Well, then buy an instant MANA (RC) rebuild, the price depending on demand and what the blockchain can handle at that moment. While every-time this is done the Steem payed for the instant MANA rebuild is burned in the @null address!
Yeah, but the curators and the investors
Pure investors, will still be rewarded, just like before, by having Steem Power at Stake, like every other Steemian, getting interest in that gets added every 3 seconds. And if a certain amount of Steem gets burned then their SP will become worth more over time. And there is nothing they have to do, well, maybe support ideas to actually make Steem great. But there is no real need for them to do so.
Curators will be become known, maybe, as consumers. And they have to settle with a 2% deal, which they will have to share with others who up-voted. But Steem is a platform that does get its value from publishers. That do not have to publish about Steem and its community all of the time. As that might not even be that interesting for those who might be interested in Steem as a Social Media and dApp Platform. No producers, no publishers and what will be left of Steem? Now one interesting thing about Steem is that even if the accounts formerly known as curators, are now consumers getting a 2% loyalty deal, they can earn more, by commenting. As that is their own publication, that will give them the 98% part. That way the 98-2% payout split will make it more interesting to actually get involved, not only vote as fast as possible, on as much as possible publications, but really respond to the content that publishers provide.
Finally
Cutting the potential payout for the publishers by 33% to me is a very bad idea. As I think that many creative publishers who put time, effort and energy in their work might leave. That would leave Steem in a weird situation were there is nothing really interesting to value anymore. No more visitors to make the advertisement at SteemIt dot com worth placing it. And it could become like a chaotic Game Of Bots. Probably the magic hand above the market might start to reward publications that are produced by Machine Learning {ML} and Artificial Intelligence {AI}. That would be quite boring to look at as a real human being, I guess. Just a bunch of bot controlled accounts leading a zombie network of drone voters and automated content creators.
With this post I shared my take on the 50-50% payout split, to be added with HF21. To me it is sophism to suggest it will stop 'self-upvoting', or to state things that on Steem publishers still will get payed more than elsewhere. ("Look, we only cut off one hand...") That is just trying to hide the fact that publishers get a 33% reward cut on behalve of the up-voting consumers (also known as curators). And gaining a 100% (or more) by doing so. And as it is still Steem Power backed voting that means the most wealthy accounts, with Bid-Bot services attached for instance, will gain the most. (There is interest on SP for every Steemian, remember?)
Yet, like a lot of times before, I feel like somebody shouting in the dessert for help. But hey, at least I gave it a shot.
Yet, no matter what, have a great one anyway!
An apparent real human being, named Sybil, yet does not exist at all.
Image Public Domain, courtesy of https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/image
PS Try and refresh the thispersondoesnotexist page as often as you like. Maybe you'll find an AI created look alike...
Edit: Removed a few useless lines, added a PS.