To me, the network has changed a lot in the past 6 months. Riches have been obtained, either fairly or unfairly, and this has galvanized a race - a race that has made people more selfish with an increasing pressure on the rewards pool we all share.

It's never been about content

Is what I hear a lot at present, and maybe that is true. Maybe it was only about producing something, anything, to place a vote on and take your rightful stake from the rewards pool each day.

I'd don't think that's always been the case, and I know many that did, and do try to show their proof of brain each day, to produce something that will also interest others. What I do notice though, is an increasing shift of people trying, to those who are not. And in addition to that, an increasing number of accounts (big and small), not offering their votes to others.

The Haejin effect

In the summer of last year, our famous analyst was earning cents on his posts. Consistent and persistent, things started to pick up in the autumn (as did the markets), and things really started to take off. From $2 to $5, to $20, on each of his 8 - 10 posts each day, and without any of his own stake introduced from outside, the crypto-analysts work started paying off.

As the markets went into overdrive late last year, he attracted the vote of a largely silent whale. This vote alone, was adding $100-$200 to his posts, 8-10 times a day. Now, there's not a lot more that can be discussed about this being fair/abuse/right/wrong, but the general voiced consensus was, and still is, is that the rewards are too large. And of course, there is an option to flag, if any person feels this to be the case.

And so the flags came. Individually, collectively, night and day. Steemit staff, Whales, Dust accounts, and recently, accounts who didn't even press the button! Yep even the code has seemingly had a pop.

However, the account carries on doing what they've been doing since the start, producing content, and steadily growing wealthier. However since last winter (in the northern hemisphere), the world 'steadily' is a bit of an understatement. I have not checked the earnings, it is what it is. I do happen to disagree with the rewards size, but that is largely irrelevant to my post today.

The flagging still continues, and I do feel that most of it is for a 'disagreement on rewards' - which is 'OK', as far as the system says so. But in some cases, the whistle-blowers never really got started - And if they did, they gave up quickly to pursue 'other ventures' when they realized efforts seemed fruitless, or not in the best interests of self. There is an obvious exception to this rule, and you shall call him Lord of the Steem.

Going nuclear / going green (with envy)

So the options were, and still are:

• Flag haejin and return rewards to the pool we all share
• Dont flag haejin and reward the accounts producing the content we enjoy
• Dont flag haejin and try to 'keep up'

It's the 3rd option which I see more and more of, and it's this option which I dislike the most out of the three. Those jealous of the weekly income of the crypto-analyst, who are not wanting to use their own stake to return rewards to a shared pool, are now up-scaling efforts to make sure that as much as possible of what is left, is coming to them.

And it's pulling more and more accounts in to do the same.

The first reason is the loss of votes from accounts that have already decided to operate selfishly, and the second is linked in that those accounts now not getting the votes from their once peers, see no other option to 'keep up', but to do likewise.

Dis the Content

So just how do you produce 8 - 10 pieces of quality content as a respected and already established Steem account holder that holds an number of trusted auto-votes, day in day out?

Answer: You dont.

Personally, I can barely produce one blog a day, and the jury is certainly out over each one of those being 'quality'.

But anyway, the quality seemingly has to come down, to boost output.

The 'risk' here is a loss of respect amongst peers, and following on from that a loss of votes, manual and auto. (If you have the stake to support yourself though, who cares about those votes?)

Well assuming the other votes don't matter, and hey, you might pick up some new friends, reputation amongst peers might, so the best method (that I have sadly observed), is to create an alternate account.

Or 2.

Or 4.

4 Is good. 4 accounts producing two pieces of lower quality content a day, receiving two full votes. Add those to the 1 or 2 votes you give yourself each day, and it's a wrap. The added bonus here is that you don't even need to respond and build a community around those accounts, just produce the content, (yes meme's are good) don't engage, and slap your vote on it.

Keeping up with the hae-joneses

It's an English idiom, so i'm going to ruin what joke there is by dropping this in:

Keeping up with the Joneses" is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. To fail to "keep up with the Joneses" is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority. source

In the real world though, you would hope that those striving to keep up with the Joneses, are not doing so to the detrimental effect of everyone else in the community. (But maybe they are, and then what else can I expect to happen here?)

Producing low quality content on alt. accounts looks bad on you, and it looks bad and is lowering the moral of the community.

Be happy with the wealth you have and help bring abundance to our network. Please?

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Cheers

Asher @abh12345

I am one half of the @steemcommunity witness - Find out more about our project here