Recurring Reward Proposal

The hashtag #newsteem is meant to encapsulate not just the technical changes brought in by the latest hardfork to the Steem blockchain, it is also supposed to reflect a new era in which there is better communication between the Steemit inc. team and its users.

So in the spirit of new Steem, I want to revisit a proposal I made roughly a couple of years ago. Back then @andrarchy did not have the role he does now, and the Steemit inc team did not seem interested in listening to its user base whatsoever. Rather, they were riding the crest of a high Steem price, therefore thought that they had got it right so why listen to anyone else?

Now with @ned sitting in the background as non executive chairman, things at first seem to have changed for the better, so let's see if my proposal is given any notice this time around.

Is The New Steem World Still Brave?

Before I get into what the proposal actually was, let's quickly look at what Steemit purported to be when it was first launched, and how that differs from today.

The original Steem Whitepaper cited the billions of dollars in advertising revenues that Facebook and Reddit generated without sharing any of the profits with its users. Indeed even the updated whitepaper which is around 2.5 years old still contains a version of this statement.

The original philosophy of Steemit was to allow blog posters a chance to make money from their posts, whilst at the same time rewarding the readers for their attention by giving them a share of the revenue generated.

At this point there were no Google ads on Steemit, as the price of Steem meant that the company could survive simply by selling its crypto to cover costs.

Fast forward to the present day and every post on Steemit has a Google ad, which generates money for the company and is not shared with its user base.

My issue isn't the fact that Steemit have changed its model and now use advertising like any other social platform. It isn't even the fact that neither I, nor any other Steemit user gets a share of the Google ads.

My umbrage comes from the fact that long after a user has made a post and collected whatever funds generated in the seven day pay window, Steemit will still be collecting Google ad revenue.

So in other words, if I write a popular article today, which maybe doesn't do so well on Steemit, but is a highly searched and clicked article via Google, the ad revenue could go into the thousands and I don't receive a penny of that.

Of course you might argue that this is the case for any other social platform, however Steemit purports to be better than that.

Recurring Payment Windows

In order to address this potential revenue imbalance, I suggest that their should be a recurring payment window for popular posts, and when I say popular, I mean posts that have had lots of attention via Google and other search engines.

If done properly the recurring payment window will not only reward the author for a popular post, it will also incentives people to vote on articles older than seven days old. Which in my mind is a problem in itself, because there are many posts which are not time sensitive, which provide value long after they are created.

Idea Function

There are a couple of ways this could work, which we'll explore briefly now.

1. Applies to all: So this code could be written into the blockchain to simply apply to all posts, whereby regardless of how popular your post is, you still have the chance of a recurring payment window opening up at some point in the future.

Perhaps in this version a random window may open up 90 days after the original post, giving people a chance to vote and be rewarded.

Pros: Everyone has a chance to benefit.

Cons: The random nature may mean that popular posts still miss out on a chance to increase revenue.

1. Applies to popular in-house posts: In this version the recurring pay window opens if a particular post keeps getting views and/or votes from the Steemit community, which indicates the validity and usefulness of the post.

Pros: Popular Steem posts are rewarded beyond 7 days.

Cons: Steem votes do not always reflect how good a post is, so good articles with few votes will be ignored, and the system can easily be manipulated.

1. Applies to views from other sources: In this version the recurring payment window would open if there were multiple inbound links and views to a post.

Pros: This could reward articles that don't necessarily get much traction on Steemit as far as votes are concerned, however would reward an article that was popular in the traditional ways.

Cons: Could possibly be open to ddos attack abuse.

Debate

Hopefully I've sparked off a debate here, I'd love to hear ideas from the Steemit community at large, as well as members of the Steemit inc. team such as @andrarchy.

SO LET THE DEBATE BEGIN! I HAVE SUMMARISED 3 WAYS IN WHICH THIS CAN WORK, PERHAPS WE CAN UNPACK THESE SUMMARIES INTO FULLY FLEDGED PROPOSALS? OR MAYBE YOU HAVE IDEAS BASED AROUND RECURRING REWARDS YOURSELF? OR MAYBE YOU BELIEVE THE WHOLE CONCEPT IS FLAWED AND WILL NEVER WORK.

WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee