Steemit: The Anti-Social Network
EDIT... EDIT... EDIT
NOTICE: BASED ON THE REPLIES FROM @NED AND @STEEMMONSTERS, I AM MAKING THE FOLLOWING DISCLOSURE SO THAT I CLARIFY THINGS. I WILL LET THE READERS READ THE COMMENTS AND DRAW THEIR OWN CONCLUSIONS, BUT HERE IS THE EDIT.
The account that is shown here is in fact a real brand new steemit account. It was created through the use of RCs that are available to create new accounts in the future from dApps like @steemmonsters. This is what a brand new "bare bones" Steemit account will be able to do. You will be able to make about 1 comment a day.
Steemit Inc will delegate RCs to new accounts created through them (but not through dApps) that are equal to roughly 1 post and 10 comments per day. This will only apply to accounts that are created from Steemit Inc directly. *Please note this is the best guess I can get from the people that seem to know, so it might be off a little but has been said by more than a few people that have been around.
If Steemit Inc does not change the formula for the calculation for comments, then new users will have essentially 4 levels of accounts.
1. Steemit Inc created accounts with about 1 post and 10 comments per day
2. Bare bones new accounts created by spending 3 steem or creating via RC's with the ability to comment 1 time a day.
3. User assisted new accounts that get delegations of either SP or RCs from users on the platform.
4. Self-funded new accounts where the person spends money to up the value in order to do more things like make comments and posts.
END OF EDIT
Wow... I am so stunned to find out what a newbie has to go through. You will be too if you pay attention.
I set up an account just to check it out for myself.
I created the account and it has 0 SP, but its open! (and I did pay to get it open btw, but the new policy is to burn the money instead of putting it into the account in the form of SP)
I made exactly:
one comment,
one edit of that same comment,
and followed one person.
This is what my Mana bar says now:
So in 3 days I can come back and make 3 more comments!
Yahoooooooooooooo!!! This is great isn't it?
I'm not sure how this turned into a steem monsters bashing post in the comments but this is a huge problem for the future of the Steem blockchain and has nothing to do with steem monsters or how we create accounts specifically.
In order to grow the Steem platform we need new users, and for dApps to be built on Steem and be successful, they need to be able to onboard lots of new users. HF20 was codenamed "velocity" because one of the primary goals of it was to make onboarding new users easier and cheaper for dApps.
Steem Monsters can now claim about 20 discounted account creation tokens / day with our ~200k SP. Each token allows us to create a new account for free without paying the current 3 STEEM account creation fee.
The fact that this does not give the new account enough RC to reasonably transact on the platform and that we need to give the account further delegation means that this goal of HF20 has failed.
As far as I know Steem Monsters is the only app on the Steem platform that creates accounts for new users. The comments on this post seem to suggest that the problem is on our end for not delegating ~15 SP to each account created through our app.
Imagine you're an app developer looking for a blockchain platform to build on. You have a great app idea that could potentially have hundreds of thousands of active users. You look at Steem and find out that you will need to have millions of SP to delegate out to these users or else they will not be able to use your app.
The other alternative is to redirect new users to steemit.com (an unrelated site they've never heard of) so they can go through a very lengthy process to get an account by which point they've forgotten about your site entirely.
I have had almost this exact conversation with someone interested in building what seemed like a very promising app on the Steem blockchain, and I'm sure you can guess what the outcome was.
The point of all this is that, very simply, the RCs given from the burned account creation fee (or discounted account creation token) must be enough to reasonably transact or the Steem platform has no future. Period.
This is not an issue with how Steem Monsters creates its accounts, it is a fundamental issue preventing the growth of the Steem blockchain.
So, I think there's a case for making accounts with almost no activity. If someone just wants essentially a cold storage wallet that should be an option. I think it's good for the platform to have the lowest cost possible option available for people that aren't here to comment away. It doesn't really hurt the network to have these, and it can be good for people to safely store steem and sbd. It makes sense there is a super low cost option.
The question is what to do about accounts that do want to transact. The options are power up steem, delegate steem, and there appears a third option of delegating RCs. Though that third option doesn't exist yet.
So, this experiment is new and it hasn't been super clear for the last while exactly where RC pools and RC prices would land. I think things are a little more stable so it's a little easier to see. As before it looks like an account needs about 15 steem power to have a decent experience. The question is how to get it there.
Steem Monsters and other dapps could give away free steem, could delegate free steem, could charge more and give back some steem as power, or could charge more and give back some steem power. In the future we could also choose to delegate RCs.
I tend to think the best long term solution is to delegate RCs. This is already under development and there are github issues related to it. Maybe parts will be here before SMTs launch in March. Maybe not. I don't think it's safe to count on them.
So, I think RC delegation is the long term solution. The short term solution is likely charging more and putting steem on an account, or charging more and putting steem power on an account, or simply relying on the social aspect of this place to work itself out.
These things can also often happen socially where new accounts find places like the minnow support project share they don't have enough rcs to interact enough and kind people delegate small amounts of SP to them. I've seen that happen over the year and a half the place has existed. The steem monsters discord group is filled with people that want to help others as well. You can see that through the sheer number of contests that members run. I think folks could also wade into the discord and let people know they are RC limited and folks will help.
I don't think it should be automatic that everyone and anyone can suddenly get a ton of activity on the chain. This will lead to spam and spam will reduce all of our rewards. So, I currently like that there is a gate to higher activity. The question is how to pay for the gap for users who aren't spammers.
So, between now and RC delegation I'm torn between charging more to delegate or hand back steem power, or having the community delegate. Also, keep in mind that we have a free upvote service. Folks can get powered up by getting a introduceyourself post out there and getting votes from the steemmonsters community or steemmonsters account.
So, it's not currently seamless, there is still more work to do 2 weeks after HF20 landed, and in the meantime there are very low cost social work arounds (150 steem power for a week costs 1 steem last I checked, and could cover 10 new accounts for 1 week).
As for Steem Monsters all prioirities are maxxed on getting fighting out. Which happens on sunday. Once that's done there's time to look at other things like "what do we do about new accounts created through our service?"
Thank you very much for the reply here Matt... This point sums it up perfectly:
I'm very happy to have you weigh in and to explain your perspective. As a successful app creator yourself (that is bringing new people into steemit), I would hope that @ned hears this point and does something about it.
I mean come on guys (Steemit Inc)... Why don't you just change the algorithm for commenting? Make commenting count less so people won't notice you have constraints? You can limit the posts, you can limit video and things like that, but don't stop people's ability to speak. This is just common sense.
and @yabapmatt gets a witness vote....Im really happy to see more and more people daring to speak out.
The question now, is of course is what's to be done?
Yes I agree... @yabapmatt is the real deal. And he cares about the experience and the platform too!
You got my witness vote for this comment
Accounts can be created in many different ways with various results and the amount of transactions is still changing.
By the way, I'm told if an account signs up via SteemIt this is not the results they would expect to see.
I'm still sorting out my opinions on this, but it would be helpful to know where and how you set up the new account.
This is an important point to remember - that the user/company/project creating the account will be able to ensure whether the created account has enough SP/RCs to interact on the blockchain.
An account with zero SP obviously won’t be able to do much...but it also isn’t how accounts are typically created for new users. The original post is simply showing that SteemMonsters’ account creation service is inadequate for more “normal” social media use, and probably by design. As far as I can tell, their service is simply provided to card collectors as a means to collect their cards via the game’s interaction with the Steem blockchain. Maybe in the future they can consider delegating or offering upgraded packages that include more SP/RCs.
In any case, it isn’t necessarily a problem with RCs or the system. It’s just an issue with this particular service. I think the post is overly dramatic, considering that it’s about a zero-SP account.
What were the expectations for such an account? Resources cost money. Free accounts are a net drain on resources. Somebody is paying the cost for a user’s “free” interaction.
Complaining about getting a free account from a game’s package-deal and threatening to quit the platform over it is a little absurd, in my opinion. It should be made clear to readers that this is not a situation that most new users will encounter.
First of all I was unaware of the difference between this account and the one provided by Steemit. (I didn't read through the 500 page manual to understand all the intricacies of this place yet)
Second, I have read the response by @ned and @whatsup and did take the time to thank them for clarifying the fact that the @steemmonsters account is the bare minimum and has nothing given to it to help people use it (like Steemit does with their free accounts).
Third, the concept of even having a social network is you want people to communicate. Of course it costs money, that's called a business. If you want to have a business that consists of a social platform, then you should not complain that the users of the system cost money. ALL SOCIAL PLATFORMS ARE FREE TO COMMENT ON.
Fourth, I bought the @steemmonster package to see what a new account would go through. I PAID $10 to get the account this way. So while Steemit Inc might be so gracious as to loan people enough RCs to make 10 whole comments a day, I'm sure that there will be many that do as @steemmonsters has done and just give the bare minimum. (PS I don't think they did this out of malice, but they haven't read the 500 page user manual either so they can operate through this complex web of rules to follow)
Fifth, what I find absurd is that you jump to the conclusion that me pointing out a FACT means that I have threatened to quit. I did no such thing. I merely pointed out the truth of what I witnessed with my own eyes.
Finally, the condescension that you show here is exactly what makes people have disdain for the whales. Instead of taking the time to point out where I was wrong and having a civil discussion, you basically resorted to calling me "cheap" and "petty" with this line:
You are an arrogant ass for that comment and I have just removed my vote for you as a witness. I don't threaten anything, I just do what I feel is right. And while I might have thought you were a straight shooter in the past and voted for you as a witness, I now see that you have the same problems of the other "elites" here (arrogance).
One day you will find that maybe there's a reason why successful businesses talk to their customers and learn how they feel about the product. Until that day though, you can just keep thinking you are superior to us little newer guys trying to "figure it out".
PS. It is not my job to make this place easy to operate. I will clarify always my opinions and beliefs. I have no plans to create disinformation or to hurt anyone. But maybe people like you should go around and help people to understand things better (since you've read the manual), rather than hurl insults about us being "cheap" and "petty".
Yabapmatt and agro are higly ranked witnesses here, if they don't know how this place works then I'm a little worried about the future of steem.
Just to clarify: I think they do know how this place works and have read the manual. I think they made a business decision to create 0SP accounts because it was cheaper for them. I could be wrong.
You got off easy, I was called being a "little bitch, chastised, and a post made for open public flogging of me. lol.
hahaha... yes I got to see the fangs exposed, but never got biten! I guess I should be happy :D
I guess they haven't figured out that to much ego tends to kill talent.
Agreed... And when the talent goes quietly... then the big egos say "I wonder what happened? Somebody should've told me" (lol)
Can you now update the post to reflect where and how you created the account. I get that it was an honest mistake and I know there is a lot of information out there.
This post is currently adding to the FUD.
It would be more factual to say people signing up via Steem Monsters might have this problem.
I am sure you are aware that various Apps might choice different ways to create and fund accounts, so blanket statements will be spreading misinformation.
I have updated the post. Please look at it and see if it meets your suggested level of disclosure. I am willing to do more edits if you feel them necessary. Thanks.
Looks great. :)
I will do so for sure, and get it done this evening! Thank you again for helping with some clarification. I have also contacted @steemmonsters witnesses too to get this resolved.
@ats-david that's true indeed and you state valid facts.. However, this is still a huge fail and I'll explain why.
You landed here from another site such as Google
You haven't heard of the steem blockchain before.
You find steem monsters appealing and purchase the starter set. You join the discord and start competing in the giveaway posts hoping you will earn some free cards
You are blocked after creating 3 comments for some epic card giveaways because you have 0sp after creating an account on steem monsters official website
Scratch head and abandon card's and steem account after a negative experience
Will our new accounts on kickstarter be created via the same method? Let's hope the bugs are ironed out before this
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right.
But at the same time, steemmonsters is a privately owned business. They should make things clearer on what you're getting for your money.
I don't think steem monsters Inc intentions are having accounts you can't use?
What's the point of that? If anything it's bringing new users to steem and good for steems ecosystem
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Depends on how you define use.
From what I've seen the costs for customer JSON opperations are very low (This is how steem monsters works) So it would be reasonable that a privately owned business only creates accounts that are capable of being readily used on their site. But if you want to do more with them then you'll have to actually buy some steem and power it up.
Assuming it has a few starters the first guide will be how to sell your first steemmonsters card to fund your account so you can use steemit and not play the game lol... Without a foundation of reasonable interaction no one will stick around.
It’s at this point that you should find answers to any questions and assistance with any issues. That’s the job of the game/interface owners to explain to their new users. It would be irresponsible of them to collect money for account creation and not explain the limitations of the accounts. If they are truly free accounts, they should still explain how the system works.
Regardless, it isn’t a problem with RCs.
Agreed and excellent points and information here.
Thank you @whatsup for getting to the bottom of this particular issue. I did get a response from @ned and have since contacted @yabapmatt so that @steemmonsters can duplicate what Steemit does with the new accounts. Your intervention was useful and I appreciate it!
@davemccoy - thanks for highlighting your struggles here, I learned something in the process and after speaking with other witnesses I have made this post outlining the options as I see them currently for creating accounts, plus my thoughts on it all.
awesome @ura-soul... I will go check out that post right now! I appreciate it! All information is helpful right now so that we can shed some light on things and get to the truth!
well done!
thanks @dj123 :)
I set the account up via @steemmonsters. They give a new account when you join their game with the purchase of a starter pack. I hope you do contact @yabapmatt and find out if his signup process produces any different types of accounts than the regular steemit accounts. I think they would want people to use the platform to at least be able to play the game, so if its different then he should know about it. There will be a lot of unhappy people in a week if they did it wrong. But my thinking is they did it right and these are the new Steemit rules for what an account looks like when its set up. And I paid $10 to have the privilege to comment/post an average of once a day. I do hope you dig into this @whatsup, because if we don't get the older veterans to pay attention this place will become a ghost town with these rules.
The process you’ve gone through is different from Steemit.com’s. Steemit’s includes a delegation for active users, with de-delegation in case the account spams or deactivates. Re-Activated accounts are re-delegated.
@ned do you expect apps built on the steem platform to be able to delegate to every new account they create, or send new users to steemit to do the same? The solution of the discounted account creation tokens in HF20 is great, but it's worthless if that is not sufficient to reasonably transact.
I'm not aware of any apps on the platform right now other than Steem Monsters that even create accounts for users let alone delegate additional SP. I think that fact really highlights the problem and I think everyone here would be very interested to hear what the plan / expectation is for Steem apps to onboard new users.
It’s a massive innovation that an account with no holdings may transact (there’s no other chain with functionality like this) and another that many have access to creating these accounts (with Account Credits derived from Resource Credits). More apps can now tap into the account creation process.
As for where we go from here — entitlement to high number of social platform level transactions is very high. So this is a sensitive topic. Case study, though: Reddit limits these transactions quite a bit, much more than instagram, Twitter and FB.
To deal with this we can approach it a few ways:
Posted from my iPhone. Please excuse mistakes, ommisions and grammatical errors.
I definitely agree, and sorry if i glossed over that in my original comment. The RC system and discounted account creation system are a fantastic innovation and you and your team deserve a lot of credit for that.
My point is simply that, if new accounts aren't able to reasonably transact, then it doesn't really matter if more apps can tap into account creation because account creation isn't really what they are after, it's user activity and interaction.
In my opinion, a new account should be able to reasonably transact without additional SP or RC delegation. We, as a community, can decide what exactly constitutes being able to "reasonably transact", but I think most of us can agree that we currently do not meet that definition.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if the top witnesses were to increase the account creation fee, then that would increase the "minimum RCs based on account", right? So if we, as a community, agree that 15 SP worth of RCs allows a new account to "reasonably transact", then I think that's what the account creation fee should be set to.
Assuming that accounts created using a discounted account creation token would also have 15 SP worth of minimum RCs then I think this solves the problem. Apps can now tap into the account creation process using their invested SP and the accounts they create will have enough RC to reasonably transact without additional SP delegation.
Yeap I’m with you — now it’s time to iterate this functionality to greatness. Once delegated RCs are in play, the delegations can be much more liberal as there is no explicit economic loan (SP (voting power) delegation) that can be abused
I don't understand why people don't seem to understand this aspect of RCs. The system will allow the community and Dapps to be much more autonomous and be able to support their communities and, limit abuse heavily.
I haven't been this excited about Steems future since I started. The RC system is potentially brilliant once the delegations and infrastructure are in play. Good job mate.
Wonderful suggestion mate, i am a fan. Good to see you up and running after the kidney stone surgery. Stay safe friend on the otherside.
I would suggest that you increase the account creation fee by a week or two worth of RCs for minimum human function - which won't make much cost difference there - and transfer them to the new account on signup, in much the same way Steem was under the previous system.
That wouldn't enable spammers as much as a full bump to the account's maximum and recharge rate, but would allow it to transact for its first week or two while it earned a few Steem to get it moving on its own.
What is the average number of comments a day a non-spam account can expect to be able to comment? How long will it take a new steemit generated account to recharge their mana? Do we know a SP amount yet that makes comments unlimited? It is hard for me to figure out as all of my features are unlimited at this point and my mana bar does not move regardless of what I do.
This knowledge will help know how much delegation to help new accounts out with.
@ned any idea yet or is it all still reworking itself?
Ok cool... I will explain that to @yabapmatt because I'm sure that's something he would like to know. I'm sure they don't want people signing up through @steemmonsters having this kind of experience.
Thanks for the reply @ned.
hey it better than the time dan responded to me :P
Didn't even respond back :(
lol... I know the feeling for sure ;)
After reading through all the comments and seeing the equivalent of the 15 SP that gets delegated and what that tiny delegation can do, I would like to tell you that it is certainly better than what I just witnessed through the @steemmonster account. But, I also want to say it is still not enough for the new user to have a meaningful experience. (1 post and 10 comments if I read it correctly)
I think that delegating enough RCs to give them 10 comments and a post is better than this experience of doing basically nothing... but you should realize that people are going to bump into those limits quite quickly and the user experience from a newbie perspective will still be a turnoff. I hope you will consider adjusting the numbers higher and then having a quicker "take back" if its not used properly (ie spam or inactivity).
I think 1 post and 10 comments is a great level for a new user. Just fyi, it's all in the opinions. Also if the content creator is talented they could look for a delegation or sponsorship.
Why buy a cow if the milk is free? lol
We will see if you are right, I know I and the people I speak with would disagree strongly. I guess you will tell by the user statistics. I just hope you don't lose too much credibility in the process of finding the right balance. If it were me, I'd err on the side that makes people not notice that there is a restriction... but its not me so I will watch with you and see how the results come out over time.
And the cow and the milk analogy is a good analogy that fits perfectly with the thinking of the veterans of this place I know. The issue I have with it though, is it assumes that Steemit is a premium platform. I would've agreed with you for the last 10 months, but if you restrict commenting (ie free speech) then I think this place goes from a premium site to a place where only a niche of investors use it. To me its a shame, but I hope I wrong!
I agree it is complicated and not all are going to agree on anything.
The risks you mention are real! The balance is we have a HUGE blockchain making it difficult for exchanges, witnesses, etc. to manage. Every transaction has a real world cost that everyone with stake is paying for.
When you say... YOU. You say we. :) I don't have any more influence on these decisions than you do. I just try to understand and help communicate.
:) on the "we" comment... That is one of the nicer things I've heard lately! :P
And I understand the balance is an issue, I hope that whoever is in charge takes the time to read this post's comments. The frustration is real and even if its based on lack of information, it still is a negative overall nonetheless.
And you are doing a great job of helping to understand and communicate. I wish we have some people at the top that were just like you. If you want a job, I can campaign for you to get the role of "Customer Relations"... ;)
But how many minutes, hours, days, weeks a new user has to wait to create new account????. Where is the Velocity?
Many of us are here after a year under the old account creation rules, many more will follow.
Looks like HF20 has just shifted the roadblock for new users from signup to initial participation! Kind of reminds me of Australian transport policy!
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Haha that's a great way of putting it.
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Reminds you of the Aussie transport policy? Haha yeah reminds me of asio checking your bitcoin wallet
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haha... agreed... you can have an account now, you just can't use it much :P
I don't think Steemit is a place for everyone or communities anymore😊 I sign up for free account and still wait to see how its work after the approval. I still read the nice words "Steemit is where you get paid for your post and comments" and weku has that tagline too.
But..I think there's never a free lunch in this world 😂 and steemit is not a different business in this world... nothing will change like everyone's dreaming about it in the early of this year😊 if we still have to purchase steem with fiat money or power down to get cash, better back to my wordpress 😂
Steemit.com is a place for mining the Reward Pool. It is for miners. That is the way I am starting to see it. I use it as a publishing platform as that no problem in having costs. But that is not the view of many.
I think you might be right. Sad but that is the realization that many are now coming to agree with.
:P I agree Cici! That is exactly the point. If they can't keep quality people like you here, then there is something seriously wrong. I hope you stay and hang out with me and your friends though, I don't care so much about the platform anymore but I do still like my friends. And ps... we are still going to get going bigtime on the steemmonsters game, at least that is something that is still worth doing ;)
😂😂😂 like I said before... If I didn't witnessed the golden time of Steemit.. I will stay to witness it falls 😊 this platform indeed has different valuable users like you, pifc, the leagues and steemmonsters 😉 aahh.. I need to write a story to get some booster pack too 😂
very good :) ... I'm happy to hear that!!!
and yes we need to get you that booster pack and I will be working with you soon as the games will be starting in 8 days :)
Oh no... the closing date of the challenge is october 15th.. I hope I can get it faster😯 well.. I'll reach you on discord if we need to start my preparation for the games, coach☺
Yes please do... I will get you prepared for battle and ready to win some really cool stuff ;)
When a fork breaks replace another one.. It would be interesting if we could delve into the pull request and dispute directly with steemit Inc team about account creation and sp. Pretty sure it's if you bring a mate to steem now you better delegate him your own sp
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I'm still trying to figure out what they think is spam, evidently it is any social type of comment. Advertising things like crypto coins to users is not spam, (air drops - they are all advertisements so to me SPAM). Advertising their bid bots, advertising I voted for you at full power ain't i cool, hey try partico, or actifit, or this comment reminder system, or try this app, or this program, or hey, look at my steemhunt post or my dlike post.
I'm sorry can someone explain how those are not spam, and why the hell would a company want to advertise on steem when they have steem hunt and dlike and whatever the next advertise for us and we might give you a $0.001 reward in steem. Or we might give you an upvote at 1% power that is valued at - - -$0.000 - - -
None of HF20 was done to prevent Spam, it was done seemingly to increase spam, and to make it where only votes would count for anything. They do not want people to be able to post, cut down on the postings from the smaller people and then they would be forced to come back and vote on our content because the new user can not post nor comment only vote.
They have always had a spam control on steemit, it is called the mute button. I have a lot of bots and boosters on mute because I got tired of the big stupid comments from them. If people used the Mute, the bots and spam would simply go away.
I agree completely @bashadow... And yes I totally agree that the "spam" is a red herring that makes the story sound good and reasonable. The bottom line is this is once again about making sure the people at the top (whales) get the power to make more money (leasing their RCs). If they can lease them to organizations and make money, then you can bet that is what they are going to do. I have seen the comments from some of them and they are basically giddy with joy over their newfound income stream.
Of course they don't care if all of us leave, we are basically a nuisance to them anyways. I am positive that the number of new accounts will plummet under this new situation, so it will be as it is. I will keep my friends and keep dealing with you all, but my faith in the platform and the long term quality of the people running it is basically 0.
Always good talking to you @bashadow and I'm looking forward to our games that start here in a week or so (better than this negativity) :)
Spam is a red herring because it's not what the change is intended to deal with. It's the cost of the network, the resources on servers to keep Steem alive. They've moved to pricing them more strictly.
This change is not balanced, as you see, but be clear about it - free accounts are now the lowest priority. If you power up your account don't forget that you still own those tokens.
I'm quietly advocating for change to the current situation anyway.
yes I agree completely with you. The spam issue is a complete red herring. I wish they would stop saying it, because it insults my intelligence too.
I also agree the balance needs to change. I don't have an issue with limiting people's quantity of posts either. What I do have an issue with is comments. ON A SOCIAL NETWORK people should be able to freely share their opinions and thoughts in the comment section. Otherwise, we cease to be a general social platform and just a niche community that does a few things like mine the bots.
From the blockchain's perspective a comment is a post, they're functionally equivalent. But as you've highlighted they are not the same from a user point of view.
You've given me something to think about here. Maybe there's a side chain or even off chain solution for some of that. But because of the post / comment equivalency for the moment this is the way it's going to be unless people power up.
Btw, do you have links to a few examples where they are saying it's because of spam?
Cool if you can figure out a way to solve that issue. They are 2 completely separate things as far as a user is concerned for sure!
If you find a solution, please let me know. I would be thrilled to see that happen and would of course want to know about it.
Regarding the places where "they are saying its because of spam"... I assume you want to see some of the officials make statements regarding that... Here is one just from this post from the #1 man himself @ned:
Link:
If you want more examples then let me know, its the standard reply from the people that defend the system. And don't get me wrong, I don't like spam either and I think some of these changes are great. But if we don't find a solution to letting people comment freely (or at a minimum reasonably), then all the good changes will not be able to be witnessed by more than a handful.
Thank you for your understanding of the issue, that is definitely cool of you to "get it"!
Yep, always a positive side to look at. Some good people, no need to pull the negative people. I would love to see the RC's do a sudden change, the witnesses no longer have control of the RC's. RC's have been removed from the consensus process, yet no one will say who decides the correct RC levels now. The only response to that question is "we do, all of us", but then again i was told by a few I don't know what i am talking about so, I guess I don't. Only the important whales know, or have a right to voice their opinions on the RC side of the issue.
if you don't know what you are talking about, then I'm totally lost. :P
I don't see how they are ever going to have a successful social platform that limits people's free speech.
And people are talking about the user-retention and the problems we have... Why not give the next 10,000 users 100 Steem each? Just put them through some sort of verification process to get it. Expensive? - BS. STINC could easily afford it if they cared.
That's obviously not the best idea though, but it would sure as hell motivate some people to stay. This RC crap is exactly what we don't need.
I agree they could fix this if they wanted to. They have prioritized making sure the whales make money by leasing out their RCs instead of making sure the people at the bottom can use it. So you are right, they just don't CARE.
And I do think they have committed an unforced error on this. I mean the platform has "lost users" net year to date. Now they are going to cut off the spigot to new ones coming in. They are absolutely oblivious to reality to think that a brand new person will sign up AND pay and then have major restrictions on what they can "voice".
I'm sorry for things like your project. You have done your best to grow a middle class and they have just shown that they don't care about the "next generation". It makes it a challenge to be motivated, that's the way I feel at least.
Sad but true. Thanks for the comical gauntlet of a near impossible shot at growth for the smallest of newbie minnows. They really have to make that one comment count every day.
now I will wait 9 more minutes to upvote you so that I too can artificially show my support of your point. I would of course upvote you when I feel like it, but if I did that then I don't help anyone other than a few whales. And yes, this is the most ridiculous asinine f'd up system ever. What kinda place do they think this is that people will pay to join and make comments?
I'm pissed and now the gloves are going to come off!
Seems more broken than before...I mean I've experienced my fare share of "nerf's" in the past, to put it in those terms, but this is beyond nerfing. In my opinion it seems broken and the only way to prosper as a newbie is to invest your own money to give yourself some SP and be able to flourish in the same way that I did when I started in 2017. I was able to comment all I wanted...there really weren't any noticeable limitations. It wasn't until I started to expand on my rock posts that consumed my bandwidth but that wasn't too bad either.
This new system is definitely jacked. However; this is certainly not the reason for my absence :P
This was almost planned to cater to bot owners. Not that all bots are bad, but anyone who took the time to make multiple accounts and scatter their wealth throughout them is still business as usual with high rewards but minnows are basically doomed for a real struggle to prosper.
Very nice analysis and I completely think your conclusions are quite possible. I don't know which whale class they are helping, but I do know they made a "choice" to support them over the little guys. There will be relatively no new blood coming, they better hope they don't get any more attrition because they can't afford it (or this place will be a ghost town)
"will be?"
I just take a look down my feed of people I follow, and look how many comments they get, and even well established bloggers on here are struggling with 0 - 2 comments.
yes... I can see the tumble weeds :p
Haha...and they are hoping people will come flocking in when they release SMTs.
they are completely out of their minds if they think people are going to pay to use this place. I'm thinking about stopping using it and I don't have any issues with my comments. Its truly sickens me that they are this grotesquely greedy and are locking the poor out of commenting at all.
The funny thing about "poor spammers" is that most of the voting rings I've encountered here are made by dolphins on the platform.
The orcas and whales don't need to do that. They can just self-vote.
You are completely correct. They just "use" that buzzword to make them feel justified. What they are "really" doing is taking the RCs and allocating them to the big boys so they can lease them and make money. I'm done with them, this is over the top.
Are you leaving the platform?
I am not "leaving" as in never logging in. But I am now concerned that this place will never be more than a niche site. I will stay checking in as long as I have friends here, but my enthusiasm and respect for Steemit is basically close to the 0 line right now.
I've never been in it for the money, but I did want to help others to use it for that purpose. Now I have big doubts as to whether it will happen, so I will put a lot less energy into that part of it.
So short answer is: no, I'm not leaving... at least not yet anyways!
Awesome @aggroed... I hope you're at the last step right now :) ... we need it ;)
You're missing my point. Dave, you're a witness, and this is a reasonably sized project where you can help others in something that you're clearly passionate about. You can go beyond the "help I'm stuck on an escalator" approach and help people in a case where you have identified a problem. Be the social RC change you want to see in the world.
Ok yes I did miss your point. Thanks for the encouragement and confidence, I will think that through and I get your point (good advice too). :) ... ps... I think I can help and you've given me some ideas, but for the record I'm not a witness :P
aren't you on a witness team with Daniel?
Well he's really the witness, he's the one with the computer skills and been here long enough! I am more of a salesman for him to let people know about him that don't know yet. I will speak to him though and if he agrees, I agree with you that is a good focus. Its something that many of the more recent Steemians care about because its still pretty fresh in our minds how hard it is in the beginning. Thank for the tip again, I'll speak to Daniel and maybe we can get some action going!
Hey, @davemccoy.
I think this reminds me of the school bully shakedown of kids for their lunch money.
But not to worry, okay, because, dude, resource credit pools are coming! yeah, so, like, you'll be able to delegate some RCs to the pool and twice as many people will be able to draw from it, and blammo, no more RC poverty, dude.
I think everyone must be using common core math around here. I have no idea how that works. But anyway.
I'd be more likely to call it "We don't care if you're social, we just want your money " network, but that's way too long and yours is much snappier. :)
So, gloves are off. When do you come out swinging?
hahaha... that's actually more descriptive:
And yeah dude those new RCs are dope (not sure if I used it right)... But the logic they are using must be the next version of Common Core... So CC2 for short! :P
As for the fight, its not my platform so I am just a very unhappy user, but have no influence over the outcome. I will certainly chime in and speak my mind going forward though, and as far as my hope for this to be a good long term platform, they've gone about as close to 0 as it can get without actually being 0. I have no faith in the management, top 20 witnesses, or frankly most long termers (not counting Asher or FTG). This is either an arrogant view of the quality of their platform or a complete disregard for the right to speak freely. Either way I'm completely turned off and my time here was "wasted" trying to help others.
I will continue to post and work with my friends, but at this point I have no faith that things will change and to hell with the people in power.
I've been pretty much saying this all along—I'm not that thrilled at all with what's been going on, and each opportunity to improve relations between 'us and them' seems to get squandered somehow. And yet, I'm still here, still plugging away, trying to do what I can for myself and by extension others and trying to stay out of the useless or senseless funk that seems to get me every so often.
I don't know what to do about new newbies. I don't know what to do about people who haven't grown that much in the six to nine months they've been here. I've spent most of my time trying to engage, upvote and post, and I've spent money that I frankly don't really have to get me to a point where I apparently can do what I need to do. Most people haven't done the latter, because they can't, choose not to, don't trust STEEM with any length of pole, don't want to get divorced, etc.
So, I could start powering down, but as lousy as a ride that hard fork was and still is, it was a major change, too. And we've yet to see the full impact of it, good or bad. My upvotes have been increasing even though the price of STEEM has more or less been sideways with a downward trend, which I actually like.
So, as much as I can say there's plenty of negative going on, there's still these glimpses, some of them bigger than that, of brilliance and sparks of hope. Does that constitute enough to keep going? Maybe, for now. Does it make me happy? No. Am I not leery of the next shoe to drop? Of course.
But it's never a zero sum game and so here I am weighing everything in my brain that would much rather use its memory and storage for writing, rather than strategy calculations. I've got nowhere else to go that's going to be any better at this stage, and given that one of the projects is from the same guy that abandoned this one, I'm not sure that's the one I'll be running to, since the same kinds of control issues seem to be popping up there now.
I think everyone is suffering from not taking this platform seriously enough, while expecting everyone else to do it. It's like abdicating one's adulthood to the infants in hopes of doing whatever the heck you want. There's blame enough to go all the way around and back quite a few times.
You described the way I feel almost exactly. I am not happy with the direction, nor with the way in which they "engage" us (or don't)... But at the same time, I'm still here. Sure I'm not posting as much, and I definitely don't have any faith in them, but I still manage to show up every day on do something here. I wouldn't say its because I have any "hope" anymore, but more because I have friends and people that I actually do like. If we can find ways to navigate this place that makes it worthwhile, then I will continue to do so.
I don't want to talk anyone into leaving... In fact the opposite is true. I want to talk the decision makers into encouraging us to stay. (and by us, I don't mean me but rather all of us minnows)... Unfortunately they are up on the pedestal and so out of tune with the real world that its almost comical. And sadly many of the people that they would normally listen to are telling them that everything is ok. (The King Without His Clothes comes to mind)
I do notice some of the good things that have happened and was content leaving things alone until I saw how pitiful the new person has it. An average of 1 comment a day isn't going to make this a very sticky platform. But as we've talked before, the people that reside at the top feel that Steemit is just a beta platform and the real money will be made when the crypto goes nuts over their awesome technology. I honestly don't know if this is true or just more bluster about the future. I do know that since I've been here there are tons of "coins" that seem to have passed them in price and respect, but heck maybe they just haven't got the word out to the right people yet.
Its good to chat with you Glen and glad we somewhat agree on this basic point about the new newbies. Its always great to know that you and I share a similar point of view!
As much as I want this to be a social media platform, it's an investment platform. And while I wonder why someone isn't coming up with a cutting edge social media interface, rather than clones of every other social media site, the emphasis is going to be on the underlying technology of the blockchain, and what it can do to lure in the big money. The rest of us, those without the millions or billions, we're just the useful idiots.
I've never considered myself one of those before, since I've been watching and observing how many different sides in life have them, but here I am, being one. I'm not a STEEM evangelist, or an apologist, I haven't tried to sell anyone on it, though I've tried to explain it when people ask me what I'm doing, but I can't bring myself to recommend it while it's still the wild west, still under construction flying at Mach 3 and insisting that everyone conform to a ridiculous number of social norms while learning the entire gambit of post-Einsteinian computations. The transparency is misplaced too much on the inner workings of the numbers and not enough on just what the heck they're trying to do here.
People are lured in for the money they can make playing around on a social media platform, when in reality, that's not it at all. And now, they can't even do that anyway, so maybe they'll just start flat out telling people, whoever they are, that you need to bring your check book so you can pay after you get in the door, rather than doing that in advance. It's the ultimate in game pay wall.
Hi, Nice summary of the problems posed by Steemit. It had an identity of a social media platform but that is incorrect. Some may call it bogus but i would not go as far.
It is all about the money and always has been. if the lure is in making money, how can you not tell people that they need to invest. Once invested, how does it matter whether you post or not? Delegate and be done with it.
I have said many times that this is like shareholding. the more you invest the more you stand a chance of gaining some wealth. Do not dwell what you post for that has no meaning. If not for the well intention-ed efforts of some groups like Curie, it would be incredibly depressing for content creators.
A stock bourse masquerading as a social network seems the best approximation. The funny thing is that most of the early investors kept on urging people to post and that they would be rewarded. Also, they told us about the fact that it was a social network and you needed suitable skills to come good.
Gradually all pretenses were dropped and it was made clear that your money is the only thing that was important. Once that realization hit me, it has become very difficult to post articles on Steemit. I started with much hope and frankly nowadays i just watch things go by
Hey, @adarshh.
Yep. There's been a lot of misleading marketing and public relations going on, but not all of it can be laid at the feet of Steemit Inc. It's too bad that people have been taking it upon themselves to hype STEEM in a way they think is best, but they've just made it worse through false expectations, if they've managed to do anything at all.
So, there's not one coherent and accurate message, and the ones that exist are basically selling snake oil.
There was a time for a short month or so where people were making nice rewards on posts on Steemit. Way before we showed up, though. But more people and changes in payout curves and other alterations have pretty much diluted that, along with STEEM prices.
So, here we are. The question becomes, what do we do going forward.
I've been in the exact same mindset as you. I've had help—my wife's hernia surgery, recovery and the subsequent hard fork and updates all made it tough to do anything. But then my brain was wondering What's the point? well before that.
It still doesn't have the solution.
I've made the investments I can. Unless STEEM gets supercheap, I won't be investing anymore. We're talking less than $0.50 USD and probably closer to $0.25 USD. Even then, I won't be able to do a whole lot, though. And in reality, I'm done with STEEM being under $1. It's time for it to soar like it can and is meant to soar. All of these other alt coins, people just need to get real.
An investment platform that allows you to blog, vlog, livestream, post from your phone and other things. Soon, there will be more to do, when SMTs hit. That should be the pitch, or something like it:
STEEM—We're bootstrapping a global digital economy. Come join us. Socialize and earn fractions of STEEM in the process. And bring a few hundred bucks with you, if you can. You're going to need them. :)
All of this is very well said and I think your analysis is impressive. This is not a social platform and is an investing platform. Period.
I think they will regret this restriction on the comments to the new newbies. I think they will change it once they realize the mistake, but how many good people will leave in the process.
If you ever decide to go, please make sure you say good-bye. You and some of my other friends are the reason I show up here every day. I don't blame anyone for thinking this isn't a good use of their time, I just hope I get a chance to say good-bye if they decide to leave.
Thanks for the comments and the very well reasoned points.
Well, I don't have any plans to go anywhere, and feel that those who can still function should also stay. The rest who can't function as is will need some help. Maybe we can figure that one out, too. Regardless, there's nowhere else to go that I can see so far that's going to be any better.
But if I do ever go, I will make sure you know. :)
It's more likely that I will end up getting a job and thus having my time on STEEM restricted if anything does happen. I actually do enjoy writing and commenting and curating. It just needs to be more financially rewarding, and that means prices need to go up, and that probably means people need a reason to invest so the prices do go up, and so far, they don't have enough of a one. In fact, they may have more reasons not to. It's difficult to know what effects or doesn't effect the decisions of investors. I don't think they think the same way I do, and to a great degree, I don't really think they care about the social media aspects of the blockchain.
If it's fast, stable, scalable, and well managed tops that priority list, and of course, what kind of video game like returns can they get on their investment? :)
Great, that's awesome to hear :) ... And I will definitely do the same if I ever decide to leave!
I think you have a great grasp on the issues and I'm happy that you are able to share them on this thread so people can see them! Keep it up and always a pleasure my friend!