The problems with Rewarded Blogging Platforms

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With the rise of cryptocurrencies and the current bull market, there has been an influx of users into the popular blogging platforms such as Steem, Hive and LEO in recent months with users looking for their content to be rewarded.

Lots of great content being produced and read by lots of users but there is also a lot of auto-voting happening so users can get a return from their investment and gains. It makes it a difficult topic to talk about.


What is the altruistic reason to be on these blogging platforms?

This should really be to produce great content and provide an avenue for people to access information and opinion pieces without any censor of content. These great pieces, in theory, should then get the biggest payouts and exposure, but in reality this is not the case...... Why?

Well it brings it back to the real reason why these platforms are here and that is to return a profit to users and investors, much like most other cryptocurrencies. Auto-voting authors who regularly produce great content is the easiest way to get a return on your investment and circle-jerking other large token holders also seems to be the easiest way to get a return on your investment.

Is this the best way to grow these platforms? I sometimes think that mass adoption hasn't occurred because you see so many authors in the trending posts regularly and not many new faces.

LEO seems to bucking that trend somewhat and I know the account of @onealfa.leo and the @leo.voter account look for great content and upvotes that with a strong vote. I think this is the admiral qualities that will hopefully set @LeoFinance apart from the other platforms. Steem, Hive, Blurt and most of the other Hive-Engine tokens have a lot of circle-jerking happening and a lot of users trying to add tags to get rewards across all of the tokens, regardless of the content. WeedCash seems to be focussing on down-voting non-related content and rewarding new users to the platform as well.


How do we grow these platforms by rewarding new users and also get a return on investment?

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Circle-jerking is by far the biggest deterrent to new users. Just peeking at Steem after not being there for many months reveals that the trending page is filled with the same authors. One account with 10 Million SP is upvoting these authors and no other. I remember this being a real downer when I first started there but luckily I was supported by MSP and @ausbitbank to encourage me to stay and invest. How can we continue to do this on LEO and the other platforms.

Now I am not sprouting this from my high-horse as a little digging will reveal that I too have a few alt-accounts dedicated to the various Hive-Engine tokens and platforms. Do I use auto-voting, YES..... It's hard to keep on top of all the tokens and everyone else is doing it. Do I circle-jerk.... NO. I will manually read, upvote and comment where I feel necessary as well. Now I can hear you say, 'But you don't have a large stake and you would circle-jerk if you could'. On some of those other tokens that are heavily jerked I probably would, but on LEO and WeedCash where I think there is great potential, I wouldn't because 'jerking' is to the detriment of the platform.

How do we stop the jerking? Well that's pretty much impossible and it depends on the user to look at whether they have the token at heart or are just looking to take $$$ and profits over community. I get that profits need to be taken, but enough can be made off curation rather than being part of a circle-jerk for the good of the platform. I am looking forward to seeing LEO continue to build and innovate and work against the circle-jerk. Curation for large LP holders is a gold-mine anyway!

Comment away below. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the topic.

Thanks for reading.



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13 comments
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I didn't know there was a higher authority or consciousness that needed to judge our actions on hive, I personally think that rewarding engagement is a good idea.

The circle jerk, you speak of in a negative context, is what early adoption is all about, the early innovators always get rewarded more.


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Hi. Thanks for the reply. It’s an opinion piece from me to stimulate conversation. I personally don’t think the circle jerk benefits the building of platforms for new users. Isn’t mass adoption one of the keys to a tokens success? More users equals more buyers and a better investment for all? I know many don’t engage on Steem anymore because of the huge jerking that goes on and many people I have introduced see the trending pages and don’t think any to go to the time or effort posting quality when a lot of trending page posts are not quality. Yep, it’s up to the user how they use their stake as well. These are my thoughts. Feel free to give me your opinion on why you feel the circle jerk encourages growth!

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We should have big debates about the block reward on a regular basis.

Three reason I would argue early adopters deserve more leverage on chain.

  1. Me and @darkflame have leveraged Steem into a rental contract.

  2. The terms of the contract included me keeping the Steem Power, Powered up until the end of time, never to be powered down.

  3. There is over 25 users we have brought to this platform, I am too aggressive on politics for most of them to engage, but they have found their place in other communities.

@rawbe how do you feel about the Hive platform rewarding you, I know your account is only a few months old, but it would be nice to get a new user in on this who knows me IRL.

All of the Hive I have is being leverage towards IRL partnerships I have, which brings alot of attention to Hive.

When I talk about my private hedge in the private circle, everyone listens in silence when I bring social media into the equation.

We have all seen what Mark Zuck became, and it would be nice to have many powerful people on Hive instead of just 1 figure head, that influence comes from early adoption or large investments.

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It's easy to point out circle jerking but there is a lot of nuance to the complex dynamics that hold back Hive. I don't think that Hive is really inaccessible. It's cheap enough that a person could stake around 10-20 usd and leverage their voting power that way but I see people rewarding quality content earnestly so a good blogger could build from scratch.

I think the problem is people want easy answers and rewards but in truth there is a ton of infrastructure Hive needs in order to be truly successful. It should be easy for people to participate in building real value to the community and be rewarded but this takes some creativity. A lot of people think you can only help with the infrastructure by being a coder but there are many other roles to fill to further these causes.

The other major thing we need is building culture. This is a very broad and subjective option so it leaves people able to pick niches and help prop up those that they are interested in. There are many ways to benefit in Hive and I think the people struggling don't dig deep enough.

I think that one of the major flaws we have is tribalism. I suppose you could call that circle jerking but I feel like the term is too reductive. Trading votes is a mutually beneficial exchange and it will make sense to do that until our culture and commerce showcase better incentives. But the tribalism works against the decentralization. It creates strong focuses of reward pool into very few areas and reduces the diversity of thought around the whole ecosystem.

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When I say "Many Powerful People" on Hive, I mean diversity of culture.

What if the tribes were just considered to be elevating the voices of those communities?

Isn't tribalism good to some extent for community participation, bringing out people who may else not be interested without the niche they blog about.

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Communities themselves are fine. Its good to have good indexing outside just tags to find content that fills the niche. One of the biggest problems in our world today are the echo chambers that form when people don't draw ideas from multiple sources. It leads to ideas not being challenged and a lack of growth. The problem with tribalism is people will put all their eggs in one basket and then they generally only promote content from that one aspect because that's what their investments incentivize. There needs to be stronger crossover so the benefits bleed over from community to the next as long as the quality of content is there. The current implementation leads to fewer stronger cliques and people tending to double down in this cliques. I think it holds back the quest for decentralization as well as diminishes personal growth.

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Thanks for engaging. Great replies. There are a lot of dynamics in play and everyone has their opinion. Building networks and connections has it's benefits and I regularly receive votes from these networks. Votes from the tribes that you invest time in are valuable, as long as the content is valuable and not crap. Sometimes you see crap and it is voted to the extreme. That can be a turn off for users.

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I make a point of downvoting 1 post i don't like everytime I log in to prevent the unworthy from getting paid those large sums.

If its something bad, like very offensive, I can summon about 1 million Hive power to assist.

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I haven't auto voted and don't intend to.

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(Edited)

a lot of users trying to add tags to get rewards across all of the tokens, regardless of the content....

hey @scooter77, What has this to do with SPT / Splinterlands tag? :)

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Is SPT not a rewards based token like HIVE, etc.? Though not directly highlighting the game, it's still discussing the dynamics upon which the SPT and similar tokens are built and the issues that occur across all of these tokens. If you don't agree, happy for you to remove the rewards.

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(Edited)

all good was more just having some fun. I do usually prefer to see things specific about splinterlands on this channel and all the other stuff elsewhere :)

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I still auto-upvote ya Scooter. We've still got out pittance circle jerk going. 😂

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