I was thinking about getting an early night tonight but there are just too many things going on and I would be remiss not to have a few thoughts on them as I know that I would put my head on the pillow and then, think about them anyway.
There are two major posts that came out in the last 3 hours, the first from Steemit Inc on @Steemitblog talking about the reduction in costs for nodes and the implementation of RocksDB, which I won't go into because it is all there behind the link.
The second is from @BlockTrades on the beginning of development on the Steem worker proposal system that looks to take some portion of the pool and earmark it for development functions from the community.
I am in support of the system even though I would have preferred it to be funded by the entire community by sectioning off 10 percent of the pool for development and then distributing the remaining 90 to the other functions.
The functions that currently draw from the inflation pool are:
The main reason I would prefer it to come from all parties equally is not really out of "fairness" but public opinion. If it did come out of all groups it actually, wouldn't be "fair." The reason is that essentially three of those groups, curation, interest and witness all require investment into the platform, which is risk.
The author and comment rewards are essentially risk free when it comes to Steem. The rewards are 52% of the pool which is inflationary on the currency which means, each Steem drawn actually reduces the value of all Steem and, that 52% of the pool or around 13 million Steem this year is much more likely to go out to the marketplace to be sold. Nothing wrong with that but people need to remember that for them to get the Steem for rewards in the first place, someone with stake (Steem Power) had to vote them in some way knowing that it added risk to their investment.
There is no problem with selling the Steem earned but one has to remember that the sellers do reduce the value of Steem and it effects the very people who upvoted them in the first place. Steem is very leaky for a place where everyone says that they want Steem to do well in the future. Everyone has their personal position though but, should those taking the risk for the future be charged with financing people's lives now on a startup platform yet to reach 3 years of age?
I know right? That leaves a sour taste in your mouth perhaps, but there is a much longer game ahead than the reward mechanisms now and if people do actually want Steem to do well, they better start behaving in ways that will get it there in the longrun. Too many people are much too short-sighted and while it is fun to mention the struggling masses, we would be doing them a disservice in the longrun to help a little now when we are able to do so much more in the future if development takes place.
The other thing that people need to consider is that while rewards might drop 20%, the value of the Steem coin could increase much more that if what is getting developed and hopefully implemented does its job. Also, I hope that the developers who are aiming to earn from the Proposal System don't try to double dip their ideas and take from the rewards pool as well.
Once the proposal system is in place, the developers will have essentially 20% of the current rewards just for them so, in an act of good faith, development updates should perhaps decline rewards. You want to get paid as a developer? Develop what the community needs and wants - it is time your ideas have to stand on their own two feet.
A lot of the current pool goes to developer posts anyway so declining rewards mitigates a fair bit of the loss for content producers and, the developers do not need to compete with content producers. The hope is of course that thy will have to compete as there would be a fund that could attract more developers into Steem that bring new talent and ideas with them - Perhaps even some professional teams will throw their hats into the ring and set up trial Steem development projects.
While I write this, it is probably a surprise or many to even see the numbers above when it comes to where the pool goes as most here have no idea there is an interest paid on Steem holdings and it is 16% of the pool or, curation is only 16%. Wasn't it a 75/25 percent split? Well, those with stake do understand the platform and its economics to at least some degree because, they are actually invested. When there is potential for loss, most people do a little more due diligence, something that those only here for the reward tend not to do. The reason is, rewards on Steem carry no risk.
People see it as pay - it is not - it is reward. And, that reward only is possible because people who power up are willing to carry the risk of not selling it as fast as they get it. Many people like to talk about the highly staked like they are somehow uncaring bastards but that is far from the truth of the matter in my experience with many of the highly staked. Many of them do it tough each day to keep their Steem powered up and still they are sharing their votes, increasing their risk exposure and providing for people they know are 50/50 likely to sell and deflate their value more.
What this does mean if this happens though is that holding Steem for the future has a better chance of seeing added value since there is ore chance that those who get it through development use it to actually add value to the blockchain in various ways and, there is less of it leaking out to markets. In time, this fund is likely to shrink if Steem increases significantly in price or, get used to supercharge the decentralization of applications and communities in an organic and highly diversified form.
Then there are SMTs to reward content contributors too. Perhaps the 100% stake lock will happen eventually after all and those with Steem become the the engine that drives the development for SMT platforms to proliferate into all corners of the internet. There are plenty of earning potentials regardless of if people will claim that creators lose 20%. They won't, as the developers will turn their attention to the Proposal System. What is earned how ever could be much more valuable than when you earned it and potentially, just because some paid developers did their job.
I am pretty excited about where it could take Steem but then, I have spent two years building and talking about the potential in the future. It looks like finally, the community is getting its shit together and discovering that in order to develop, developers need to have incentives.
Taraz
[ A steem original ]