RE: Steemit Update: HF21 Testnet, SPS, EIP, Rewards API, SMTs!
I'm behind Smartsteem.com, but I've always been very open about it (https://therealwolf.me/projects, https://smartsteem.com/about). Most people don't know this, but I actually thought quite a few times about stopping it altogether. However, the truth is that this wouldn't change anything. It would simply shift more weight to those bid-bot/promotion actors who are not caring at all about removing promotion/votes from abusers/plagiarists/spammers. In contrast, Smartsteem has already blacklisted quite a lot of people:
https://github.com/smartsteem/blacklist
And there are indeed good actors who are relying on promotion services to get seen!
Now, it's true that it could be done more and better. And I'm always trying to improve the process. However, if I'd blacklist everyone who even slightly promotes a bit too much, (not referring to real abusers) I'm not sure if Smartsteem would have any more customers. Which would have the same result as quitting all-together, since delegators & vote-sellers wouldn't earn as much in comparison to other actors who are allowing anything, so people would switch over.
But with the downvote pool, even those actors (who previously didn't care) would be somewhat forced to use a blacklisting system, which means Smartsteem could be even stricter!
Now, I obv. can't guarantee that it will work out exactly like this, but I do believe (& hope) so, which is why I'm in favour of the EiP. It will not make the life of the average bid-bot operators easier, in contrast, it will make it more difficult.
The promotion services do more harm to Steem than good at this point. The whole point of organic curation is for people to distinguish between good and bad content. If Smart Steem is just going to upvote as a service then we have no way to determine good or bad content. Anything can get visible.
We need to fix the economics so this isn't viable. As long as it is viable, someone will do it.
Just as true is the fact that with downvotes (flagging) now being free of cost to the flagger, many are downvoting just for the sake of feeding their ego (or, as it could also be said, because they are on a power trip). Just imagine, you are not capable of writing anything original, so you attack those who do and threaten to attack those who protest such action by you...and...voila, you are the big boy and oh so influential.
All I see is Steemit getting less and less posts - when I joined, after submitting my post, I would get shown a list of new posts and if I missed out on a post and went looking for it, it had disappeared because of so many new posts being made. Now I submit, check out a few of the posts and when, a couple of hours later, I post again, I see a few new posts in the list....but then I am back to those I saw hours ago - which means there is a massive drop in posters.
It will be interesting to see how things go once more than 50% of the original posters, still posting, give up on Steemit. I guess the curators can then curate each other and enjoy having themselves flagged?
Not my scene....and have already signed up elsewhere. Just trying to work out how to maintain contact with a few friends I value, who are still here.
For every man that earns a dollar without working there is a man that did work that didnt get paid his dollar.