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RE: How to Solve the Reward Pool Abuse Problem Once and For All
I agree, the only way to stop reward abuse is to cancel rewards. In all likelihood, the only system that's truly abuse-proof is the system that doesn't do anything.
But I suspect that the objective of "minimize reward abuse at all costs" is often not going to give you anything worth having. In many ways, the whole point of Steem is the reward pool, right?
Anyway, resteemed because I think you make a good point. (Not that I'm a proponent of canceling rewards, by any means.)
Have to admit, this solution surprised me! Wasn't expecting that. lol But I think you're right @biophil that there isn't really any way to prevent abuse. As long as money exists, an incentive to steal it will exist alongside (to give the most basic example).
I was disappointed that this post didn't branch out into suggestions / ideas for increasing participation on the platform, to get those upvotes made each day. But yes, @bbilgin, this is very thought-provoking!
Thank you for your reply, @geke!
That's a valid point. I should have addressed that. I didn't do that for two reasons.
It's not feasible for most of the users except maybe for retired people or for people hired by wealthier members as editors. The life of the average person is already filled with all kinds tasks, taking care of their jobs, family, homes, and so on. I think we can't simply expect from everyone to vote ten times every day.
To my best understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, most of the Steem Power is held by the system or in whale accounts. I believe that the system administrators have other tasks than curating content. Also their huge voting power would result in favoring their own tastes over everyone else. Talking about whales, I can imagine that there are more interesting things to do than logging into Steemit to curate content every day if you're a multimillionaire. Oops, I'm sorry.
In summary, this would be an upstream effort that would be destined to fail for sure. And frankly, I believe that the tipping system is superior to the reward system, so I don't feel motivated to try to fix the current system. The current system will fail by design. I'll go into the mathematics of it in a separate post later.
Again, thank you for your reply and if this idea resonates with you, please share it so that we have a chance in turning around this platform, because it really has a huge upside potential, if we can turn it around!
Not that way, bbilgin, you'd stop it dead in its tracks. You'd kill it.
Reward pool abuse should be fought. First step in that direction is to acknowledge that in the whitepaper. But fighting it by cancelling the reward pool altogether is throwing away the baby with the bathwater
Thank you for your reply and the resteem, @biophil! I appreciate it.
I argue that the abuse can be eliminated altogether and it would result in a much more successful social platform for readers, content providers, investors, and all kind of other stake holders. Let me explain.
Suppose that you were the sole owner of Steemit.
How would you behave? How would you distribute the rewards/tips?
I would distribute the rewards/tips to the best content I come across every day. I would reward contributors that post regularly quality content.
Why? I want to attract those capable contributors and their quality content, because I want to attract more readers to the platform, because with more readers, more people, companies, and institutions are going to come to the platform to advertise and promote their own products, services, and agendas.
That will result in more purchase of Steem to do all of those things. That in turn will result in increased Steem price, which will benefit me and attract even more investors, which will result in even more Steem purchases from regular investors.
All of this becomes a self-feeding circle. The better it becomes, the better it becomes. Everybody is benefited, investors, content providers, content consumers, and all the other stake holders.
Am I missing something here?
Think about in projects like @utopian-io. If all economy is based on tips then this type of developments will disappear. I'm considering to open source some of my projects because this is a good and sane way to get good rewards for your work.
Think about important projects (sane for steemit) like @curie. If steemit is based on tips, what is the incentive to create a curation project? All curation projects will disappear, because there is no incentive to read content.
It is easy to give a vote with good value, but difficult to give a tip because it is your money. Then, with tips, the posts will be less rewarded than the actual system. In conclusion, less content creation.
It is a different model in all ways. Give a look to LBRY (https://lbry.io/), it is like steemit but uses tips.
With your posts, you are opening an interesting discussion. Followed.
I don't know @utopian-io at the moment. I'm going to check what it is first and then mention it in a follow up post or comment.
The Steem holders are shareholders of Steemit. They have all the incentive that good content is curated on Steemit. For that purpose, they can directly pay editors to curate good content for the platform, like Medium does.
Moreover, some users can act as publications in Medium. Instead of posting their own content, they can resteem valuable content by other users. They can cut a deal with those writers to share the tip revenue.
The problem with distributing other people's money is that you eventually run out of other people's money. This is exactly what's going to happen with Steemit if they don't stop wasting $80 million USD a year in reward money.
Thank you, I will check it out.
Thank you for the feedback and follow. I appreciate it. I followed you back.
I have checked LBRY and I couldn't see a reference to a tipping system. It looks like content providers can provide their content either for free or paid for streaming. This looks pretty standard to me.
This will not be the case. In the current system, accounts like @utopian-io are giving away 6.5% of their investment away to the developers every year. This is what voting for the content of others means.
You can check my latest post for an explanation of this. The post is title Can Steemit Survive Burning $65 Million USD in Author and Curator Rewards Every Year?
In the new system, accounts like @utopian-io can tip as much of their Steem as they want.
There will be a difference though. In the current system, accounts like @utopian-io not only give away 6.5% of their own investment, but also 6.5% of the investment of other accounts that do not vote actively.
So, there's no need to worry about this.