My biggest concern here is decreasing the total pool content creators are earning as a whole. If Steem price skyrockets because more people are buying into profit from the 50% slice of the pie then from a psychological standpoint as long as people see their earnings increase in value even if the amount of Steem they are earning is less most would be ok with that.

Right now there is a massive shortage of people entering contests, and people producing content that others would deem “upvoting.” This is more to do with how much of pain in the butt it is for the average users to find what they really want. Which leaves many contests with low or no participation (can you believe I win contest sometimes by default? Kind of sad). Many amazing things only being found by communities they have been posted in (by the very few who go through those feeds), and people such as those who are involved in curation guilds using quite a few different method in discovering content (external tools, brute force, discord diving ext…)

Curating for a guild

As a curator on a few different levels excluding my actual curation rewards from the reward pool I was paid directly just over 3 Steem for a weeks’ time (it was not a great week I’ll admit).Now I could have earned a lot more than that but it gets completed and time-consuming as well.

Certain curation opportunities have very high standards and when those are not meet you are out. That is just how it is. So while I would have liked to do more I have to think about the long-term of still being able to do “something.” Which means sitting on the sidelines waiting for next month with certain things and picking up the slack elsewhere. With plagiarism checking, looking for a possible sign of a sock puppet/alt, reposting, and ensuring the content is what the curation guild is even interested in rewarding among other things it becomes time-consuming.

For me personally even doubling the curation rewards is sadly not going do much. Even if say I had a better week and I made 30+ Steem at it (which is more than possible once I get into a groove.) I do it to mostly help the amazing posts out there get more than the pocket lint they are left with. It’s not possible to earn the amount of actual Steem I need. I need the price to skyrocket in the next few years and I need to hold most of it. Which is what a large amount of people on this platform needs regardless if you are a content creator, curator, investor. Granted I’m just a small-time nothing who is using other peoples SP. While I have help undervalued authors connect with 1000’s in rewards by creating an opportunity or being more hands on. I’m not an investor so I just do it for fun and maybe one day it will cover my electrical bills for the time spent doing so.

What we really need

Now for those in more cost effect country, this could be quite an opportunity for them to take up being in a curating guild that covers their cost of living. The issue is it already quite completive to find the “breadcrumbs,” and get into curation guilds unless more middle-income class communities, dapps, and curation guilds start popping up that encourage people to post the kind of content they are looking to reward and those places need help spreading their stake in the reward pool.

Very successful people in life tend not to have time to micromanage there SP to try and max their curation rewards. They are more than likely already earning better outside of Steemit then on. This is simply a long-term investment. Unless they are heavily invested in Steemit and this is their major source of income. So, whoever pays them the highest tends to get their SP regardless (yes, there will always be expectations). They could right now be making dapps and communities that have a benefactor cut like some do out there. Yet, more are not taking advantage of this including myself.

We need more people innovating

Debating over who should get a bigger cut of the pie is not increasing the pie. They can already use benefactor cuts to increase how much they get of said pie if they created something people wanted to use and had the SP behind backing it.

Sadly I’m just not that guy to get it done. I’m not a programmer or someone who has the financial means to be a backer and I’m even very short already on time these days. I’m just a min. wage worker when times are good. I am already exceeding putting in a full jobs times worth into Steemit every week creating what I consider “quality” content, co-running a community focused on curating/ “quality content,” being involved in other communities to further curation efforts, and other stuff. When these things become not worth waking up anymore and dealing with I’m going be moving on. I don’t create enough “value” to make it financially worth my time and that is solely on myself. Not the % of curation rewards.