RE: For the First Time, I Might Be Losing Faith in Steem...

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RE: For the First Time, I Might Be Losing Faith in Steem...

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smooth in #steem • 5 years ago (edited)

I downvoted that other post because I thought it was overrewarded (though I'm pretty sure my vote didn't put it below zero).

I'm even more sure that this whiny post is overrewarded, so I'm downvoting this one too.

No one is entitled to rewards on Steem

Anyone can post. You posts are not censored or removed. However, earning rewards happens at the end of the voting period based on a consensus of stakeholder voters. In my case I'm judging whether, in my subjective view, the posts are adding value to Steem as clearly evidenced in one of the following ways: a) attracting and retaining new users to Steem (for example influencers who not only have a large following, but who are also demonstrably promoting Steem and bringing their audience to Steem); b) attracting and retaining new investors in the STEEM (or even SBD) token; c) development of new apps/games/services etc. (or contributing to the development of the core Steem blockchain itself) which make Steem more useful and will serve to support (a) or (b); d) improving the immediate fundamental economics of Steem (e.g. by burning STEEM and therefore reducing inflation); e) generally small rewards (with some potential of occasional viral "lottery effect" which serve to directly attract new users, serve as a token of appreciation/respect/tip exchanged among users (usually comment votes), and distribute Steem to new users.

Routine blog/vlog posts which give one's opinion of the day on various topics which are a dime a dozen on the internet are not contributing high value to Steem in my opinion. I'm perfectly okay with seeing them get moderate earnings in the range of a few dollars (which is vastly more than they would get anywhere else), but if more than that, I consider them overrewarded, especially if the high rewards are consistently repeated (milking). Again, this is all my subjective opinion, and while other stakeholders opinions may differ, they are all entitled to their opinions, and upvoting/downvoting accordingly.

One last time: You don't "earn rewards" due to earlier votes and then have later downvotes "take them away", that's not how it works. Again, rewards are only earned at the end of voting, when the blockchain assesses to the overall consensus of stakeholder voters.

5 years ago in #steem by smooth

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louisthomas 5 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to explain how you feel, Smooth.

With all due respect, I must say that I disagree with you for the most part.

Quite honestly, when this kind of downvoting is taking place it destroys any desire that I would otherwise have to invite people to Steem.

My message at one time would've been "if you don't like being at the mercy of employees at YouTube, join Steemit!"

But now you're just swapping being at the mercy of YouTube employees, with being at the mercy of individual whales who subjectively decide that your content isn't worthy or is "over-rewarded".

The lack of an audience here (compared to YouTube), is supposed to be negated by censorship resistance and being able to earn a cryptocurrency. When downvotes can lead to legit posts being hidden on Steemit.com (the most popular app on this blockchain), then you're effectively destroying the two reasons why somebody would choose Steem in the first place.

And though you might say that the rewards weren't "earned", and that they weren't really taken away from me, that's how it feels psychologically when you see $X one minute, that becomes $0 the next.

All of a sudden, I feel more policed on this platform than I do on YouTube.

You might think I'm being dramatic, and that my opinion doesn't matter. But I suspect many content creators would feel the same way, which is very bad for Steem in the long-run.

But once again, thank you for at least taking the time to share your thoughts. Unlike other people who have downvoted me.

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3 votes

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smooth 5 years ago (edited)

My message at one time would've been "if you don't like being at the mercy of employees at YouTube, join Steemit!" But now you're just swapping being at the mercy of YouTube employees, with being at the mercy of individual whales who subjectively decide that your content isn't worthy or is "over-rewarded".

Again, there is a huge, huge difference. YouTube can unilaterally not only shut down your earnings, but remove your channel and all of your content. On Steem, not only can't you be removed, you can always market and appeal to other stakeholders for upvotes which offset or exceeed the downvotes. This is entirely different from YouTube's absolute and arbitrary authority where you have no recourse at all.

As for "whales", how much of your earnings/upvotes are coming from whales? Please don't selectively blame "whales" for downvotes but silently enjoy the whale upvotes. If you don't like whales having influence over rewards, and would prefer to live or die on the basis of grass roots support, please ask your whale upvoters to stop too.

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louisthomas 5 years ago

There's really not a big difference in practice. If every post of mine gets hidden and downvoted, that's effectively the same as being shut down. The technicalities of it all are irrelevant in practice, even if that's not the case in theory.

Steem is way more arbitrary than YouTube right now. YouTube will ban me if I break the terms of service, otherwise I can make as much money as I like without fear of one person influencing that. While as with Steem, somebody can have a huge impact just because they don't like me or the colour of my shirt or whatever. It could be for literally any reason, and nothing stops them.

I'm fine with whales being able to upvote whatever content they like. But psychologically, there's a gigantic difference between not getting upvoted, and being actively downvoted. It's a really crappy feeling for a content creator who might have spent 10+ hours on an individual video. It leads to a lot of anger and frustration, which I don't think is welcome or helpful for this platform.

I'm just sharing the perspective of a fairly large content creator in the crypto space. And I'm telling you that I think the way this plays out is disastrous for the morale of content creators on this platform. And I'm saying that as someone who hopes it succeeds.

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smooth 5 years ago (edited)

There's really not a big difference in practice. If every post of mine gets hidden and downvoted, that's effectively the same as being shut down. The technicalities of it all are irrelevant in practice, even if that's not the case in theory.

At a minimum, you have recourse to appeal to other stakeholders. On YouTube you do not.

In addition, as others have told you, most of the other UIs do not hide content based on votes. That's about half of the usage. So in the worse case, if every post of yours got hidden (which hasn't happened; in fact one was, so this all seems rather drama queen, don't you think?), you would lose about half of your audience on Steem, not all of it.

But psychologically, there's a gigantic difference between not getting upvoted, and being actively downvoted

We know for a fact that the platform can not work without downvotes. So whatever negatives come with that, we'll have to live with, or come up with ways to mitigate. Perhaps you could make some constructive suggestions on the latter.

Personally, I have suggested many times that rewards not be shown in real time, only after payout, to help mitigate the perception of "losing" rewards. TPTB don't agree with me on that, I guess, since it hasn't happened.

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louisthomas 5 years ago

Suggestion: restrict downvotes to spam and abuse only. Everything else, like "overrewarding" is too subjective and just silly. It leads to arguments and bitterness.

Other suggestion to help price of Steem: make it much, much easier for anyone to advertise on Steem and/or appear on trending page. The cost would be burning Steem.

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1 vote

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smooth 5 years ago (edited)

They're good suggestions, but unfortunately both at least somewhat unworkable.

I appreciate the sincere engagement in any case.

I'd add this though:

too subjective

There is no such thing as "too subjective". All rewarding in Steem is 100% subjective. There are no objective criteria such as a revenue share that factors into it. You get rewarded by convincing stakeholders to subjectively value your contribution, and no other way.

It is possible that some UIs might decide to share their ad revenue or other revenue with creators. I suggest you take that up with them. To the extent they do, downvotes won't matter, since no one can downvote what a UI decides to pay you. (And similarly, as stakeholders we have no say in whether or not they do pay you, even if I think they should.)

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1 vote

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joshman 5 years ago

He's raking in steem rewards for also uploading videos to steem, he's going nowhere. He's stacked plenty of sats dumping his steem earnings on blocktrades.

https://steemdb.com/labs/author?grouping=monthly

"Big YouTuber" setting the world on fire? Give me a break.
https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCpceefaJ9vs4RYUTsO9Y3FA

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2 votes