Absolute vs Relative Steemit Earnings

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One of the first posts I made here on Steemit 8 months ago was about Thinking Binary vs Thinking in Probabilities. I believe this same concept can be applied in the way people go about their Steemit Earnings and why the upvote buying and selling has completely taken over these past months.


Many Minnows think in Absolute Post Earnings

Many Dolphins and Whales think in Relative Post Earnings


What this means is that many smaller accounts mainly will look at the pure $ amount of their post earnings regardless the size of their own upvote, while the bigger accounts will mainly look at the $ amount of their post earnings in relation to how much their own upvote is worth. This way of thinking will often leave both usually a bit unsatisfied.


Minnows: To low SP accounts it can currently be very frustrating and discouraging to put a lot of time and effort into making posts only to see rather small 0.01$-0.50$ post payout even after having build a following.

Dolphins & Whales: To higher SP accounts it can currently be frustrating and discouraging to put a lot of time and effort into making posts only to see them earn ~ 5$-300$ while they would earn 10$-600$ when they would just make a bunch of low quality shitposts and do 100% self voting.

Where Did It Go Wrong ? (My Theory)

Ever since the Steem Backed Dollars (SBD) went up in price early december, the platform itself increasingly encouraged very selfish sellout behavior. Many Whales used to act as curators using big part of their power to support mostly the Dolphins on the platform, while the Dolphins are mostly content creators who used some of their power to support and help minnows to grow. Because curation only earns Steem Power and no SBD, this happened...


Whales saw the gap between properly curating content and selling all their upvotes grow exponentially. This almost forced them to turn into upvote bid bots which is very similar to 100%+ socially accepted self-upvoting . (it's by far the most profitable and time saving thing to do for them short term.)

Dolphins got less regular whale votes which almost forced them to sell their upvotes to buy the upvotes from the whale bid bots they used to get for free, leaving them with far less daily voting power to support Minnows.

Minnows (who are not internet famous) have a very hard time to get something going on Steemit because the amount of "Free Upvotes" (upvotes where noting is directly or indirectly asked in return) highly decreased after the curation system got broken because of the SBD situation. As a result even more new members quickly give up on the platform.

Minnows Should think more in Relative Post Earnings
Dolphins and Whales Should think more in Absolute Post Earnings

Minnows often make a lot more money on Steemit compared to Whales when purely looking at the relative earnings and it can be a far more rewarding way for them to look at their earnings in relation to your Steem Power instead of just looking at the absolute amounts.
Dolphins & Whales should think more absolute and step away from the mindset to maximise short term earnings and look at the bigger picture instead. Using at least a part of their power to help this platform grow should lead to an increase in the STEEM price over time and leave them with smaller piece of a much bigger pie.


There are still some bigger accounts who act in a way that helps Steemit forward instead of maximising their own short term earnings which is nice to see. I do look forward to the next hardfork in hope there will be some measures to restore the balance to this platform. I will get deeper into upvote dynamics and ways to get more regular upvotes in the meantime and make some posts about it in the near future.


How are your relative post earnings
Where do you agree/disagree
What would you change to make things better
...
Let me know your opinion in the comments !

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