RE: Scratching the surface to nothing
"in the end 20% of the contributors would get 80% of the rewards anyway."
Yes, that's what happens with the current Steem set-up, because of stake-weighted voting and big stakeholders voting for eachother. It has very little to do with creativity, it has everything to do with stake.
Those who were on the short end of the stick, the creative ones and the real community builders have always been in a rough spot. If there is a way to distribute the rewards in a way more attuned to the people that really add value to the eco-system, it should be considered.
But that's not easy. It has been a huge debate for the past 4 years with no clear vision about what will end up being successfull.
And so, I think the painful conclusion is that as a community, we need strong leadership with a solid vision.
Unpopular question: isn't that exactly what Justin is?
No, it is what happens everywhere. It is called the Pareto Principle.
Depends on the view you take. I am a creator here, always have been. There are others that have started since me who have done well in other ways too.
Yes master. Good master. Smart master.
I agree with your points, and I understand where you are coming from. Principally I'm inclined too towards a liberal mindset where you have responsibility and ownership for your own actions and assets.
But when considering forking off from the JustinSteem chain, I think it should be noted that there are systemic governance risks to having too much stake gravitating to a small group of people. So maybe apply some ideas from socialism into the rewards distribution, care for the minnows first.
The first economic moves he has mentioned is decreasing the powerdown to 1-3 days and more rewards for witnesses.
This completely breaks the voting mechanisms of Steem due to the 5 day voting times.
Reason to do this is:
This might be great for Steem price. I hold my STEEM - do you and everyone else have theirs?
The tap is closing.
Hmmm, if that's ultimately the strategy, it not would be the worst idea actually. I've felt the rewards have been subject to experimentation anyway and the right balance has not been found. Since Steemfest 2017 I've considered SMT's as the ultimate playground to test different scenarios to discover what would work best.
It's been a long wait.
It has been considered and talked about for years, the content creators haven't been happy....
If that came to pass, I'd move my content creation (photography) elsewhere. Probably to a mainstream blogging platform. I'd post to large Facebook groups where some of my photography posts have already gained thousands of likes to drive traffic to my blog. Perhaps I'd set up an Instagram account, too, for the same purpose. I've had people approach me asking for permission to use my photos. If I kept at it, perhaps I could eventually monetize my work, that already includes thousands of photos published here.
Finnish language Quora has recently started to show my answers to tens of thousands of readers. I write about some topics I can't write on Steem at all because there are no people interested in the same topics here. But I'm done with working on platforms owned by Silicon Valley companies for free. After Steem, I just can't bring myself to do that any longer.
At first, SMTs not listed on any major exchange would be worthless. Perhaps I would bother to cross-post if it weren't too much trouble.
If a truly decentralized sister chain were established with a large majority of the Steem communities and apps, I'd be 100% on board with that.
There are other ways of having strong leadership without it being concentrated in one person. I like the ingenuity of the Steem community and, in spite of all the shouting and running about, ideas and opinions do coalesce well enough for action.