RE: The Number of Smartasses on Steemit is Growing!
Well, it's the age-old question in politics and morality: is it right to police the actions of those at the top and limit the things they do in self interest in the interest of the many? I'm sure the libertarians and free market economists among us would say absolutely not. I just wrote a whole post on morality in which I argue that the whole thing doesn't really exist, so I'll resist any temptations to make moral judgments! But to speak more pragmatically, the thing is that we're all existing in one closed economic system that is enormously influenced by being so weighted at the top, and if we're allowing wealth to pool and consolidate at everyone else's expense, then it makes for an awfully unstable system that can't possibly survive in the long term, and that hurts all of us. @paulag's statistical analysis showed that over 25% of the SBD earned on Steemit is going to bidbots. That's a huge dent in the liquidity and distribution of STEEM and it means that a few individuals are capable of completely crashing the site's internal economics if they make a few selfish moves (and, as I think we've established here, we're not talking about super selfless people).
I hear you :)
Around 90% of that 25% goes to the delegates to the bid-bots - those with the x million SP already for the most part. The rest goes to the owners, some of whom joined as minnows last year, and will be whales by the end of this.
Whether this distribution is killing Steem/steemit or not, they do not seem to care - Eggs are in other baskets, and have been for a while.
I have my hopes pinned on the SMTs, as I think blogging/vlogging (unless you aim your material at the money - dtube/utopian, will become very tricky to make STEEM from. The hope is that those of us holding SP, will not have to, and companies buying liquidity for their tokens will boost the price.
Chin up eh, loved your recent post :)
SMT's worry me as that type of growth with uneasy UI's to access the foundation flounder.
Yeah I see where you are coming from. I guess part of the reason things are taking so long?
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.
I haven't read up much on the SMTs until now--very interesting. I wonder how it'll all play out. I don't have the same level of technical knowledge as the rest of you.
One thing that does concern me re: economics of the system is that I don't know how much consideration goes into how fragile this kind of closed economic system can be. If we're not doing this already, I think we could probably benefit from some crypto-friendly economists weighing in when we make policy changes so we know the potential benefits/drawbacks of things like banning bidbots or altering voting power equations.