Steemit how can this thing be workable long term?

[smooth]

"What is steem?" => "You post and make money"
"What is ethereum?" => "Smart contracts" => "What's that?" => (discussion becomes too technical)

Money shot

Steem is the first crypto that you can actually sell, at all, to regular people. Not saying everyone will be interested but the percentage is much, much higher than anything else, including Bitcoin (which most people respond with "I have dollars, why do I need or would I want Bitcoins?")

This.

So the more Steem Power you have, the higher your own posts are trending? Is that correct?

No. I'm one of the largest Steem Power holders and if I vote on a post but no one else does (or not many with SP) it barely appears on the trending page (usually have to scroll down many pages to find it).

You have to get votes from a lot of people to appear high on the trending page.

[Macno]

"What is steem?" => "You post and make money"
"What is ethereum?" => "Smart contracts" => "What's that?" => (discussion becomes too technical)

Money shot

Steem is the first crypto that you can actually sell, at all, to regular people. Not saying everyone will be interested but the percentage is much, much higher than anything else, including Bitcoin (which most people respond with "I have dollars, why do I need or would I want Bitcoins?")

This.

So the more Steem Power you have, the higher your own posts are trending? Is that correct?

No. I'm one of the largest Steem Power holders and if I vote on a post but no one else does (or not many with SP) it barely appears on the trending page (usually have to scroll down many pages to find it).

You have to get votes from a lot of people to appear high on the trending page.

That`s bad. I like Synereos model of allowing users to "amplify" their  content. This creates demand for the "attention token".

[iamnotback]

Congrats by the way Anonymint.. you made way more in one post than I have in 4 combined.

I guess the whales don't find my posts valuable/interesting. Which is funny, because I pretty much wrote them a guide as to how they can save $26 million a year. https://steemit.com/sip/@coinhoarder/steem-proposal-abolishing-liquidity-incentives-and-reverting-the-funds-to-provide-actual-autonomous-liquidity

Thank you. Well my proposal is an attempt to balance out the rewards a bit better towards relevance. And I will continue to think of ways to perhaps improve the meritocracy of rewards while also recognizing their marketing plan must incorporate some aspect of miscalculation (starstuck) by n00bs of the payouts they will obtain on average. My stickiness blog will be about how to string them along to keep them active to transition them into other motivations for remaining an active user, but it will actually make them feel good and remove some of the disappointment (so we are loving them). With social networking we have game all the possible ways to keep them motivated and emotional psychology is as or more important than rational consciousness.

P.S. my high payout can be attributable to a) refinement including images added, the reasonably well written concise text, and the follow-up in the comments; and b) that it is perceived by getting me invested in SP then I am more likely to contribute ongoing and the perception that I might have other valuable things in my back pocket to bring to the ecosystem. And I do believe this is a correct calculation on the part of smooth and Ned. Hopefully other whales too. Btw, I noticed dana-edwards copied some of my text from the Ethereum Paradox thread and earned herself $1000 on a blog. He/She did fill in a lot of other text though. We must accept the reality that no matter what we think of the future potential of Steem, the reality is that the whales are in the driver's seat for the time being.

Edit: also the timeliness of my post just after the $26,000 payout for doing makeup and the concern that raised in the community. Strategy also must include timing. I am of course playing it like a strategy game, because that is how I can learn the most about it, as that is what others are/should be doing also.

Note also I used a very clever marketing strategy. I "sold" something my readers think they desperately need, whether they actually need it or not is irrelevant (although of course I'm sincere and I do think they need it but I am not omniscient).

I was also testing if I still have my marketing chops. I saw an opportunity where the synergies were aligned, so I moved as quickly as possible to grab that opportunity.

[iamnotback]

So the more Steem Power you have, the higher your own posts are trending? Is that correct?

No. I'm one of the largest Steem Power holders and if I vote on a post but no one else does (or not many with SP) it barely appears on the trending page (usually have to scroll down many pages to find it).

You have to get votes from a lot of people to appear high on the trending page.

That`s bad. I like Synereos model of allowing users to "amplify" their  content. This creates demand for the "attention token".

Holding SP has another incentive which is the compounding relative to holding only STEEM. So if you want to invest not just for a very short-term fast appreciating pump up in the price, you need to hold SP. I agree with you that isn't use case demand though. The use case demand they are hoping to create market place (which they hope will provide a use case demand for STEEM). The use case demand is critical to the funding model for paying for content, so we need to analyze that carefully and see if there are any improvements to suggest. They really need some way to motivate users to use the tokens now, not just for cashing out. That is a critical need they need to address asap. Appears they have motivated me to invest some effort to try to help them solve that issue. The more SP they vest with me by upvoting my blog posts, the more incentive I have to help resolve that issue. If Steemit resolves this major issue, they are on their way to beating Bitcoin's marketcap. It is a major issue and I am skeptical.

Originally I didn't like Synereo's model because:

1. I am thinking paying a user to view advertising can only generate roughly a dollar or perhaps a few dollars per day in revenue for full time (8 hours daily) use.

2. I was thinking that users would only want to view relevant content dictated by a like-mindedness algorithm.

In other words, I was thinking of advertising as a dying paradigm. And I think gamification is rising to take its place.

But in the comment where I replied to smooth at Steemit, I realized that the user must be exposed to content outside his/her like-mindedness coterie, else the coteries become static and can't adapt. People must venture outside sometimes to discover new preferences.

So now I realize, if we are going to throw random content at a user that we don't know if it is relevant or not, then might as well be paid. The advertiser has a financial incentive for the content to be relevant, if the price to spam the user is a competitive bid auction.

However, I am thinking that perhaps the like-minded clustered coteries are not water tight because even users with similar preferences don't have the exact same preferences. So perhaps the coteries have sufficient variance of content.

So I may still think Synereo is barking up the dying tree. I am not sure yet.

[iamnotback]

They are having serious scaling issues with the servers for Steemit, as evident by the frequent failed loading of pages. They are using nginx so it probably isn't the webserver s/w choice and is probably either their load balancing cluster design and/or DDoS attacks. Does anyone know?

DDoS. They are in the process of improving countermeasures.

I don't know enough about their web back end to say whether there are scaling issues as well.

DDoS is one thing I am concerned about with a centralized website. A truly decentralized social network wouldn't be susceptible to it, but no one has yet shown a truly decentralized social network can actually work well and be popular.

I hope they can get the reliability resolved asap. We were at the mall tonight and we mentioned Steemit and the salesladies' and salesmen's eyes seemed to light up. Some of them said they were going to check it out. So it might go viral at least in terms of signups, but I don't yet know about the stickiness of which I am skeptical (and have some ideas to suggest for improvement).

Is the price declining because they keep having downtime?

https://www.reddit.com/r/steemit/comments/4tfsog/did_steemit_just_got_down/

They need to fix that problem. With the money they have now, they shouldn't be having ongoing problems like that. Spend the money to solve it today. They could be killing their momentum in terms of speculators supporting the price, which is critical to their viral growth.

[CoinHoarder]

Note also I used a very clever marketing strategy. I "sold" something my readers think they desperately need, whether they actually need it or not is irrelevant (although of course I'm sincere and I do think they need it but I am not omniscient).

I was also testing if I still have my marketing chops. I saw an opportunity where the synergies were aligned, so I moved as quickly as possible to grab that opportunity.

More power to you. You should milk that cow as long as it'll let you milk it. 

I came to accept a long time ago that I will always be a lowly peasant in the cryptocurrency community and no one cares what I say.  

[CoinHoarder]

Is the price declining because they keep having downtime?

https://www.reddit.com/r/steemit/comments/4tfsog/did_steemit_just_got_down/

They need to fix that problem. With the money they have now, they shouldn't be having ongoing problems like that. Spend the money to solve it today. They could be killing their momentum in terms of speculators supporting the price, which is critical to their viral growth.

I agree. It is very bad publicity for the web site to be down all the time. Steemit is in the process of going viral, but perpetual down time will kill even the greatest momentum. There are new users showing up left and right, Steemit can't afford to turn away any new users if it is to be as (or more) popular than Reddit.

[CoinHoarder]

I agree with you that isn't use case demand though. The use case demand they are hoping to create market place (which they hope will provide a use case demand for STEEM). The use case demand is critical to the funding model for paying for content, so we need to analyze that carefully and see if there are any improvements to suggest. They really need some way to motivate users to use the tokens now, not just for cashing out. That is a critical need they need to address asap.

I agree. They need to find ways to generate profit for it to be sustainable. As pointed out in the white paper, SP inflates at about the same rate as Bitcoin did in its first 8 years of existence, so there is time to figure out how to monetize the user base while remaining relevant.

Some ideas: paid advertising, marketplaces, data storage (I know you disagree there, but I think it could be made to work), gambling, charging transaction fees for anonymous STEEM transactions, gaming, voice/video/text chat, VPNs, etc.  

[iamnotback]

Is the price declining because they keep having downtime?

https://www.reddit.com/r/steemit/comments/4tfsog/did_steemit_just_got_down/

They need to fix that problem. With the money they have now, they shouldn't be having ongoing problems like that. Spend the money to solve it today. They could be killing their momentum in terms of speculators supporting the price, which is critical to their viral growth.

I agree. It is very bad publicity for the web site to be down all the time. Steemit is in the process of going viral, but perpetual down time will kill even the greatest momentum. There are new users showing up left and right, Steemit can't afford to turn away any new users if it is to be as (or more) popular than Reddit.

Have those charts come back online so I can check the data? I don't feel like digging for the link so I ask you.

[CoinHoarder]

The charts are still down, but someone posted this info a while ago. Obviously the downtime has effected traffic the past few days:

https://steemit.com/marketing/@dragonho/3-month-steemit-com-it-is-time-to-prepare-some-numbers-so-that-we-can-market-them

[iamnotback]

Steem is the first crypto that you can actually sell, at all, to regular people. Not saying everyone will be interested but the percentage is much, much higher than anything else, including Bitcoin (which most people respond with "I have dollars, why do I need or would I want Bitcoins?")

The entire point is to add the masses to an ecosystem where they have an incentive to use CC for popular activities. Synereo's idea to spend AMPs to force others to view your content won't be a popular activity that the users do (only advertisers will and ad model is a dying one).

I think they need to be giving away a lot more SP than they are, in order to invest users into sticking with the site. You only spend this additional amount on users that prove they are sticky. And I think they need to allow those to become early cashable if they are spent within the CC ecosystem if such a restriction is possible to maintain. And I think they need to reward frequency of activity on the site (i.e. become a Steem addict and you get a lot more SP), referrals, and level-up users so they earn more the longer they been on the site (although this happens by accumulating SP, it would better to make this more explicit so n00bs realize what they lose if they abandon the site... users need goals... such as "1 more week of activity, then I reach the Bronze level"). But the Sybil attack problem is a countervailing problem to contemplate:

https://steemit.com/security/@sanbir/hi-my-dear-steemers-i-am-karina

I'll have many more ideas coming I bet...

I am just starting to brainstorm about the details.

[CoinHoarder]

referrals

I theorized a way to monopolize or kill Bitshares' referral system earlier this year. It may not work as well with Steem, because SP is locked in for 2 years, but it may still work enough so that it would be a profitable venture for someone (if referral rewards are implemented into Steem... they are currently not.) I am guessing that referral rewards may not be implemented in Steem because of this.

How to Monopolize the Referral Business:
Bob wants to monopolize the referral business because he likes making money. He sets up a business that works like the rakeback business in poker [1]. Anyone that signs up under him, he gives X% of the fees back to them that he earns. It costs him very little to set this up. It mostly just costs him the time it takes to program an automated solution. Bob makes it known that if anyone competes with him, he will burn the referral business to the ground by coming over the top of whatever percentage of rakeback they offer until 100%. There is then no incentive to compete with Bob using the same business model, because if you do he will come over the top of your offer- all the way to a 100% rakeback offering. Assuming everyone acts in their own self-interest, they would register for an account with Bob as their referrer because they will save a lot of BTS on the fees. Monopolizing the referral business would not work if someone was motivated enough to kill the referral business outright (see below.)

How to Kill Referral Businesses:
Charlie wants the referral business to die because he thinks the inflated fees are bad for the future of Bitshares. He sets up a business that works like the rakeback business in poker [1]. Anyone that signs up under him, he gives 100% of the fees back to them that he earns. It costs him very little to set this up. It mostly just costs him the time it takes to program an automated solution. Assuming everyone acts in their own self-interest, they would register for an account with Charlie as their referrer because they will save a lot of BTS on the fees. No one can compete with 100% rakeback, and all referral businesses that rely on the referral program for profit would die off.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(poker)#Rakeback

[iamnotback]

I came to accept a long time ago that I will always be a lowly peasant in the cryptocurrency community and no one cares what I say.  

If you want to get rich, you either do that by being a developer or an investor. No one (well maybe one or two) will become a newly millionaire from writing blog posts at Steemit.

[AlexGR]

AlexGR, I think I still have a better design for a DAO that will rock the investment world.

Personally my problem is I have so many designs and so little resources to code them. Nevertheless I wouldn't entirely dismiss smart contracts.

There is so much opportunity right now. My head is spinning. I am trying to figure out how to best align myself to get the most accomplished. For the moment, I want to do some more analysis and posting on Steemit, to try to work through determining what is possible in that direction. There are so many details to contemplate.

Also given all opportunity cost being otherwise equal, we should prioritize the opportunity that is, not the one that could be.

One very useful thing one can code right now, is a fricking cross-platform GUI wallet for steem / steem dollars / power ups - power downs etc. Using CLI wallets to avoid xss browser vulnerabilities is a no-no.

[iamnotback]

referrals

I theorized a way to monopolize or kill Bitshares' referral system earlier this year. It may not work as well with Steem, because SP is locked in for 2 years, but it may still work enough so that it would be a profitable venture for someone (if referral rewards are implemented into Steem... they are currently not.) I am guessing that referral rewards may not be implemented in Steem because of this.

How to Monopolize the Referral Business:
Bob wants to monopolize the referral business because he likes making money. He sets up a business that works like the rakeback business in poker [1]. Anyone that signs up under him, he gives X% of the fees back to them that he earns. It costs him very little to set this up. It mostly just costs him the time it takes to program an automated solution. Bob makes it known that if anyone competes with him, he will burn the referral business to the ground by coming over the top of whatever percentage of rakeback they offer until 100%. There is then no incentive to compete with Bob using the same business model, because if you do he will come over the top of your offer- all the way to a 100% rakeback offering. Assuming everyone acts in their own self-interest, they would register for an account with Bob as their referrer because they will save a lot of BTS on the fees. Monopolizing the referral business would not work if someone was motivated enough to kill the referral business outright (see below.)

How to Kill Referral Businesses:
Charlie wants the referral business to die because he thinks the inflated fees are bad for the future of Bitshares. He sets up a business that works like the rakeback business in poker [1]. Anyone that signs up under him, he gives 100% of the fees back to them that he earns. It costs him very little to set this up. It mostly just costs him the time it takes to program an automated solution. Assuming everyone acts in their own self-interest, they would register for an account with Charlie as their referrer because they will save a lot of BTS on the fees. No one can compete with 100% rakeback, and all referral businesses that rely on the referral program for profit would die off.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(poker)#Rakeback

tl;dr please? (apologies I know I write long posts also, but I have a very difficult time following your style of elucidation when you try to describe something technical)

[iamnotback]

The charts are still down, but someone posted this info a while ago. Obviously the downtime has effected traffic the past few days:

https://steemit.com/marketing/@dragonho/3-month-steemit-com-it-is-time-to-prepare-some-numbers-so-that-we-can-market-them

That gives me no data on stickiness.

[iamnotback]

I don't know why Ned and Dan don't have someone manipulating the price as Ethereum does. Seems that with their large holdings, and the very small float of STEEM, they'd be buying from themselves to jack the price up.

[CoinHoarder]

tl;dr please? (apologies I know I write long posts also, but I have a very difficult time following your style of elucidation when you try to describe something technical)

Someone can monopolize referral programs by offering kickbacks (a percentage of fees earned from the referral program) to users for signing up under them, and promising to undercut any competitors that attempt to compete with them (so it is not worth their time to develop a competing site).

[CoinHoarder]

The charts are still down, but someone posted this info a while ago. Obviously the downtime has effected traffic the past few days:

https://steemit.com/marketing/@dragonho/3-month-steemit-com-it-is-time-to-prepare-some-numbers-so-that-we-can-market-them

That gives me no data on stickiness.

There is also this, but it is a week old: https://steemit.com/steemit/@gavvet/where-steemit-adoption-is-going-to-the-mooooon

[CoinHoarder]

Using CLI wallets to avoid xss browser vulnerabilities is a no-no.

Just start logging in using your posting key, save your owner key somewhere (preferably offline), and you are golden.

Then if a hacker were to obtain your key, the worst they can do is post or upvote for you.