It was tried before, and sockpuppets easily sidestep it. Given how easily it was circumvented, there was no reason to continue it. Restrictions on freedom are generally sidestepped.
Better to think of ways to encourage behaviour you like, than of ways to force people to comply with your demands, generally, I reckon.
I think most people realize this, and thus the upvote is overwhelmingly more popular than the flag.
Ah you're right. I guess I overlooked that bit.
This sucks man, what are we to do? 😂
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First, identify the actual problem.
The number of posts isn't the actual problem. Folks that make lotsa posts do so for a reason.
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Hmm okay...the actual problem is the reward pool depleting at a quick rate? I guess we could start from there?
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Actually, that's a symptom too.
What might cause the rewards pool to deplete too rapidly?
It doesn't just do that for no reason.
I'll try to cut to the chase. The posts that drain the pool excessively aren't upvoted by folks that admire the writing. We're talking about posts that are upvoted by bots for money, or circle jerked.
Ordinary folks can't cause that to happen. It can only result when a whale(s) are doing the voting with massive stakes.
The actual cause of the problem is financial manipulation of the rewards mechanism for profit.
Limiting the number of posts can't fix that.
Without resolving the underlying problem, which isn't any particular individual's posts, but ROI for whales being enabled by the code - the rules - we won't be able to fix it.
The real impediment to a solution is that Steemit Inc., and the witnesses who are elected by stake-weighted votes (meaning the whales elect the top witnesses, since they have all the stake) are dependent for their success on the whales.
That is why the code is what it is, because the whales want ROI (return on investment). Stinc and the witnesses exist to serve the whales, and if they don't serve the whales, they don't exist for long.
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Woah. So, you propose we make the good behavior easy to follow and bad ones hard to, right?
Did you try contacting @ned with your verification solution?
I'm sure it'll be well received!
Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. :)
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@ned and the witnesses are dependent on the whales that demand the bots, since the bots provide their ROI.
Top witnesses and Stinc despise the idea. @neoxian is telling me right now in no uncertain terms that it will never happen.
2FA is expensive, slow, and a PITA. Worse, it will force whales to depend on capital gains for returns on their investments, and they like their ROI the way it is now.
They're in charge. That's why this is the present situation, because it benefits them, and they're the ones that matter. They have all the Steem.
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That means now we need to find an alternative source of income for whales, instead of forcing them to stop earning altogether.
Any ideas? Manual curation is one way but takes more effort than earning through bots.
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What I have thought of is that investors have traditionally been availed of capital gains. For Steem, when the price of Steem goes up relative to other assets, investors gain capital. This mechanism is fully in place on Steem.
That's what made the BTC millionaires, capital gains.
Steem has attempted to provide a mechanism to promote content creators, instead of centralizing profits in the way other social media platforms do, like Fakebook, Twatter, etc. Creators on those platforms get nothing for their creations, unless they can monetize their followers with a mechanism like what Youtool does. However, that leaves those creators subject to having their accounts banned, as we can see happening in a massive wave of bannings, demonetization, and discouraging followers from those accounts.
The problem that has arisen on Steem is that the original miners of the token (mining is now not possible) have almost all the Steem in existence, and they have discovered that they can use the rewards mechanism to gain rewards, rather than promote creators. This is the problem at hand.
Unless we consider mechanisms that make rewards mining impossible, we can't solve the problem. We can easily solve the problem by ending stake-weighted VP, but the whales profiting from stake-weighting don't want that to happen, so Stinc and the witnesses won't do it. They can't go against the whales, because they're dependent on the whales for their income.
The whales can change it, if they collectively want to encourage content creators.
Capital gains is far more potential of extraordinary profits, but cash is king, and the whales want the cash they get now, and they can avoid the risk that Steem won't rise in price, depriving them of those amazing returns. There's a reason blue chip stocks are in the portfolios of the wealthiest people in the world, and it's because they're low risk.
So, Steemit has got caught in a self-perpetuating loop of being tied to the whales, whose best interests are served by eliminating risk as much as possible. While whales could profit far more from rising Steem price, that's not guaranteed, while leasing delegations, selfvoting, and circlejerking is guaranteed.
tl;dr No. I haven't come up with an alternative mechanism for whales to profit, other than capital gains.
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