The real Steemit issue: Content vs. Money [Updated Version]steemCreated with Sketch.

in dtube •  7 years ago  (edited)

Disclaimer: I'm a little bit upset. First off, I'm upset about the quality of this video, as it was a live video on DLive and the crappy internet connection made it into something that I would recommend listening to as a podcast instead of watching. Secondly, for my first experience with DLive, I have very mixed feelings. I was expecting that my live streaming would be converted into a video on DLive (just like Facebook and YouTube). Instead it disappeared. I did get the option to download it, but the link from my steemit post now links to an error/offline message. Didn't see an option how it would convert to an video. I've contacted DLive about it, no answer so far. I've tried manually uploading the video, but then it would be posted a new post, but it would be separate from the original. I'm not much of a tech person. I rather put out content then spend hours learning how to set up the stream through obs and figuring out why the video 'disappeared'. I'm just uploading it on DTube and will edit the original post to refer to this one. I'm powering up this post because I believe it this situation it is the right thing to do.

Without further ado, the video and the text providing the context for the video.


The reward pool rape

The topic of reward pool rape has been trending recently. The most prominent discussion around it has been brought up in the case BerniesAnders vs Haejin. Now, to fully grasp the impact of what going on, you have to understand whats going on. Haejin is a self made crypto analyst that posts up to 10 times a day. As there is no limit to how often one should post on this platform, it should be noted that he earns over $200 per post on average, banking thousands of dollars as one of the top earners on this platform. BerniesAnders is a whale that for some is the conscience of the community. When you see Bernies’ reputation, it is easy to see that not everybody is a fan. However, I think he gets punished for being one of the few that actually speaks up when there is a disagreement. This disagreement often surround the perception of quality of a post. If you look a Haejin’s post, you can almost compare them to very well written horoscope predictions. They are quite broad and written in such a way, being wrong is not very easy. Now looking from the outside, they definitely aren’t spam, but not all worth $200. A lot of his supporters have claimed that he has made them money, and until the recent market correction, he was mostly correct in prediction, also because… the market just kept going up, which make it really hard to objective rate the quality of the content as well.

Now, the Bernies vs Haejin case is the most high profile case, but there are way more cases that are considered reward pool rape. I haven’t found a clear article about how the reward pool exactly works and couldn’t find a detailed explanation in the white paper either. However, different articles I’ve read do state that there is a certain amount of rewards available and if accounts take a big portion of the total sum, there is less for everyone else. This can be especially frustrating when Steemians see their hard work result in a drop of up to 50% of the reward when the payout comes around. Also of course, knowing that someone takes home over 5% of the total reward pool.

Creators vs Investors

Now, the is a bigger picture issue that is strongly connect to this issue, which is the notion of creators vs investors. One part of the Steemit community is on Steemit to create content. Another part of the Steemit community is here to invest. This creates a subconscious split within the community. The creators group often wants nothing to do with maximen profit by buying in thousands of dollars worth of Steam Power, using voting bots to get on trending or upping the rewards in general and constant trading between Steem, SBD and other currencies. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the investors are on Steemit for. They use the website to make money first and create content based on making money.

I’ve seen a lot of smaller creators get completely frustrated about crappy postings getting much more traffic and rewards than high quality posts that they are producing. Aside from the creators issue (which I will address next), they can’t comprehend how poor content can be rewarded so heavily. This of course is managed by the investors, who don’t mind paying several bots to up vote their content and invest in Steem Power to in some cases, even up vote themselves. Now here comes the tricky part. It is hard to ‘punish’ people who actually put their own money in a platform, like those who invest and buy STEEM to accumulate Steem Power. Also, bots, especially the most popular one often have a negative ROI and return less reward then originally invested. Especially when even more people use the platform. On the other side, uncontrolled investing in Steem Power and bots leads to further saturation of the market resulting in more issues with the reward pool.

The creators issue

The is another issue which might be more of a problem for the creators as well. With Steemit attracting creators to make money on their platform, there is one thing seriously lacking… the consumers. Of course, as a creator you consume as well, but when we are all in creator mode, we focus on creating first and consuming second, resulting into valuable content which gets way too little exposure. Of course, like many I post my blogs on other channels for more exposure, but for any consumer that has little knowledge of Steemit and the blockchain, Steemit is not exactly a Social Media platform with a low threshold to join.

This makes it important to be seen. Even for Steemians that don’t believe in paying for up votes, to get exposure, you need at least a bit of knowledge about platforms and tools like discord, which might not be difficult, but creates another threshold that shouldn’t be ignored. As the younger generation in general has an entrepreneurial mindset and focuses on personal branding, distribution of content and traffic towards their content, some people just want to put out quality texts and pictures. Of course, like always, you have to listen to your audience, this case an audience that creates as well, which bring content creation to a whole other level.


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I am one of those "creators" who is frustrated by all the crappy content I've come across. Yesterday I found an article that was a word for word copy of an article from Pyschology Today ...and when I questioned the "creator" he didn't respond. Heck even the photos he used weren't his. But boy oh boy did he get upvotes! I think that's WRONG!

As a newbie exploring here in response to your comment about creator first: I make a point to search and find originality and I like and comment on it as well as follow the creator of it. This is how it shall be for me. Making $$s is secondary to me.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts @groovyreflctns! Actually, in the case you have described, there is something you can do about it. Check out these accounts:
https://steemit.com/@steemcleaners
https://steemit.com/@cheetah
You can mention them as a comment on the post and they will do their part.
I appreciate the effort you put in to finding the content. Unfortunately, most of us just don't. And thats the problem with most Social Media. We want the platform to curate for us and then complain about it afterwards :).

Steemit has a ton load of problems. It should learn something from Medium , I explained here

True, just checked the article. Steemit is a monetized version of Reddit. Which isn't necessarily a compliment.

Exactly. Reddit is for building communities, not blogs.

A Very interesting analysis of the situation and so much debate on this from all sides at the moment
a lot of heated debate and opinion on all sides, and more gettign involved in the bid bot wars as I call them

I am watching and seeing where the dust settles

True, many of us are just watching as we can't or have limited impact to what's going on. I'm glad to see that many creators continue to produce content no matter whats happening on the other side.

Yes I think the best we can do is Steem On

Yes sir.

If you think this video will be better as a podcast, upload it on Dsound. :-)

Actually, that's not a bad idea (well duh :D..). I haven't taught about making Steemit (and its decentralized platforms) my primary exclusive content channel, but I definitely should check the options.

wow, great article! I agree there is a huge problem, but i hate that everyone singles out hiejen, don't get me wrong i think he is way over paid but so are other people on this platform that dont do anything but post stupid video games and gets $1,000 a post.. infact i think he may be the highest earner on steemit.. In any case, these people put in there time on steemit and now have a bunch of follower who apparently like thier work and want to pay them for it. I think people are forgetting that everyone is upvoting BY CHOICE! People need to stop complaining so damn much.. LIFE IS NOT FAIR! If you want to make more, work harder! its no secret!

Thanks for joining in @moderndayhippie! You are correct, Haejin is the one that gets the most attention, but there are post that are of lower quality that get larger payouts. And yes, people upvote by choice and their steem power doesn't magically fall out of the sky. Someone either worked for it or bought it, which in both cases means, invested in the platform.

You got a 2.76% upvote from @minnowvotes courtesy of @jeanlucsr!

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Jeanlucsr from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.