Will Referral Bonuses KILL STEEMIT?
A few days before this post, a friend of mine on steemit @onyemacourage published a content WHY STEEMIT WILL NOT GROW: HOW WE ALL ARE SELFISH. In his argument, he highlighted the essence of referral bonuses in the growth of online schemes. I agree as much: referral bonuses go a long way in facilitating the escalation of any online scheme.
In my quest to relate the above premise to steemit, I embarked on a few inquisition, sampling the opinions of people as regards referral bonuses and steemit. Amidst all the feedbacks I got both online and offline, these few outstandingly summarized the others:
- I was very disappointed when I discovered that my friend had known about steemit a couple months before I knew such a platform existed. We ate together, played together, talked together and yet he was too selfish to mention it and denied me the privilege of enjoying the bounties of this wonderful community. I wouldn't mind the introduction of referral bonuses. I believe he would have told me and given me all the required briefing if he had a referral bonus to earn.
James (not his steemit name)
- My cousin who never had a thing for writing all of a sudden began to demand short, original contents from me. He was very consistent in his concern for my contents, that triggered my curiosity. Even with my curiosity, he was still selfish with details. Referral bonuses would not be a bad idea, other incentives would also do. By that someone like my cousin will have something to lose not telling me about steemit.
Joyce (not her steemit name)
- I have been on steemit for a while now but the response from "the steemit people" in terms of upvotes was not encouraging. I am a good marketer, if there was referral commission, it would have benefited me more; I would make a market out of steemit. If the upvotes do not reach me, the referral bonus will, surely!
Daniel (not his steemit name)
I think I agree with you on that. People ain't taking the good news out there because there is no referral bonus. Nevertheless steemit just need to be selfless and reach out to others. The more people we have using steemit and transacting with steem. The better the price of steem.
@samstickkz
Opinion is like a belly button and everyone is entitled to one my friends @prettyrose and @vwovwo would usually say. Not everyone smiled at the idea of having a referral bonus on steemit. See the following opinion(s):
Reaching out to someone about steemit is the better version of you. Its an expression of love and commitment in sharing value to some other person... If you ask me i would say there should not be any referal bonus on steemit because it would get the system saturated with inactive accounts.
@samuelwealth
Steemit as we all know is a pool of information. It is a community that brings research minded people together to either feed the pool with information or fetch information from the pool. It encourages original contents and creates an avenue to have these contents appreciated in monetary terms.
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The introduction of REFERRAL BONUSES, in my own opinion, will KILL STEEMIT. It will turn steemit into a market place. No doubt, as established earlier, it will boost sign-up, but what is quantity without quality? Population here should be engineered by quality. With the introduction of referral bonuses, people like "Daniel" whose opinion I highlighted earlier will be out for referral bonuses, creating spam accounts and signing up half baked, uninterested individuals. Thus, abandoning the vision and mission of steemit. As stated by @samuelwealth, the system will be saturated with inactive accounts. This will constitute spam to the database and kill the essence of steemit.
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Steemit as it is now, only people who see its value sign-up, only folks who perceive it's worth sign-up, only those who know its future will sign-up and above all, only those who have passion for scholarship sign-up.
Totally agree - everyone is obsessed with the rewards pool and maybe afraid that too many new people will reduce their chance to earn? @tarquinmaine
This is a major factor that deters reaching out to others in the absence of referral bonuses. But one thing people refuse to understand is this: if steemit reaches a closed system - a state where most, if not the entire "digital" population joins it - those who are earning now will earn far more, the price of Steem and all its affiliate currencies will skyrocket, the value of accounts will multiply many folds. This should be more than enough motivation for a selfless reachout.
I am out to promote steemit against all odds. Nigeria must "steem it" - #Project20millionNaija pioneered by the @stach vision.
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Great shoutout to some selfless stemains I know and have seen in action: @samstickkz @ejemai @stach @prettyrose @onyemacourage @evelyniroh @amadamsel @emem and many others
Well that's just my own take on the matter. You can share your own opinion. WILL REFERRAL BONUS KILL STEEMIT?
A referral bonus has always lead to scamming by people or manipulation. It is better for Steemit to grow organically then incentivized for my opinion on this.
Steemit has a vast area of free promtion already which comes from organic search engine results which are more powerful then any incentive program out there. Literally millions if not a good billion page views happen on steemit every day because of high quality posts and users who understand SEO to get their posts ranked on high quality keywords with lots of traffic.
Yeah, that's true sir. But other incentives other than referral commissions wouldn't be a bad idea I think.
Referral commissions are overall bad ideas. The money has to come from somewhere and the quality of referrals are usually terrible. Prone to abuse as well. Have seen this happening over and over again in multilevel marketing stuff.. @bitcoinflood made a great point.
Steemit is not a get rich quick scheme, it is a platform that preaches love so users just take it upon themselves to share the Steem and so far the feeling you get from helping others discover the Steem is priceless.
Very important point boss. The "get rich quick" mentality associated with the minds of some stemains can be a kill factor to a selfless service to the steemit community, especially when things don't work out the way the subjects anticipate. I wish many more persons will see these opinions. Thanks for stopping by @ejemai.
Roger this.
Near-zero barrier of entry, direct compensation for creation of value, open and permission-less information hosting platform, accessibility for everyone to hold stake, superior payment network and system.. What more can people ask for!
As it stands, the incentive to sign up already trumps any potential monetary referral incentive. in fact even if the sign up subsidies are lifted (all account sign ups on steemit are paid for by @steemit by the way), an account will worth way more to a person than 10 steem required to sign up.
Humans are dicks, there's no changing that, no hard forks and coding can entirely mitigate that away. It comes down to the mindset of the person itself, the scarcity and abundance mindset.
Someone with a scarcity mindset will be worried that too many people joining will create competition to the reward pool. with little knowledge or regard to the Metcalfe's Law. Where it pays more to get half as much rewards in token when each token is 3 times more valuable, for example.
Someone with an abundance will realize there's more incentive to get the closest people to him to sign up and be a part of his circle where everyone can help each other to rise up the steem ladder. where its easy to keep morale and encourage each other to engage in steem.
I am all for getting people to know about steem. short of shouting it from the rooftop, im doing everything else I am capable.
As it stands now, we are the witnesses of Steem's 0.0001% beginning of the journey towards maturity.
early or late, eventually everyone will use steem. There's just no way to argue against that.
Great points. Thanks for stopping by.
Yeah. Growth in population is never the major concern of steemit and should never be.To champion quality of content people should be motivated by their interest in scholarship. That's the steemit we need! Referral bonuses, I think, will not kill steemit.
Aunty Rose! Warmest regards. I don't agree less; that's the steemit we need!
Steemit should grow organically, no incentive should be given. I think it would be better that way.
Thanks for your opinion sir. Don't you think other forms of incentives other than referral commissions wouldn't be a bad idea?
I've never made anything from"referrals" so quite frankly it's never going to affect me , what I can tell you is that steemit will grow but has probably been hijacked by the banksters already... so newer versions of steemit like platforms will mushroom NO DOUBT and many will happily jsump ship as steemit has a very unforunate ethos of protecting certain entites and their earnings
Thanks
I suppose a referral program could be effective if it is well structured and designed.
Thought, I suppose designing such a referral system could have adverse consequence - such as various game theory exploits
I suppose the very nature of introducing someone to steemit is a sort of referral incentive...as that relationship introduction and support is something that is able to be cultivated and developed and steemians are able to grow and mature together on the platform.
I've also wondered if it would be better to structure accounts as simply interest baring proof of stake accounts...based on vested stake....and then it's individual users decision which votes go where. I've wondered if this would encourage users/accounts here simply from the point of starting the clock and being incentivized into investing into ones account growth which has a compounding network effect
"well structured" referral program...ok. The relationship built when introducing a prospective stemain and the future results of the rapport as an incentive is a great idea, but most individuals like immediate benefits. Thanks for your opinion @research-mind
I am not sure there will be need for a referral bonus. steemit is a social media platform and needs to be used by people who are interested it. trust me, if it has a referral system, some people will join only to make use of their referral links.... And obviously that would not make steemit a great platform for us all. Steemit should grow just like every other social media platform
Well noted. Thanks for your opinion.
Great post! I wasn't sure about my thoughts on referral bonus so I searched it to see if there was one. This is where it sent me. Now, after having read through the arguments in your post plus the comments, I agree with the majority that referral bonuses won't add much and, in fact, could be detrimental to the long-term success of this platform. Good post!
I know I'm late to comment but....better late than never. :-)