Most gamers out there know the idea or structure behind a type of monetization and design strategy that's somewhat popular but generally looked upon with contempt. For those of you not familiar with the "Pay-to-Win" structure in games it's a conscious decision, generally from upper management, leading to the design of something being centered around having the service or game their creating an often unfair advantage or over powered experience to those who continually choose to purchase or invest in various features built into said service or game. Often times in these games performance enhancing items, superior weapons or boosted player stats are sold to the user, ultimately leading to an unbalanced user experience for those who cannot afford to purchase these items.

How "Pay-to-win" Effects the STEEM Network

In the case of STEEM the actual STEEM token itself, converted into powered up STEEM Power (SP) provides the mechanism in which users can "Pay-to-Win" on the network. With the win in this case being able to cast weightier / more valuable upvotes, the ability to demonitize other users with flagging / downvoting, the ability to post nearly infinite amount of posts or comments due to high amount of Resource Credits (RC), a quasi mute function served in the form of most STEEM front ends such as Steempeak.com or Steemit.com hiding low reputation users comments, not to mention the ability to prop people into positions of power with the witness vote function that is fueled by SP.

While this does provide those investing in or purchasing STEEM to have an enhanced experience on the network with more power and meaning behind their actions, it obviously has the ability to detract from the "free" user experience given that the "free" user has very little in regards to the ability to defend themselves from "Pay-to-Win" users. Often this design features allows for the "Pay-to-Win" user being able to dominate the "free" user experience often leading to less powered or "free" users being victimized which in turn leads them to spend their time on activities away from our STEEM network.

Some may argue this is simply a matter of one of the priviledges of having more money than others and that no great injustice is being done here, while others may be upset that "Pay-to-Win" users have the ability to easily abuse their powers at the cost of the "free" users overall experience here on STEEM. Is this something that detracts from the STEEM ecosystem and ultimately makes it less attractive for new users or for retaining users? Honestly I'm not sure to be entirely honest, could be argued either way.

The point of this post isn't to sit here and complain about an imbalanced user experience or anything of the sort. This post is merely to be used as a vessel to enable open discussion on what's written open and see what others on the network have idea wise in regards to these sort of things.

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