Steem is a Free Market, Therefore Buying Votes is Voluntary and Not a Problem (or is it?)
The Steem blockchain and platform operates as a free market. Anything that is voluntarily done and engaged in by anyone is by default permissible. Until it can be shown to have negative consequences, people will engage in whatever behavior they want because they can.
That is the argument for why paying for votes is acceptable. Only until paying for votes can be causally demonstrated to have negative consequences on the platform will it be recognized as a negative. Until such a time, the default position for many is that this behavior is a positive.
Ok. Let's play the free market "game" then and see what we causally create with our aggregate behaviors.
Vote buying is done so that people can get more rewards on their posts. Let's look at voting and rewards a bit.
Needing More SP
As a user of the platform, in order to vote and allocate rewards, you need more SP which is the power on the platform.
Without buying STEEM to get more SP, you need more votes on your posts or comments, or more curation rewards from voters voting after you in order to get SP. But not just any votes: high SP account votes on posts give you more rewards as a content producer, and as a curator when you vote before high SP accounts vote.
SP, Popularity and Visibility
People seem to be attracted to vote on posts that become popular. Once someone is recognized as getting recurring high SP votes on their posts, more people vote on posts from that user in order to get more curation rewards.
The more popular posts are easier to see from the trending page. The trending page is the default page for anyone visiting steemit.com for the first time. The higher visibility on the trending page gives more "eye balls" on a post, potentially gaining more votes since more people see it, and therefore more popularly for that post, leading to potentially more rewards from more votes being given.
Essentially, the more votes you get from high SP accounts, the more rewards you will get. It can snowball due to high SP votes giving more visibility and therefore more potential votes from others who want curation rewards, etc.
Whale Votes are the High SP Accounts
Whales can choose to vote freely as a way to reward the content they value or an author they want to support; or they can choose to sell their votes for anyone to get rewarded regardless of evaluating or valuing the content itself. Maybe there are other reasons whale accounts vote, but those are the main ones I can see.
This applies not only to whales, as anyone can choose how to use their SP, since there is no community consensus on the acceptability of voting behavior. But non-whale accounts have less influence to allocate rewards and give high payouts for posts.
Questions to Ask Ourselves as Users of Steem
What is the Steem platform/blockchain? (for simplicity you can think of Steemit to reflect what it is)
Is it social media?
Is social media about evaluating content in order to appreciate it and gain value form it?
Is social media about not evaluating content, and simply rewarding content no matter what it is by buying votes to get higher rewards?
If Steem is not about evaluating the content to rewards it, then what is Steem about with respect to the content on the blockchain?
How does buying votes work out in the real world -- in any system, be it a free market or not?
Does buying votes produce an honest reflection and outcome of what is being voted on -- in any system that allows it?
What is the message or value of a platform that generates high visibility posts and high rewards, not by the evaluation of content itself, but by the buying of votes to get such visibility and rewards?
What image does this reflect and project about how the platform functions, and how content is rewarded?
What is the value of the content when it doesn't need to be evaluated by others to get rewards?
What do rewards on content measure, when the rewards are not being allocated based on evaluating the content?
What is the value and integrity of a platform that doesn't actually evaluate the content in order to produce high rewards for said content?
Content Rewarded vs. Buying Rewards
With vote buying, high rewards on a post then, are not a measure of the appreciation or value of the content of a post that earn those rewards, but instead reflect an ability to buy votes rather than earn them through the content itself.
- Does this type of vote buying platform seem to have issues or problems in how it is operating?
- Does the vote buying behavior seem problematic for the platforms success in the long-term?
- Does this behavior seem like a negative thing at all?
Causally Demonstrating the Effect of Vote Buying on Steem/STEEM
Many people will never accept that buying votes is detrimental to Steem/STEEM unless it is proven through hard facts like the falling price of the STEEM token, or loss of active users on the Steem platform, etc.
Something causal has to demonstrate that paying for votes is a negative, is bad, etc. Otherwise, we will all continue to argue, some with the position that buying votes isn't doing anything to harm Steem/STEEM, but is instead helping Steem/STEEM. The free market will have to tell us in the end, in order to resolve this lack of consensus in the community.
Since many people support arguments for a causal free market response to determine if this -- or any other -- behavior is valid and optimal for the platform and it's success, let's play out the causality and free market feedback to demonstrate how valid this behavior is.
Let the Causality of the Free Market Show Us
Let's see if vote buying makes things better, or worse. Let's do it across the platform to show what it does.
What that means is, everyone should start to play this game of paying for votes. This will causally demonstrate how viable the behavioral model of paying for votes is. It would be best demonstrated if no one gave free votes anymore, and only paid votes were given on the platform. This would expedite a causal response of how successful or detrimental this behavior is for the Steem platform and for the STEEM token.
If the paying of votes is good for Steem and STEEM, then the price will go up. If the paying of votes is bad for Steem and STEEM, then the price will go down. The free market and causality will let us know if there is a problem by showing a declining price of STEEM. If there is no problem, then STEEM will continue to rise.
This is the only way I see how we can get everyone to understand if there is an issue, or if there is no issue. This is how we will form a consensus to agree on what not to do here.
The free market will tell us if this behavior is bad or not for STEEM. If it's acceptable by people, then STEEM will prosper. If people don't accept it, then STEEM will stagnate and falter.
Either way, those who can afford to pay get more SP, and those who receive payment for their votes get more SP. The rest of the user-base get less of the distribution of STEEM and have to struggle to eventually get SBD/STEEM to pay for votes.
Again, to demonstrate the viability of paying for votes as a successful behavior on the platform in the quickest way to see how it affects the platform and token, is if that's the only method to get upvotes, which I doubt will be the case. I am not expecting this to happen at all. I'm just saying that this is the quickest way to see the effects and results of the behavior.
We will have to wait and see how long before positive or negative effects are demonstrable as more and more people pay for votes to get rewarded for whatever posts they put out.
The less people that do it, the less effect it will have on the overall platform. The more people that do it, the greater effect it will have on the overall platform. This is how causality will show us how buying votes affects the platform and token for better or worse.
We will just have to face the consequences if it doesn't work out, and live with a low STEEM value if that's what happens. So be it, at least we will know. And maybe the opposite will happen...
Have your say, let me know what you think!
- What do you think of this proposal for how to demonstrate if paying for votes works out for Steem?
- Do you think we can agree on a consensus about paying for votes without a causal demonstration of the positive or negative effects it creates for the platform?
- Do you think paying for votes will have a long-term positive or negative effect for the Steem platform or the STEEM token?
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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I wrote a post on paper. Its along these same lines. I don't know if I want to post it now lol. Basically I talked about how the last human curators are holding out, but eventually the vote bots will win. I could make much more money delegating my voting power. As soon as Luke Stokes and team Steem, ura soul and flipstar, gr1 and mangos. Surpassing Google and pharesim start delegating to bots, this platform is in for some rough roads. Not saying they will, but they are losing money for not. While the vote bots and self upvoters take money, the human curators upvoting good content are losing.
The vote buying pushes value to a narrow end with no risk to the sellers as what they are selling is access to a public pool, not their personal value but, people are buying in with what they earn from that same pool. It doesn't work.
If you are interested for reference, I have written a couple past pieces dating back 7 months:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@tarazkp/1-step-back-2-steps-forward-vote-buying-question-and-trending-part-repost
https://steemit.com/steemit/@tarazkp/pride-and-foolishness
Funnily enough, surfermarly has been complaining again about the lately yet, she is one of the heaviest beneficiaries of being an early adopter. It seems that the ancap want legislation to protect their wealth now.
Bidbots are a scourge on the platform and will lead to this place having no value. They make it a pyramid scheme where the bids have to continually increase to get value out. It will not lead anywhere good otherwise pyramid schemes would be great ideas for all economies.
I tend to agree that bid bots pose an economic issue for Steem. Do you have any solution?
I agree, it's a scourge of that casts an image of dishonesty and disintegrity on the platform. So many schemes are created that focus on extracting money/tokens, yet don't actually add value to the platform through the content that could draw people in. Exploiting the platform to extract the most without adding real value content is a problem since day 1, and these people always get to keep the money from their scammy behavior. Crooked behavior wins on the platform, always.
If we want to resolve the debate and conflict about this issue, we need to reach a consensus. How? I see the only way to get people to see the issue is by demonstrating it. Why drag this out for a year or two in a slow downfall and prolonged suffering. Let's rip the bandaid off quick and get the pain over with. That's my goal here. This will continue to be a behavior if we just keep arguing. Arguing does nothing to bring a solution on Steem it seems because no consensus is reached. People will do as they want unless faced with consequences. The price of STEEM falling is a consequence they might recognize if done in a short period where peop;e can see the effects play out. Dragging this on for 1-2 years will have a gradualism effect where we can't see the the source of the problem manifesting immediately.
I actually think think this is part of the scam. Prolonging the fate means higher ROI. If all use the bots it kills that possibility as the system collapses. The scam requires enough people not using it. I don't know if you saw the numbers I ran last night but on the bots but it doesn't take many users to extract a massive amount from the platform.
Exactly. It only is viable if few use it, and they can keep reaping the profits. It only fails if a majority use it to make it unprofitable and not worth using. They depend on a low percentage of use in order to continue to exploit the advantage.
I appreciate and understand the sentiment, but I don't think anything like this can be reasonably coordinated and achieved. For instance, I wouldn't want to participate in an experiment where I have to spend my SBD or Steem for a type of service I do not approve of.
Additionally, we also need a control, so we need to get people to stop using the vote buying for a period of time to see what the effect will be. But that will never happen as there will always be people who would use the time to buy cheaper upvotes.
But even in a perfect world where everybody in the platform would participate in an experiment, you most probably still wouldn't be able to show clear causal link as there are too many other variables. The price of Steem and SBD depend on a lot of additional factors, not just on the way people are behaving on the platform. Any change you see in the price of the token might actually be a direct result of implementing a platform wide experiment or the people's expectations of the outcome, not the actual thing being tested and you don't have any way to prove if it's one and not the other.
I'm not a fan of vote buying and I have no doubt that it one of the big contributors to people giving up on the platform. Seeing low quality content rewarded with very high earnings is indeed disheartening.
I don't like the experiment, but how else are we going to reach a consensus other than demonstrating positive or negative effects it has on the community, platform, or STEEM price? We use flags to punish those who use, or those who provide the service? I hate flags. Only those with high SP power can make that happen anyways.
In a proper scientific study, yes we would use a control group, but that can't realistically be done here, right? So we have to think about how to demonstrate it imperfectly with the methods we do have available. I look at it as let this continue where a small percent of usability has minor effects int he aggregate which aren't visible much, which takes 1-2 years to slowly drag on the suffering as we slowly fall, and the gradualistic effect has people unable to see what is happening or attribute a cause to the effects. vs. getting the pain and suffering over quickly and ripping the bandaid off, where the short temporal timeframe of engaging in casual behavior to produce effects will be more visible and apparent.
In a short time of engaging in specific behavior, there is a degree of likelihood that the behavior produces the effects being seen, rather than assume other forces unless those forces can be shown to be producing those effects. Even if it's the anticipation of outcome, at least that gives u an idea of the general consensus about how viable it is. If STEEM booms because of a consensnus on how great it is, ok at least we have a consensus, the same with a crash of STEEM on how bad people think it is, there is a general consensus that is manifested through aggregate behavior that has a visible effect.
I agree. I just want to get a consensus formed somehow. Any ideas? Arguing gets us nowhere, some people just care about the money and don't see long-term consequences or how applying a behavioral model across the platform demonstrates it's not a viable method of operation. That's why showing it with the free market and causality is what I thought of.
The reason I took the time to write the response is not because I want to argue, but because I like your idea that we should dig out evidence that this is a bad approach that is hurting the whole platform in the long run. Unfortunately, I don't think the experiment you are proposing is a real possibility right now or anytime soon.
The first place I'd look for this type of evidence would be the data that's already on the blockchain. There is a lot of data already about what's happening, who's active, what's the price of Steem and so on, maybe somebody could find a good way to probe into it and find some meaningful correlations. I would start there I think, but I'm not even sure that's viable either.
To show users inactivity after the vote buying started? and The price of steem taking into account the rise of BTC?
I didn't mean us arguing, I meant the general "it's fine" vs. "it's not fine" because the it's fine group doesn't care about the arguments, it gets us nowhere because they just want to do what they want to do hehehe.
I'm certainly not part of the "it's fine" group on this ;)
You're right, I've personally been against the vote buying the whole time I've been here (I consider it more of a whale's cash cow, ripe for abuse since, IMO, is basically "anti-proof-of-brain") but have lately been coming around to whole the idea mainly due to the fact they are definitely now here to stay (witness encouraged & approved )and some bot owners are even allocating some portion of their income/rewards for further steem/development causes, which is great.
I agree, only time and the free market will tell how well or not this all plays out for steem.
Thanks for the feedback. I like how you term it as anti-roof-of-brain, funny :)
You made it very clear when you shared that content crusader post with me. You have my vote for witness. I think the masses are unaware and the whales don't care. Unfortunately, I see this playing out slowly. There will still be some good curation and rewarding of quality content, but clearly the powers that be here don't give a fuck about the long term success of the platform. I really wish someone would prove me wrong.
Thanks for the support :) Appreciated. Yeah too many with power aren't willing to act to stop what's wrong..
Thanks @krnel to giving my multitasking brain some food for thought.
Hopefully posts such as yours keeps the discussion going,
What do you think happens if a majority of people use the services? Will you get a return and profit? No, because the voting bots power will be saturated, and the vote you get won't be worth as much. This scheme/scam only works because not everyone "plays". The way Steem was designed for people to earn votes through other people voting, does work when applied to everyone on the platform. Vote buying does not. It fails when applied to everyone engaging in that behavior.
Yeap, Steemit is a free market, therefore the community decides what behaviors to promote and what behaviors to restrain. Users who invested the most in the platform and have the biggest stake in the game (most steem / steep power) have interest in the platform performing good for the community, so their stake is worth something, therefore if the community feels that buying votes have negative impact on the platform, these high stake individuals will probably act against it and they have tools to do so (eg flag, affect user's reputation). At the other hand, if users find buying votes as a genuine part of the game and positive then people buying / selling votes have nothing to worry about. It's all about perception and platform advancement.
How do you get everyone to accept that it is good for the platform and community, or not? If not by a majority engaging in it to show it as such?
Great article as always Krnel.
Facebook sells exposure. You pay Facebook for your post to be visible and thus market your brand.
Twitter sells you promoted posts.
It happens on other platforms as well. I don't agree with it. But on other platforms the centralized business collects the profits. On steemit individuals have that opportunity. I don't agree, but it is what it is until the Witnesses decide otherwise. I think. i don't know.
Yup, for advertising visibility sure. Rather than steemit burn the promo to trending, it's individuals that are making money from being paid for their votes to advertise content. So free votes don't matter, it's all about paying for advertising, since why give someone free advertising when you can charge them for it ;) And they make money by buying the vote too, not just from potential people giving votes freely afterwards... But then why does anyone give their vote freely? Reciprocal potential to get voted on as well on their own posts?
By itself, buying votes is not a problem. Misunderstanding and rejection this by society arises when votes are bought to support copy-paste, plagiarism and other content, which does not have a chance to get even a dollar from real users.
It is also sad that the majority of bid bots can vote even after Cheetah or Steemcleaners. This calls into question our entire system of values and rewards.
vote buying is really ruining it
there is so much talk about content !
if they really trust the content why they need it
Trust is not enough apparently, some people want Guarantees.
@krnel
Its very hard for new steemians to get upvotes for their blog.. Very few upvotes the post...
Buying votes from bot sometime b like a shit post blowing on trending page and a valuable post with zero upvotes. Many joins each days.. Many quit daily as they gets no attention...
Steemit was made for getting rewards for quality content.. Need to think over it
It was always very hard for new steemians to get upvotes for their blog.
You don't give attention you don't get attention. Many and quality doesn't mix usually. Usually, you sacrifice quality for many, or many for quality, that's why it's very hard to get votes. Quality content.