RE: Steem post promotion: Past, present, and future
It would be good if the 2 ideas/approaches could work together somehow so that people don't feel the need to set a 25% beneficiary as well as transfer SBD to @null.
I totally agree. I am doing both for my posts today, just to play around, but I'm definitely not going to make a practice of it. I'm even thinking that 25% might be too much to ask from most authors. It will be interesting to see how things shake out, but, I definitely think that curators should support both initiatives.
One thing is niggling away in the back of my mind (which I'd be interested in your thoughts on) - although we'd be helping to increase the price of the STEEM/SBD tokens, users of voting bots (for example) won't be "sacrificing" anything and could "disproportionally" benefit from our community spirit
Yeah, I've been thinking about that too. I don't have a strong feeling, but one hope is that maybe some of the high-stakes investors would rather switch to an initiative like this in order to see their holdings grow in value, instead of relying on incoming distributions that are constantly whittling away at the value of their starting stake. It's hard to predict, though.
Yes and no. I've had this conversation offline but for those authors who earn nothing anyway, the potential of getting a sc01 upvote - even a small one - far outweighs the small sum that they're currently earning. They could burn 25% for 100 posts and if they get 1 hit, they'll earn more than they currently do.
This is starting to show in its usage already. At the time of this comment, 124 posts have set @null to a beneficiary of 25% (or greater for the fat fingered 52%-ers). The posts will either earn nothing (and therefore burn nothing) or get an sc01 upvote and burn something.
I've read some thoughts that the only way to make this meaningful is if Steemit (as the largest sole stakeholder) burn a large quantity of their STEEM. Which I'd be amazed to see happen.
Something's better than nothing and since burning STEEM / SBD was probably the first conversation we had, I'm surprised to see it happening and wonder if it's a fad for people chasing upvotes which won't last. (It's definitely people chasing upvotes but relies heavily on Steemit for it to be sustained.) Is this the "new clubs" initiative being unofficially launched?
I also don't see Steemit burning their stake, but I don't really agree that it's necessary. Cutting inflation is a nice start, but IMO, what is absolutely necessary is a front end that really rewards people with higher visibility for post promotion. If post promotion comes to provide a real benefit in terms of building an audience, that's when it becomes possible to actually reverse inflation.
I also wonder if it's a fad. We'll see how long it lasts. I have tried setting a null beneficiary on my own a number of times over the years. We even had the Share n Burn community, but I've never seen it get traction like this before.
It shows the power of an sc01 comment. A lot of people watch (and often reply to) every comment so as soon as something's said, it becomes a new "rule" or "initiative" - most people don't care what the objectives of these initiatives are or what the Steemit team's trying to achieve, they'll just do anything to get a vote.
You were the first person who ever mentioned the idea to me (what feels like a long time ago now) and having just watched my "burn ticker" cross the 300 posts mark, the rate of uptake continues to increase.
Here's a baseline. I'm anxious to see what happens to the top graph on Sunday when the beneficiary rewards start rolling in. (SP & VESTS as curation rewards to @null on top, wallet SBD transfers to @null in the middle, wallet STEEM transfers to @null on the bottom)
The first payouts will start on 29th May 5:30pm GMT.
Total Pending Rewards stands at $3631.417 at the time of me writing this comment and presumably it'll be 25% of the 50% author rewards so roughly $450. The number of posts is increasing (we're at over 100 posts per day) but the bigger upvotes are mostly clustered on the 1st day.