What do you consider "well distributed"? And do you not think there should be incentive for people to accumulate stake? If you're mostly talking about original mega-whales, I do see such concentrated stake as problematic if it were to persist. But there seems to be lots of powering down, so we're heading in the right direction and hopefully it will continue to a meaningful extent. Not to mention, we're starting to get more distribution of voting power (via delegation), which should help just as much as distribution of stake when it comes to what content is getting upvoted, no?
As for use of the flag, this is where I see concentrated stake being the most destructive. Imagine a content creator with a large following considering committing to steemit. If they see whales downvoting posts just because they think the author is being rewarded too much (or not engaging to the whale's satisfaction), what are the chances they would bother bringing their following here? Slim to none. If we don't get that under control, I don't think we'll ever experience substantial growth.
It was more of a general observation in response to the question about what happens when a few people have power and abuse it. I wasn't referring specifically to the original whales but that's certainly an issue currently. As I said it is unclear whether stake and power will diffuse sufficiently to negate or minimize these problems, but that doesn't mean they won't. I see little in the way of strong evidence either way, and examples from other systems where power and stake both concentrates and those where it doesn't. Our own system is too new to draw many conclusions from it.
Not necessarily. There will always be a degree of golden rule where those with the most stake set the rules on those to whom it is delegated. In any voting system, stake is power, ultimately.
Regarding your example of a content creator being downvoted, it really depends. As the post discusses, there can be cases where there is a single large gain or loss in one place but a large number of small gains or losses elsewhere. If the rewards are redistributed from that content creator to many others, and that does more good in the aggregate, it may be a net gain. This is likely impossible to measure or answer objectively. Voters having different views on things is not necessarily abuse.
Also concentrated stake can take multiple forms. Services which collect up voting rights from many users and then deploy it in a concentrated manner can be a form of stake concentration and can lead to exactly the kinds of voting abuses described in the post. But it is difficult to ever say objectively when or if this is occurring. Again voters may reasonably disagree.
Wow!!!! @tombstone I seriously now have an immense amount of respect for you.
With my own personal experiences from whales abusing their power (although I could see where they are coming from). I feel that it is something that needs to be taken into consideration, and needs to be controlled.
I feel that the abuse of power not only is driving away new members, but big ones. As previously stated in posts, and now backing what you say here. I can only agree 100% with you that as someone who has a decent following elsewhere on the internet, my steemit following is mainly derived from in house building. Occasionally, I advertised, supported, and promoted Steemit on these other platforms and social media, but the biggest problem I have in bringing over people to Steemit, is that it is to easy to google "steemit" and see news stories about abuse, problems, and even hacking.
A lot of people get excited about Steemit and then run into problems and realize underlying issues. For the most part, as someone who is able to pursue and talk to people based on their needs, wants, ideology, and understanding. I feel I connect with people on a personal basis and that becomes a better way for me to understand how to bring to light something useful like steemit.
I am trying, to build, help grow, and develop this wonderful community, even with small problems and simple obstacles I find that there is always something to learn, a reason to continue the fight, and more importantly a reason to share this experience.
Thank you for this bit of information from someone of your influence and caliber, it has given me great joy to understand more about the way things work, and the insight from someone who obviously cares about Steemit as a whole and not just about their own self.
~Timbo
Yep happening. See @haejin..
I think payout voting thread replies dialogue is undervalued and could use heightened reward promotion too.