I haven't seen may posts about the current situation except the market analysis posts so I decided to do this one.
Since the big rally last month, the value of steem has been going down pretty fast and that means one simple thing : there is more offer than demand.
I see 2 main reasons for that :
People were buying steem like crazy last month probably without even knowing what steem really is just because the price was going up. Now that it's going down, there is much less confidence that it will rise again so much less investors.
The second reason I can see is that people who know what steem and steemit are and how they work don't see it as a valuable investment.
From my point of view, if I hadn't already invested a bit in steempower I wouldn't because of the second reason and I believe that if no major changes are done, steem will keep crashing.
The problems more in detail :
I think the real potential of steemit is in the masses so a lot of people investing a small amount each. The problem here is a small amount of steem wont get you anywhere. It won't help your posts get noticed and it won't make you win anything from voting.
The way the post rewards are distributed now is wrong. The top posters get too much while it's really hard for a new comer to even get noticed and even harder to get a few dollars worth of rewards. I think competition is good and the best posters deserve more rewards but now it's just plain unfair. This problem is increased by everyone wanting to upvote the same posts. A side problem caused by that is the votes done within the first minutes give most of their curation rewards back to the author so even more rewards for them.
So to make things simple, if you buy a little steem today to invest it in steempower, you're basically going to give it away slowly to the top posters here. (you don't see your amount of steempower going down, just the value of it)
Another group of peope who earn insane amounts of rewards is witnesses. I don't know all the details but trust me they get a lot.
my thoughts on potential solutions :
Find a way to limit voting on top authors (one account could maybe not vote for them more than once a week)
Change the reward formula, decreasing a bit the most upvoted rewards and increasing the less upvoted.
Give the fee taken in the first 30 minutes back to all the steempower holders
Give less to the witnesses (I know we need them but the amount they get is really insane)
This and probably a lot of other suggestions could possiby save steem. Please share your thoughts.
"The way the post rewards are distributed now is wrong. The top posters get too much while it's really hard for a new comer to even get noticed and even harder to get a few dollars worth of rewards... This problem is increased by everyone wanting to upvote the same posts. "
I agree.
When you say "ind a way to limit voting on top authors", there is a solution. The community. We are our own enemies here. We are doing this to ourselves. The curation is supposed to reward meaningful content as the goal in the white paper. But, most influx of users are focused on themselves and making money, not on helping the quality success of Steemit, or the world for that matter, by creating, and curating, higher quality content. They are too low consciousness and focused on jumping onto the money-making bandwagon and cult-of-personality popularity of other people to try to "gain" SBD and SP.
I create high quality content that is trying to make people aware of meaningful quality information relating to the current condition of the world and themselves, how their consciousness functions, in an effort to improve the quality of thinking and in turn the quality of actions that will improve the quality of life in this world. Other people are doing similar.
Those who focus on the money, and try to post garbage fodder low quality content, and clouding up the "new" stream and making it hard for Steemit to improve and be successful as a meaningful quality content media platform. I am trying to get people to understand that they need to focus on quality content creation and curation to help Steemit evolve as a quality success for quality content, and in turn that will help the world, instead of focusing on financial gain by curating to popular posts and posting irrelevant "entertainment" content to try to get as many upvotes as they can: Steemit Succeeds if We Make it Succeed - Analysis to Help Yourself and Steemit Grow in Quality
Please consider reading it and sharing it. I want more people to understand this important issue. Upvote only if you value and appreciate the content, as I do with other posts. I want the message to get out and be understood, more than I care for the upvotes, although on this platform they are hand in hand... I have shared on FB.
Thanks you for recognizing this issue in your post. It is a serious issue that needs to be addressed or else the qualtiy of Steemit will go down and so will the success, and then there will be no Steemit. It is ultimately up to the people in the community to understand this importance and change their behavior accordingly.
Take care. Peace.
You state: "We are our own enemies here. We are doing this to ourselves. The curation is supposed to reward meaningful content as the goal in the white paper. But, most influx of users are focused on themselves and making money, not on helping the quality success of Steemit"
I agree, but I fear that this is a tough battle. This is an example of what in economics is called a prisoners dilemma. If the system is such that actions which are detrimental to the society will benefit the individual, than the society will lose.
Look around you and see In how many environmental issues this is the case, and not just environmental,...
Personally I try not to care about the money. I try to write good content, engage in meaningfull discusssions and if I make a couple of cents or a dollar, all the better.
In the long run, I am confident that steem will stabilise. The lower the value goes, the less "quick buck artists" will be out there, and the less the monetary value of a boob post will be. From there on, it can begin to move ahead again. (that being said, like everyone, I would like steem to rise to the moon, for which we need a gigh quality community)
"The lower the value goes, the less "quick buck artists" will be out there, and the less the monetary value of a boob post will be. From there on, it can begin to move ahead again."
Thank you. We need to hit rock bottom and cleanse all the crap out that way before we can rise up again as a better platform. Sucks, but it makes sense. I plan to be in it for the long haul.
"In the long run, I am confident that steem will stabilise."
I agree @walkerlv
You're right you say we do this to ourselves but I can't trust each individual on steemit to think about the benefit of the community before their own profits. That's why I think it would be way more efficient to fix limits.
I agree as well.
Steem will rise.... There are many reasons for the decline that's acting like a perfect storm. One issue is most of the whales are powering down, it makes others think they have too as well, follow the leader. If they stay powered up I'm sure the rest will follow, then steem & steem dollar will rise in value.
So for you, everything is fine? What do you think about my idea to give the 30 minute fee to the steempower holders instead of the authors?
Your ideas are good, "give less to the witnesses" i like the best.
Here's my idea...
For the first 30 minutes if your powered down you get no rewards, but you get rewards after 30 min.
The first 30 minutes if your not powered up no rewards sounds great
Thanks, this should reward holders.
if you're a poster or a voter?
We need the free market to set the price on right value, so it can stabilize.
But we need to focus our efforts on the platform more, and less on steem price.
We need a good strong community which will prove its worth, then everything will be fine, along with steem price.
If people wouldn't focus so much on the price of steem and appreciate the beauty of steemit we would be in much nicer place, along with a better price as a consequence of it.
This way I feel we are like those people who are weatherman's based on current weather over their heads.
Its hard not to focus on the value, many bought steem with bitcoins or eth and want to see some profit.
As I see it everyone meaning mostly whales is rushing fast to Synero, they see better profit there atm. Now they are buying and in few days we will hear how about it. Then they will sell their synero with profits to us, and buy cheap steem from panic here.
It's just about profits that people care but those that have most knowledge prosper.
For average user best thing would be not to care about it and just enjoy himself and learn in the process.
The value of steem is indeed going down. But I think we have to also keep one thing in mind: In the long run, steem is ment to drop in value 50% a year. And if I understand correctly, in the beginning this wll be a lot faster.
This is meant to keep steem from being held longtime, favouring turning it into steempower, but it means that all the downpowering people can't do a thing...
Steem has to be moved very quickly, or it is very expensive to hold. This might be problematic when it comes to steem becoming accepted as a means of exchange, but it also means that there will be a "downward premium" in what people want to pay for it in less inflationary currency.
I could see myself accepting a bitcoin, realising that I can turn it into other services or other goods later in life. Steem however, I would never accept unless I was intending to turn it into steempower,...
It might very well work.
The real value of steemit to me lies not in the value of steem, but in the value of the Steemdollars. As long as they do not devaluate too much, I see steemit doing well. If they go down we are In deep trouble.
The steem dollar is already pretty low, it was intended to always be worth 1 USD...
It's fine that the value of steem is decreasing as this was always the plan but for now the value of steempower + interests is decreasing fast and who knows how low it will go.
As long as we get people holding by powering up we should see a slight increase in value.