The Benevolent Whales; Whale Bashing, Minnow Frustration, and The Necessity For Class Seperation In Steemit
"UGH I HATE THOSE WHALES!!!"
How many times have you found yourself saying that? How many times have you poured your heart and soul into a post, after countless hours of research and styling and uploading images, to get 20 or 30 votes, and only make $.30?
Well, the Whales hold a majority share of the voting power, around 85%, and for the most part, they use bots. So it's only natural that those bots will vote for another Whale's post. In order for your post to go viral, you have to get lucky. If a Whale, (or a couple Dolphins) happens to be online and vote on your post, other Whales will follow.
"BUT IT'S NOT FAIR FOR SO FEW TO HOLD SO MUCH POWER"
Sure it is. There's no such thing as "Old Money" in Steem, none of these Whales is some fat cat living off of the Steem handed down since his family opened the first Steem mine in the late 1500's. Cryptocurrency is a bit like the lottery. Investing time and money in a new crypto is a risk. Every startup makes promises about their new and unique idea. Most either never take off, or are pump and dump schemes that end up being practically worthless. The first people to take a chance on the Steemit platform took a chance on an idea that they liked, and they won the lottery. The same lottery that Minnows continue to play every day in hopes of "striking it rich".
NOW THAT STEEMIT HAS GOTTEN SO BIG, THEY NEED TO RESTRUCTURE THE PAYMENT SYSTEM
A vast number of improvements has been made to the curation and author rewards. However, a balance needs to be maintained. In a true free market you need to have "corporate fat cats', middle managers and working class citizens. For every Minnow that makes $2,500 on that perfect post, there are 1000 Minnow posts that go unnoticed. If you were the Minnow that made that perfect post, you now have quite a bit of Steem Power. You are entering the Dolphin stage. Would you want to lose your power over some perceived sense of unfairness?
Steemit is a an experiment, both in social networking an Blockchain technology. Even at this stage you are an early adopter of what may one day represent the new standard in social networking. If Steemit ends up with 100 million users, everyone that is involved at this stage will be a Whale by contrast. It's a matter of levels, and all great ideas had to start on level one. Rejoice in being a part of it.
Whales need a lot of krill...
(Adult blue whales consume 40 million krill, or 7900 lbs per day during peak seasons.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_whale
Are krill lower than minnows?
whales eat minnows as well, even a dolphin probably isn't safe from a solid fin slap if they get their nose out of place.
I feel like krill, so I think so^^
Perhaps the most necessary part of the ecosystem...
Steemit itself is a minnow in the social media world. We early adopters are taking a risk with it, but we can just invest our time if we don't want to put money in.
I do think the rewards on some posts are excessive. Thousands of dollars for a post on a site with just a few thousand users is ridiculous. You would need tens of millions of views elsewhere to make that.
I believe that the Steemit technology is good and it's evolving fast. Allowing developers to extend it is key and they will take it in unexpected directions.
It will be a fun ride
I actually bought a small amount of Steem Power when I first started, I have made that back close to 10x over already. Not even counting what my actual Steem Power is worth at the moment. And I'm having a lot of fun making posts. People from all over the world see and read my posts, not like Facebook where only friends of friends like them.
I bought a few SP too. I hope to make it back in time. I just enjoy interacting with people around the world discussing cool stuff. That will keep me coming back.
It is necessary to change the working conditions of the community. Otherwise degradation.
Steemit is actually a pretty good system, hard work=reward. I have a regular job, and I've been there almost a year. I work my tail off, and do a good job. But there are people who have been there longer than me, who were hired under a previous manager and make more than I do. A few of them are lazy, call in sick frequently or just don't show up. But we are shortstaffed at the moment, so they keep on getting paid. I have been promised multiple raises and I'm still waiting. But here on Steemit, I know that if I put time and effort into my posts, I will be rewarded. I'm given a "raise" every day in the form of rewards, and it adds up over time. Steemit as it is currently formatted, is actually a pretty good "working environment", and a lot of fun too!