Entitlement has been mentioned a few times today and it just came up again in a conversation with @abh12345 on what exactly are we entitled to here. Well the obvious answer is nothing followed by, our stake. The system is designed to reward based on what is in our powered up wallet, it is our influence over the system and our draw on the pool. So, does that mean that we are entitled to the value of our vote x 10?

Now, I am not recommending self voting 10 times a day and I will get to why later however, if we were to think about it as an investment, we have that value to play with each day which means if we were to maximize our own vote to use only on ourselves, it would be current vote value x 10. For me (only my stake) that would means 25,286 SP = 1.75 x 10. Lets pretend no one else votes, and I get full curation return.

That means I am currently entitled to 17.50 per day based upon my personal stake. Using this draw on the pool I would get about 25% return on my held SP per year which is about 6300 SBD per year (There is also a compound effect in play that increases it but my head hurts). That is a pretty incredible return considering that a bank offers 0.25 percent or some nonsense like that.

But, I have 25,286 SP. What if I had 100 SP? 100 SP has a vote value of 1 cent but has an identical entitlement in the system. and at the end of the year I have my 25% on top and have 25 SP extra. Fantastic. I of course would need 10 targets each day to do this which is 3650 posts of some kind and vote each one. That seems like a lot of work for 25 SP which has a value of 20 dollars US currently.

So, self voting is only really beneficial if one has stake but, it is what people are entitled to as the code allows it. So, anyone who has earned more than their stake value on average has benefited from the system, from the community, from the platform above and beyond their entitlement. Remember that most people have stake here without buying in, it is community provided.

But of course, if everyone just self votes in the system that leads the system absolutely nowhere and it will collapse because it holds nothing of value. The value on the Steem blockchain is the content itself and that content is supposed to draw value to it based on the community opinion about whether it is valuable or not. The reason it is designed this way I think is so that it can distribute and reward Steem to where the community believes Steem is best rewarded. It is a community responsibility to decide what has value. Decentralized free market.

But it isn't a free market because there are unnatural processes like vote buying that draws large amounts from the pool and places them on targets that the community hasn't chosen, rather the source has chosen it. This is fine as people have their stake and do with it what they will but it is essentially self-voting 80 or 90% and then placing the excess on something that the community would not support under normal circumstances. This is quite an important factor in a free-market environment isn't it?

Yes, no one is entitled to more than their stake but, this doesn't mean no one shouldn't get more than their stake worth, does it? This is the case because not all content is created equally. While some content has low value for the community, other content can have high value and if everyone is only getting the value of their stake worth, it doesn't discern the difference as there can be high value content from low stake and low value content from high stake.

This isn't about fair. Proof of Brain (whatever that is supposed to mean) should be on the voters and their decision making ability about where to put their stake to satisfy their goals. For example, while some whales self vote themselves 10 times a day like Haejin, most do not. Either they do not vote 10 times or, they spread their vote value into the community.

For example, if we are all entitled to the value of our stake than @blocktrades with their 1.7M SP and 117 dollar vote is entitled to vote on themselves 10x = 1170 a day or 8190 a week. That is a large draw on the pool and if they did that, there would be that much less in the pool each week for others. But, they are not idiots, they know that they have a business to run and in the long-term, their business activities will outstrip those earnings because the value of Steem will go up. Or at least, that is the plan. If all the whales and orcas spent their stake getting what their stake entitles them to, the place is very, very likely to collapse very fast. If everyone did it, it would be almost immediate.

This is the problem with the code is law because the coding laws allows the system to implode. The reason it doesn't is there is enough active stake currently either spreading or, remaining inactive. Personally, I prefer them to spread for two reasons. Number one is because if they have significant stake they are more likely to take an interest in distributing to value adding targets or people. Secondly, I think that I am somewhat one of those people who adds some content value here and plan to continue doing so. The first reason is more important than the second though.

The problem with the bought target votes is that the value of the purchase goes to vote sellers who are indifferent to the content itself which means it might not have any value to anyone whatsoever. Their purchasing price even if it gets powered up goes to vote sellers who will sell it continually back indifferently while continually increasing their draw on the pool. In the long-run, the only content that has any support is that with paid votes and, the system doesn't work as there is no content value required, which makes a content blockchain valueless.

If there is no reason for anyone to come here to read and all they see is adverts and low quality boosted content, there is no reason for them to stay. If they come here and find content across various topics of interest and quality, they are likely to stay and consume it which means, there is attentional value in the content on the blockchain and therefore value in Steem. This is good for anyone who holds Steem.

This was meant to be about entitlement but I think it has turned more into something about our responsibilities in a decentralized community that is supposedly looking to expand and add value to the community. At the moment it represents a crony government system, because the community can be bribed into placing its stake on content it normally wouldn't. We normally call that a crooked government but on a decentralized blockchain it is poor governance. But the code allows it because we are free to act with our stake as we choose.

This isn't about whales, orcas and dolphins because, minnows and redfish do exactly the same thing. Not all, but many. I often talk about the evils of consumerism but it isn't necessarily evil, it is just that we are prone to buy what harms us. We buy on credit and inflation increases, we buy disposable trash and pollute the environment. The problem isn't in the buying, it is in what we are spending our value upon. If we let the corporations choose for us, what choices will they make and what happens to their product quality when we give decision making power to them.

I don't want my content in Trending unless the community decides it should be there. I don't want to have 1000 dollars on my post unless it is worth the vote of all the whales required to get it there. People are boosting with nothing to sell but their content and it is often severely lacking and of the type that no one with eyes would buy, especially at those prices. That isn't promotion.

In my opinion, we need to think about these things more and consider what this blockchain is. What that means is to decide where, what and who our stake goes to support because with so much stake going to so few and those few bringing very little of value to the blockchain (they add value to the vote sellers), then the blockchain as a whole will struggle to gain traction.

We know that we need a consumer class of user here who isn't interested in earning but is interested in commenting, watching, reading and spreading the decentralization of content so distribution can widen also but, what are they going to consume? "Get rich quick schemes" in trending? Who the hell wants to consume that other than people who are looking to benefit from the system with as little input as possible? Are they value adding?

Despite the issues, the future here is bright and at some point, the change will come that will minimize the benefits of vote selling and maximize the value of being active and sensitive to where stake is applied to distribute. It will change with RC delegations, it will change with SMTs and airdrops, it will change with competition and technology but eventually, something will put a stop to it and those who have enjoyed their boosted unseen sense of grandeur will be left out in the cold and those who built a network and a community will be firmly at the core.

What we think we create. What we support we encourage. Find the people worth supporting, the people who will fill this blockchain with content value, personality value, technological value and of course, community value. Everyone is entitled to decide what they do with their stake. Some have brains, some are blind.

This is a bit of a rant of thoughts pouring out but the medical treatment I had today has me with a migraine, it is 3 am and I have been up for 21 hours already. My aim was to write a short post with some outlined thoughts for some discussion value as I haven't written one of these pieces for a while.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]