Similar type stuff is going on with a lot of Witnesses. And guess what...... they aren't going to get bumped out and most of us can't consider running witness and seed nodes because we aren't part of the oligarchy "club".
That is a cop-out if you asked me. Myself, @followbtcnews, and several others have made it into the top 20 by doing positive work for the platform. Other witnesses who are unable to make it into the top 20 and look to blame external forces are probably not contributing enough (or promoting themselves in the right way) to attract the attention of key stakeholders.
Guys like me are just looked upon as "negative"
Well, there is a lot of complaining in what you say with little "solution oriented" discussion. In my view many of the problems that we have are solvable, and I'm doing what I can (as are others) to try and improve things.
As far as investors, a good investor should be able to see past the issues we have today into what the platform can become in the future. Back when STEEM was around $0.08-$0.10 there were very few people who could see past all the shit that was going on and believe that the platform could actually improve. Fast-forward to today, we still have problems - but there are less (many have been addressed or improved) and STEEM is worth a lot more.
Suggestion:
@timcliff I think this deserve a post on it's own , majority of the steemians haven't this materialize and your lived experience may show us that it's possible to have upward mobility in STEEM ecosystem.
https://steemit.com/blog/@terrybrock/steemit-success-series--timcliff-on-who-to-target-with-your-content-1512178826-124805
Nice !!
It being a cop-out is a fair assumption. I will give you that. I have even asked myself if I was making up excuses about the situation but I have weighed the risk vs reward many times and even set up a witness node for VICE but those jack offs had no clue what was going on and their docker images were garbage so they wasted my time and money and I got sick of their excuses and peaced out. I thought if I got in early and provided support when things weren't looking very good it could workout for me there but that project is an incompetent mess.
I have voiced solutions many times. I even had very detailed comments posted on @lukestokes Witness Report a couple of days ago.
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lukestokes/the-witness-voting-engagement-report-2018-08-19
Most Witnesses don't like my solutions because if vote decay and any sort of situation where they are rotated out of tops slots for periods of time they aren't going to like because they would be giving up a consistent flow of money even if they aren't doing much of anything.
There is no way you can dispute that accounts like @freedom had a serious impact on who the top Witnesses were and eventually when a Witness collects enough power success proceeds itself. Then witnesses can group up and collude and pat each other on the back because now they are all "experienced."
@lukestokes felt that having the conversation of asking why certain witnesses are being voted for so I asked him why he is voting for @furion . I just am not seeing what value @furion is adding to the STEEM blockchain at this point. I haven't received any kind of answer for that.
At the end of the day once most Witnesses are in a position of power they don't want to rock the boat too much in fear of losing their position. It is human nature to not try to solve the tough problems or speak out against issues going on if they are getting paid day after day. They just shut their mouth and keep collecting from their magic money machine.
When STEEM death spiraled to $0.08-$0.10 it was looking terrible and I personally was giving the platform about a 20% chance of survival. Fast forward to today and I feel like we are dealing with some of the same issues and in some ways things have gotten worse. I feel like some of the problems have just manifested themselves in different ways.
I could hunker down and set up a witness and a seed node but it would almost for sure be 99.99% chance at unprofitably despite the fact that I have the technical knowledge to do so, have been here for 2+ years and have over 10,000 post/comments on this platform. Half my blog would turn into a Witness campaign and at the end of the day I would waste money and be pissed off because a bunch of basement dwellers with their ninja mine stake won't vote for me.
I saw your detailed follow up comment and appreciate it, but I haven't replied yet do to other commitments. @furion is on the bubble for me (if you check my voting history you may see I have removed him and and added him at various times), but I still think his conductor tool is still adding value to the witness ecosystem, and I greatly appreciate it. My hope is he'll continue to add value here, but that will only happen if he's incentivized to do so.
I'm surprised your opinion of success for the Steem platform is so influenced by token price. When I bought in at $3 and $4 and watched it go to $0.07, I didn't feel differently about the value of the technology. Being a good witness has more to do with just understanding Steem (IMO), but also STEEM and the larger cryptocurrency ecosystem. Emphasizing the current token price is a poor way to evaluate the future value of a project.
If you want to run a witness account, then do it. Don't complain about what might happen. Do it and see what happens. Everyone takes a risk and puts them self out there. Some succeed and some don't. The point if witnessing isn't wealth redistribution, but it's a secure blockchain. If servers aren't being run securely and consistently, then yes, changes should be made. If they are, then changes are less about the blockchain and more about the individual and their expectations.
@lukestokes
It goes to the root question of what people expect from a witness , I have heard varying opinions but some playbook for witnesses would be great to see who is following good practices and who is not.
https://steemit.com/contest/@itstime/5-steem-giveaway-what-do-you-expect-a-witness-to-do-for-steem
My opinion of the success of the STEEM platform is only partially influenced by the token price but that is a lot in part do to the fact that because the technology and what has been built here is in a lot of ways superior than anything else blockchain related including EOS. I believe that because of poor execution, poor distribution, and a range of other factors the price isn't as insulated to these large drops like it should be. The fact that there is an incentive to be VESTED should partially insulate from large drops but there has to be other revenue streams to support the price in my opinion.
When you bought at $3 and $4 and the price dropped to $0.07 you were more vocal about the mountain of issues here. Your situation has improved here and you are in the money so in some ways it may seem that things have improved but from a lot of people's perspective things haven't improved they have just changed. During that time I'm sure people saw you as a complainer and Steemit INC probably didn't like the criticism. I never thought you were a complainer. I thought the concerns were valid. Now I'm a complainer though because I'm bringing up concerns to those in power.
When I jump off cliffs I not only depth check but I usually will jump after someone else jumped and when I see them come up safely I try to land in the same spot they landed in to reduce my odds of getting hurt. Running Witness and Seed nodes can get expensive and when you are out of favor or not popular among the few with power then it is unlikely to be profitable. It can become a money and a time trap so I have to ask myself does it just make more sense to focus on masternodes where it mainly comes down to having the appropriate amount of coins or take some chance that will require other people's votes. I just have seen so many highly skilled individuals who were great members of the community fail at the witness game and then ultimately devest their interest and leave. There is a reason for it. One example was this guy. https://steemit.com/@nonlinearone Had a Phd, was super knowledgeable about blockchain, was always positive but in the end he wasn't part of the club so these people leave one after another.
A person could certainly go broke campaigning when they could have focused their money and effort on other opportunities. There have been many times when I have thought about completely devesting my interest in STEEM and to stop posting here to protect my time and energy. I'm just a really stubborn person so I have a hard time quitting even when I should.
I personally don't think that the incentives are inline to make the changes this platform will need to really succeed so it is more about learning from what I perceive to be the pitfalls of this platform. That only serves me if I can join a team building another platform or if I can get the funding to build my own platform. Otherwise it is a waste of time.
Even if I thought there was a 30% chance that I could even get in the top 40 on the witness votes I would go for it but I feel the odds are much lower than that.
I think you may be misremembering your timeline. When I was raising issues the price was much higher. I'm happy to say the issues I was mostly concerned about have been largely resolved. The website is much more stable, Steemit, inc is communicating weekly about their efforts, and they are actively using the blockchain directly to do so. I didn't just complain, I gave solid recommendations, and I'm glad to say it seems they are following them. I also met the actual team and bridged the gap between my perception and reality. Negatively destroys teams and communities. Your suggestions so far don't seem very compelling to me, but I'm certainly open to hearing more.
When I look at accounts like @nonlinearone, I just see a lot of resteems and not much engagement (and clearly no commitment to the platform). Commitment is what matters. People want to support those who are still here and aren't threatening to leave if they don't get their expectations met.
I don't feel like I'm misremembering the timeline. It was sort of two separate instances. Late 2016 and 2017 you were certainly calling for more communication and calling into question why @ned and @dan were powering down and cashing out with no answer and you used the example of how as a business owner you mainly reinvested back into your business in the early years. Which I agreed with this and was questioning the lack of communication myself. It looked like a money grab.
In the second instance was shortly before Steemfest 2 where issues with the website were called into question and you wrote a post about eating your own dog food. Essentially utilizing your own software products internally or something of that nature. It was another good write up and then I do remember you meeting with the team at Steemfest 2.
So I consider some of the instances as two separate times spans that were about 8 months apart.
I feel like my ideas about the issues with STEEM and Steemit are pretty well thought out and I have really studied the success and failures of other social platforms.
In Sydney I had in depth conversations with two Block One employees about some of the positives and negatives of what has occurred with the STEEM blockchain and how those issues could be addressed. They both were very receptive to what I was saying and it correlated with their experiences on this platform.
I'm not being negative. We have some great examples on here of what has worked and what hasn't and in the end I feel like the platform that will end up working the best will be one that combines elements we see on Busy.org, Steemit, DTube, and DLive.
You would have to go back to 2016 for an account like @nonlinearone He set up a Witness node and was giving speaches about Blockchain tech in Phoenix and in Vegas and different places. He was pretty engaged. More recently he took a step back and powered everything down.
There are countless examples of this. We can't chalk everyone up who left as them being quitters or complainers.
Why did @daxon quit posting here but posts almost everyday on Instagram? Why did @mynameisbrian quit posting and power down his account? These are questions we have to ask ourselves. We can't just chalk all the attrition to people just being flaky quiter / complainer people.
As far as your last statement about people wanting to support those who are still here and aren't threatening to leave if they don't get their expectations met. Well it doesn't really seem to play out that way a lot of times. Is it supportive to people to just delegate their power to an upvote bot so that others can buy their vote?
So much of what I see says ........
Please upvote me and I will take those rewards and then you can buy my vote
A lot of these content creators that were fortunate enough to have solid support like @allasyummyfood have turned to that model. A lot of the witnesses and large whale accounts have very little curation engagement as well.