Power To The Producer
In reference to The Race To The Bottom it becomes quite obvious to me that the most popular Frontends of Steem will be the ones that give the most power to its users. Why use a frontend that consolidates all the power for itself? This simple fact has many interesting implications.
How many different kinds of users on Steem are there? Many would say there are content producers and consumers in addition to curators. I would say that there is so such thing as a curator on Steem. Curation was artificially generated by the Steemit frontend, and now that job has been completely undermined through streamlined vote buying services.
That leaves producers and consumers, of which most Steem users are both. However, because content is free (and monetizing it isn't really an option) that leaves us in a situation where the producers of innovation and creativity on the platform have to hope that they will be tipped altruistically. That is of course unless they are able to develop their own dapp or token that generates income directly.
In reality the networks being created here often promote tipping users over content. It's a lot easier to make friends and throw out upvotes to people you trust without ever having to examine the content in the first place (or simply by skimming it or reading the title.
However, I'm now grossly off topic. The subject at hand revolves around identifying the centralized power structures that Steemit and other frontends are clinging onto when these features clearly belong in the hands of the decentralized community at large.
Trending
The most painfully obvious failure of Steemit.com and every other frontend I've experienced is the trending tab. The heuristics of this completely unevolved system practically slap us in the face on the daily. Bad actors have been given years to adapt and exploit the trending tab because it never gets any smarter. Rather than try to fix the problem Stinc continues to half ass their current project and move on to the next one (although I am expecting MIRA to deliver results).
The trending tab is arguably the single most important feature of Steemit. It's the one part of Steemit that faces outward to the rest of the world. It's what consumers see first before they have a network or are forced to dig deeper for more variety. It's obvious to me that the key to a smarter trending tab is one that is decentralized and customizable for all. This subject deserves it's own post, and while I've brought up this idea multiple times the details are quite complicated and threaten to ruin the UX if not implemented correctly.
So we can see that bid-bots are not a problem in the least bit. The trending tab single handedly creates 100% of the demand to buy votes in the first place. Fix the way data is displayed to the consumer and bid-bots will melt away into oblivion.
Comments
Speaking of the way frontends choose to order content, why don't bloggers own their own comment section? Who knows best which comments add the most value to the original post? Obviously the answer is most often the original poster. Content creators should have full control over the comment section. They should be able to order posts in any way they see fit and censor whatever they want. To think that the comment section falls under the same rules of curation as original posts seriously blows my mind. The frontend should not own or control that space in any way unless left to default settings.
Resteems
Speaking of curation applying to places that it shouldn't, here's a place where curation should obviously apply but doesn't. Resteems are literally the definition of curation, yet resteemers can't get paid for the obvious curation that they are doing. The ultimate Steem frontend will easily rectify this situation by issuing a smart contract that allows creators to pay resteemers based on their contribution. It won't be hard to track if someone upvoted you because a resteem was involved. This is basic referral code logic we're talking about.
Ad revenue sharing
Obviously the ultimate Steem frontend will share ad revenue with the content creator. Perhaps Steemit Inc hasn't heard of YouTube's wildly successful business model. Hell, the most popular Steem frontend might just say fuck it and give 100% of the ad revenue to the content creators because they have other streams of income.
By giving at least a portion of ad revenue to the creator, a frontend highly incentivizes an outward facing platform. For example, why the dick would I ever link my content to Facebook or Twitter when I know there aren't any Steem whales there? All of a sudden with ad revenue the game completely changes and I'm trying to get as many eyes as I can on my content from all over the Internet. Just like a real blogger would be doing.
What did I miss?
If a frontend of Steem has the opportunity to take power away from themselves and give it to the user, they should take it. If they don't, then someone else will, and all the greedy platforms that tried to hold all the power for themselves will be left with their dick in their hands wondering how it all went wrong (just like central bankers). It might take a while, but a decentralized environment will always punish greedy behavior. All that inefficiency has to be good for something.
None of this fucking matters.
Blogs are near worthless. All this "quality content" we are producing is hot garbage on a very real level. There's a reason why Steem is a tipping platform. That reason is very simple. Content creators get paid more giving away the product for free and hoping for tips rather than trying to engage in a subscription model.
How many of you are actually trying to produce professional content? I'm sure as hell not. How many of you are shilling your Steem blog on traditional social media? How many of you are targeting an audience and sticking with it? Or are you just creating whatever the hell you feel like regardless of who you think your consumers are?
Read a blog about how to write and promote a blog (not on Steemit) and you'll see that 99% of the people here are doing it wrong and not trying very hard at all to make it happen. Many meta blogs about blog writing claim you should be willing to work a year without getting any money at all. How many people on Steem can say they tried that hard and didn't make any money? Literally zero.
Despite not doing the work that literally every other blogger out there has to do we still manage to cultivate this entitled whiny group of jackasses that are still managing to make higher rewards than the average bloggers on other platforms. That's because the Steem business model is actually a screaming success. Too bad no one seems to want to admit it based on their Lambo-less status. Pull your head out of your ass and realize that the post you just wrote wasn't even worth the ten cents you were upvoted. It doesn't matter that it took you three hours to write. Totally irrelevant.
Blogging is the prototype.
One of these days some genius developer will come around and lower the bar of entry for everyone. Instead of creating blogs you'll be creating something far more valuable; something where a subscription model and making money directly without giving away the product for free actually makes sense. When that day comes I hope you all have a lot of stake, because the value of this platform will x10 overnight. If not, no worries, you can just work for a living like everyone else who was looking to extract short term gains; the majority I assure you.
Conclusion
Do not mistake my tone. I am not mad. I am not frustrated. I am not impatient. Development takes time; way more time than most people are willing to wait. Luckily, I am a font of patience. Drown out all the noise and put your nose to the grindstone. Try to bring value in any way you can, even if it's just a little bit. The blockchain will eventually reward you for your efforts.
I don't think steem blockchain has to only focus on being a blogger platform.
Sometimes a short post or pic can give you better feeling than the best of the quality posts in terms of content.
By the way, I think your idea of sharing ads revenues with the author creator is a very good one in order to attract users.
Damn! there are many ways to onboard new users...and in the meantime we are just testing stupid technical codes...
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The people reward, the blockchain is only a place, people make it what it is.
If a person want to get almost or near 100% ROI on their vote with this upcoming HF and other changes it will not be a very hard thing to do. The profitability of the vote bots and vote sellers is going to sky rocket with this change, not a doubt about that in my mind at all. Right now for profitability vote bots wait on the 15 minute time, this allows some lucky people to be able to see and beat vote bots to the punch. That ability is now going to be removed, since you will soon be able to vote at the 1 minute mark of a post, so the only voters that stand a chance at gaining a sizable reward are going to be the persons that vote for their content as soon as it is posted, which there is no problem with that at all, it is their vote. Now to double up on the reward situation, they wait for day 7 hour 23 and upvote all the comment replies they made on that post. SO one post 5 comments and casting 6 votes one on day one 5 on day seven, and boom seventh heaven for the big dolphin account and above holders.
That is Power to the Producer - think even small accounts will be able to do as above and stay under the radar of downvotes for awhile.
Keep it cool and on! The markets are just irrational and you know it.
Happy to have you here! ;)
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In steemit there is a bit of everything ... There are people who publish very good and interesting things, valuable information, but there are also people who do not have a bit of effort and then use the robots to support themselves. The important thing is that you know that you are contributing the best of you, knowing that you strive for get the best for the platform.
On the spot, as always.
The shittiness of the trending tab has continued to mystify me. Steemit.com was created as a reddit.com knockoff. As a user of both, it is so abundantly evident that the reddit visibility algorithm is lightyears ahead of steemit's.
Obviously, the people setting the rules don't actually care. But if they did, imagine how much more successful everything else would be including the coin price??
And people go on and on about "quality content" without understanding the quality is completely subjective. It's enough to make me throw my shoe, and then capture it in video, make a meme out of it, and get it displayed in the National Museum of Art. Would it be quality content then?
There will always be lame posts on the trending tab, just the nature of the beast. I stopped visiting the trending tab when I read a guys post about how he was eating fast food driving a Bentley. Nothing more, and it was worth a few hundred due to bid bots. How annoying lol.
I think ad revenue sharing even if it’s just a little bit would be great, Steempeak seems to be the better of the front ends I hope they do it since they’ve been doing the most updates I’ve seen.
I’m certainly a fan of the long game; I would rather spend time fostering communities and friends on here than be trying to maximize all rewards possible. That’s stressful, particularly when some whale decides they don’t like you and ruins it all.
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Your last paragraph gave me some hope!
I actually don't think so. There are way too many people that just want to fit in, and platforms most popular today aren't those that provide them the most power, but the most ability to conform. This is why I don't make any attempt to write a professional blog, use SEO, or care much about how many tokens I have. It's far too easy to focus on the economy when it's not even remotely the most valuable aspect of society, and far too easy to be confused about which aspects of society are most valuable, or even valuable at all.
More communities and freedom will help sort this. As more choices arise, these facts will resolve and society as a whole will become more profitable in all ways.
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So people don't want to receive ad revenue?
They want it to be hard to find content?
They don't want control of their own product?
These features are guaranteed to attract users.
The people aren't. People vary, and value the aspects of society differently from one another. We are indoctrinated en masse. Accordingly there are strong commonalities, and none more strong than financial interests today. But I am not a meme, and care little for finance (except as it affects society). Others may care only for violence and others yet for porn, or God knows what.
What we see today on Fakebook and Twatter are folks that haven't found Steem compelling, despite it's financial potential that doesn't exist on those more popular platforms, and I observe that though our strongest commonality as a society is our financial interest, it isn't the most powerful draw to social media platforms. No one on Fakebook receives tips or revenue from the platform itself, despite the platform profiting from their participation (indeed, proving to be the most profitable business model extant). Some few with massive followings receive revenue indirectly, from sponsorships and the like we can consider ad revenue.
Content isn't something easy to personalize on those platforms, because the platforms determine what is allowable, and also promote what the platforms consider advisable. The users of those popular platforms don't control their own product, and many are faced with daily dilemmas about how to censor themselves so that they can remain on the platforms.
I don't disagree that the features you mention will attract users. I simply observe that the most popular platforms don't strongly provide them, and this indicates that they aren't the most attractive features to the majority of users of social media. We see that conformance with the dictates of overlords seems to attract the billions of users those platforms have, because that seems to be the most visible characteristic of those platforms (at least to me, which is why I avoid them like the plague).
This is why I have great hope for communities, as a plethora of experiments will enable what does really attract how many folks to be determined, and perhaps even allow far more valuable aspects of society than money to prove their import.
Hopefully many of those experiments will feature censorship resistance, as that is what free people will most need to break society out of the mold overlords seek to lock it in. As myriad platforms become more viable, professionally capable, I expect the one size fits all model of Fakebook to be abandoned.
Good. It is also good that Steem seeks to enable such communities and SMTs to rise on a common foundation that isn't a mold, but an economic base on which they can form. If only the extractive profiteering that continually depletes the value of Steem could be curbed, that parasitization might be prevented from weakening that foundation until it can support nothing.
Steem market cap isn't crashing by accident. EIP will at least double the rate of extractive profiteering, thus halving the building of value into Steem. Despite the promise of communities and SMTs, unless that value can be allowed to build into the price of Steem, creating capital gains, Steem can simply fail to be able to support any damn thing, because it's drained of power. Even a giant dies when diarrhea drains their essence. Steem hemorrhages value today into the wallets of profiteers, and EIP increases the rate at which that value will be extracted.
That has to stop, or investors will continue to ignore it in droves. Capital gains FTW.