#hardfork

Now you can see the numbers.

Yesterday, I just wrote a post about the upcoming rewards change for Hard Fork 21.

Three comments on the post concerned me. They were essentially saying:

It's too late to voice our opinions (it's never too late)
They didn't know enough about the proposal (that's what were here for! to learn and grow! Go steem!)
It's only going to really affect newbies that were on their way out anyway. (Think so? Well. That's what this post is for)

Here is the problem:

Most people think that this will be a change that will "spread rewards evenly in a new pattern that we will all just eventually adjust to."

@bluefinstudios and I chose cross-section of people for this chart. Minnows, dolphins, orcas, whales.... witnesses, concensus witnesses... you get the picture. And we specifically added some people that were interacting with the last post - so they could SEE with their own eyes.

Perhaps pictures and numbers will speak louder than words.

All this information is publicly available on steemworld.org/@username, YOU TOO can find out this information about yourself - or ANYONE on the blockchain - to see how this proposed change will potentially affect each person.

Steemworld.org lists the last 30 days of curation rewards and author rewards. As much as people want to say this proposed change will help to increase curation - I'm going to show you why it won't. But I'll save that for the end of the post.

Let's get to numbers.

We can take mine for example. I currently have a project that is supported FAITHFULLY by @fundition, and my author rewards reflect that. I also spend a lot of time curating, manually - and on curation trails. I could increase my curation a bit... but I'm doing a LOT right now, and its unlikely that I'll be curating much more than I am right now. And be honest - CAN YOU?

REMEMBER: we ONLY get ten 100% upvotes a day - to distibute as evenly as we can. I currently go OVER that amount, in order to support as many people on the chain that I can. (I'm currently at 63% voting power - clearly over the suggested limit!) Could I just find the consistently "high paying posts" and just put them on my autovote? Uh. Sure. But isn't that the exact thing that we're supposed to NOT be doing? Aren't we supposed to be pushing more HONEST, manual curation? Intentional interaction? Boosting quality content WHILE supporting our friends?

See that? Everyone in the red... get prepared for that new monthly amount. Everyone in the green - CONGRATULATIONS! This proposed change REALLY boosts your wallets!

So if you're wondering where that extra 25% from your rewards is going... Now you know! The people in the green are not the enemy, mind you. I know some of them, and I think they're awesome and often fight for good change.... BUT I surely hope that the people in the green see that they are disproportionately BENEFITING from something that THEY ARE VOTING ON.

Well, hold on @dreemsteem. If I increase my curation, then won't I earn some of that back!? You sure will!!! Let's see how much you need to earn back to break even.

Well, let's see. Take me as an example if you like - but you can look at the chart for everyone! For me? I'm currently making about 9 SP a month in curation rewards. After the changes - if I do NOTHING ELSE, and just keep doing what I am doing (which is pretty heavy on curation), that will most likely double to about 18 SP. Why? because 25% curation to 50% rewards is doubling. So, my 0.05 SP curation rewards on any particular post will now be 0.10 SP.... Follow?

In order to make up for the deficit in my author rewards (which now gets cut by AT LEAST 33%) I need to WAY MORE THAN DOUBLE my curation rewards to break even....I need to take it from 18 to 121 Mine is specific to me. Go look at yours! Go look to see how much YOU need to increase - JUST to break even with the proposed changes. It's that last column. (and if you want to know how to calculate it, if you're not on this chart... leave a comment for me below and I'll show you)

QUESTION:

How many posts are you manually reading and curating each day? And how much time do you have to increase that... SIGNIFICANTLY to make up for the loss in your author rewards?

By the way, those author rewards aren't going into some balanced and distributed pool. It's MOSTLY going directly into the wallets of people who post little, curate a lot - and ALREADY HAVE significant percentages of the curation rewards (because don't forget people... curation is stake-based).

I'm just not sure why we need to motivate the big accounts even more to curate? They are essentially going to be giving out awesome votes, and then getting HUGE amounts returned to them. Why continue to make it harder and harder on the biggest population of Steemians? WHY do we continue to destroy the foundation that we should be building??

So what I'm seeing here is... The proposed changes are showing what kind of behavior they would like to see implemented.

Write less.
Curate more (on less material, since everyone is writing less)
And purchase and powerup 50,000 steem so you can be an orca and get a high percentage of the curation rewards back.

GOT IT.

P.S. remember also - that these are not the ONLY changes. Your payout is also going to be decreased for the other proposed changes in HF21. So even though it LOOKS like nothing changes... (your post payouts will still be shiny and high! ) What you KEEP is going to be significantly lower.

So..... as I said in the last post.

Might we REMOVE this portion the HF21 proposal and consider it for another hard fork? If you agree.... go drop your name as a comment on THIS POST Perhaps if we join together and speak as one, we might be heard.

Tagging all the people that were discussing the last post with us!

@fionasfavourites, @nickhavey, @blockurator, @cheese4ead, @bengy, @zekepickleman, @thekittygirl, @bluefinstudios, @shadowspub, @chekohler, @audreybits, @omra-sky, @greencross, @enginewitty, @eveningart, @saffisara, @penderis, @naltedtirt, @hazem91, @darrenfj, @brisby, @josediccus, @thehive - and feel free to share with anyone you know will be impacted (aka. everyone)

Comments · 36

@rycharde(64)· 2612d
Hi @dreemsteem, on a different (but related) matter, I see you have some MAPX tokens - you need to stake them to activate upvotes (2% from 33k SP is not bad!) Unstaking takes just 2 days.
@rycharde(64)· 2612d
Hi, resteemed and, hopefully, linking you in to the post I just published that (without my knowing it) lends some support to your predictions.

An Analysis of 50% Curation Rewards in EIP and HF21 - All Delegators Should Read This

You have a lot of comments for me to read through....
@timcliff(74)· 2613d
I like the data driven analysis that you have done on the hardfork. One area that I will disagree though, is I don't think it is possible to make accurate predictions on the effects of the hardfork. Sure, you can extrapolate data out and show how it is different under the new math, but that does not take into account all of the other factors.

For example, the price of STEEM could drop significantly if we don't move forward with the changes. The price of STEEM could also rise significantly if we implement them. It is not possible to know, but both are very real possibilities.

Another thing that is near impossible to take into account is user behavior. If more large stakeholders spend time curating quality content after the hardfork (because there is now an incentive to do so), then content creators could actually end up earning more in terms of dollar amounts - even though their percentage of the overall inflation pool is technically lower.

There are some real legitimate concerns about how the hardfork could play out, and I'm not going to sit here and try to tell anyone they are wrong. HF21 could end up being really good for content creators, but it could end up being really bad too. The reality is we are not going to know until after the fork.

I assure you the few extra hundred dollars that I stand to gain based on increased author/curation rewards have zero influence on my decision making process. I am a somewhat large stakeholder (close to 78k SP), so I am much more concerned about whether the hardfork causes the price of STEEM to go up or down, as that has a much more significant impact on my "bottom line".

I want the STEEM price to go up, which is the lense I use to evaluate the hardfork. If the STEEM price goes up, and more stakeholders start spending time curating - then it is a win for everyone. I have no idea whether that will be the end result, but it is at least the one I am going for.
@toofasteddie(77)· 2614d
I would like to get a simulation done by the top20 witnesses in order to reply your post. Thanks for doing this work, for me it is evident that this HF21 is going to benefit the big accounts and not the content creators. We should change our witness votes as a selfdefensive action if we don have news about the results of the tesnet trials also.
@whatsup(76)· 2614d
Such a difficult time and set of issues. Hopefully the downvotes will be used.
@thekittygirl(74)· 2614d
I am so glad you wrote this post (and the others) regarding the upcoming HF21. And glad you shared in PYPT so many more people could see the numbers, which might have been missed otherwise! 🙌
@steemflow(80)· 2614d
Does these changes bring back the sp back to user wallet who have invested in different bots or upvote scheme? To get more curation with more upvote value?

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@brisby(59)· 2614d
I am in the camp that doesn't want this portion of the HF21. I've always been of the mind that those who do the brunt of the work deserve the brunt of the rewards (along with the responsibility that the work done is accurate and of quality). I remember reading about a proposed 50\50 split some months ago and I'll say now, again, that I feel a content creator should be given more of a percentage than an investor (curator). Not to knock the importance of investors but my feelings tie back to my above view that those who do the work should reap the benefits.

My two cents put me in the green! Bwahahahahahahah!!!!!

Granted, this chart doesn't include the time people spend commenting, working on other projects that aren't their own, or how much they delegate/donate/lease steem/ paypal funds for various projects/people in need, etc. but that isn't it's function.

I'm for removing this portion the HF21 proposal. I don't see how it will help our community.

At 100% (which I'm rarely at thanks to my manual curation and being on two voting trails - I'm often somewhere b/w 60%-90% ) my upvote is worth 0.02. (Personally, I love this and giggle over being able to give my 2 cents. 😂)

Sure, some of the people I upvote make a decent amount on their posts. Some of these people are my friends and I'm happy when content of theirs does well. For some of these people, Steem is their only source of income so I want them to be able to make a living from their work here. Now, though it may seem from the data above that I upvote and carry on my merry way to happily take in some mula but, I do not. I spend hours commenting (and working for other projects as well as giving delegations and what not) so I understand that there are others who do the same. (No idea if they're some of the one's in green as well. I do know that there are so many people in our community that give endlessly on top of/aside from posting content. <3)

Again, I do realize that the point is to draw everyone's attention to something that they should know and should voice their opinions about. And again, thank you for doing so. I AGREE that I don't want creators to take a heavier cut from the rewards payouts for their work, and also know that there is more to one's interaction on the chain than can be seen with this table.

Basically, at the end of the day, I want to see this platform thrive with both veteran users and new coming together to laugh, share, create, explore, and earn. 😎

Hope that you're having a good day, Dreemsteem!
@dreemsteem(74)· 2615d
By the way @josephsavage...i checked your account also, and saw that you would lose in this proposal. I was confused (temporarily) why you would be so passionate about this change that would put you in the red.

just checked steemworld and saw just how much you stand to make with these changes on all the @steembasicincome accounts.

I am no longer confused.

Wow. Just.... Wow.

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@sgt-dan(66)· 2615d

I would suggest every Steemian DM their individual witnesses and just ask their position on this portion of the proposed HF21 and concerns we may have.

Very few witnesses have made their position publicly known through their blogs. I realize they are very busy ensuring the blockchain remains functional and stable.
@chris-the-batman(53)· 2615d
This really hurts the creator. The creator is the hard worker and although there are posts that arnt necessarily good quality you can find posts that are very high quality and this new thing will really hurt the content creator especially the newer members because they will now be shewed away. It’s a shame most people go mad with power. Thank you so much for sharing on PYPT
@chireerocks(75)· 2615d
@dreemsteem, I never want to see this Ecosystem going towards the state of Down Phase but when someone is putting efforts and travelled a long journey while adding more power to the Foundation, they doesn't deserve cutting off of these Author Payouts.

Changes should empower not depress anyone's efforts. Let's see which destination is wrote for the Steem Blockchain. Let's hope for the best and stay blessed.
@deeanndmathews(79)· 2615d
Thank you for this data... although I am prolific, and although I do what I do for the future here, I do see in the red and green a problem. And then there is also the fact that the creation of new accounts has been tailing off all year (@penguinpablo's daily data shows that clearly) even though engagement is up.

I'm a newbie. A lot of us are smart enough to track the steps that Steemit is making to make life better or worse for newbies. There are plenty of places newbies can go too, and fewer are coming and staying on Steemit. HF 21 may not be helpful in attracting and retaining new users, because newbies WILL be able to find out what the trends have been, and can find out if HF 21 fits the trend of helping or hurting new users.
@mosunomotunde(64)· 2615d
Oh my word! Hearing all these for the very first time. Dammit!
@felt.buzz(76)· 2615d
Okay...

Let me say firstly that I don't think these changes are going to bring investors in, or drive up the price of steem.

With these changes I am set to "lose" a fair amount as most of my steem "income" comes from content production rather than curating.

That said...

...reading these comments on this post makes me sad, and a little embarrassed to be a content creator.

Why? Because it feels very protectionist.

Where do most of our upvotes come from?

I don't know about you guys but I only get paid well for my post when it is upvoted from a big account (like one of the big accounts that are set to gain from the changes). I've been here for 2 years and my posts are worth about 12-40 cents unless they are upvoted by curie, dtube or any of the others who don't create a lot of "content" but do a shit load of work behind the scenes. And most of these guys don't take a lot of steem out of the system (in comparison to what they bring to the table).

So why shouldn't the curators get a bigger slice of the pie? If it wasn't for them I'd have no bloody pie. Just a few crumbs.

I know people on here who have been here as long as I have and have bigger "earnings" on their posts but have a much lower SP than me because they take their money out of steem on a regular basis. Fine, that is their choice, but don't complain that now there will now be less of something that isn't yours to begin with (because the only reason you get the something is because someone else has bigger SP than you and gives you a healthy upvote).

As for writers leaving the network - or not writing anymore - because there is no money in it. Hello? That IS writing. Unless you are a bestseller (and even then...) if you are a writer you are poor. We write because we have to. We have something we want to say so we say it. All of us can (and a lot of us do) publish our writing elsewhere (and earn less than we do on steem).

Seriously most of us aren't here for the money. A drop in our earnings is not going to drive us away, and saying so just makes us look like children threatening to run away from home because mummy and daddy won't buy us ice cream.

With Palnet, Dtube and all the other tokens we have more ways to earn than ever. It is an exciting time to be here.

No, I don't think the proposed changes will bring about the miraculous growth that is being talked about. But I also don't think it is as bad as people are saying.

Anyway, that's my view, unpopular as I imagine it will be.
@zekepickleman(79)· 2615d
It seems the intent is right to increase the curators as it is much easier to join, curate and not have the pressure to author.

What they seem to be missing the boat on is that the awesome content we already have is because of the author rewards. Why deflate your strength in order to promote growth in a weaker area not even knowing that this will work? I don't flatten 3 tires on my car to even it out with a low one. I pump up the low one.

I do feel like a dog barking at the mailman though. He is just going to deliver the package anyhow.

Great to hear from you on #pypt!
@arcange(79)· 2615d
Congratulations @dreemsteem! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
- Comments - Ranked 1 with 113 comments
@shadeserver(45)· 2615d
!SHADE 2 Thanks for sharing on Pimp Your Post Thursday
@steemitboard(66)· 2615d
Congratulations @dreemsteem! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You made more than 15000 comments. Your next target is to reach 16000 comments.

_{You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking} _{If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP}

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
@josephsavage(67)· 2615d
If everybody writes less and curates more, wouldn't that mean that the people still writing earn a lot more than before? Slicing the same pie fewer ways, as it were...

Kind of sounds like it might result in low-quality poor-performance posts being reduced and higher quality high-performance posts continuing. Tell me again how quality improvements are a bad result?

I'm against the overall package of changes, but 50/50 is the best piece of the package, and the one getting all the negative attention.
@helpiecake(55)· 2615d
Hello!

This post has been manually curated, resteemed and gifted with some virtually delicious cake from the @helpiecake curation team!

Much love to you from all of us at @helpie! Keep up the great work!
![helpiecake](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmU2um8zgpFLCeC7cQGAaEUjx7DXNejqfkCLFJWQ9hLH8P/563.png)
the post we needed yes Manually curated by @vibesforlife.
@abitcoinskeptic(75)· 2615d
Cool analysis. We have to keep in mind that currently many users behave the way they do to maximize author rewards. Once people start behaving differently to maximize curation rewards or at least balance between author and curator, it will change a little more. Also, there are rewards from using bots or delegating to them that are just too difficult to analyze which will be impacted. Personally I think 2e12 regressive reward curve is the worst change because that only benefits huge payouts.

Atleast with curators technically they are choosing to give me 50% of their rewards via votes. They ain't taking anything from me.

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@notconvinced(62)· 2616d
Thanks for this info. @ned's an idiot and what's the point of voting for witnesses if nothing is ever actually contested in the end? They always just do what Steeminc wants... Steemit probably won't even be worth me dumping posts I write elsewhere, let alone creating it here first.(it isn't now)

There are literally 30 new blockchain platform's out now with many more coming out soon and I'm already signed up on at least 12 of them...
@imealien(66)· 2616d
@imealien agree!

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@crescendoofpeace(64)· 2616d
Yet another example of Steemit.com scraping cream off the top for themselves and the whales.

So the content providers, with whom the platform would have died at the outset, have to give up even more of our rewards, again, because those at the top have zero imagination regarding how to actually craft a realistic win/win/win scenario.

Decentralized my ass. Pathetic. Still.

I'm still committed here long term, but it's in spite of the udiocy and greed at the top, not because if it. I have faith in the people who use the platform. I have zero faith in those who control and abuse it.

And we've yet to see whether they break the flipping platform, like they did last time. Bunch of useless dweebs.

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@themanwithnoname(65)· 2616d
Great points! When you show how the people who are mainly posting and getting small amounts of curation, it's easy to see who will benefit the most. Sadly, it won't be most of the content creators. I believe JustineH did a post where she calculated that with all the changes, authors will see a 42% drop in rewards. That's a big decrease!
@blockurator(65)· 2616d
When I can get this for two months and less time creating posts because the UI is significantly better, and don't have to push my content out to several Discord channels every time I post in order for people to see it, why should I stick around?

Seriously, two months. And my Steem account right now, after a year-and-a-half, is worth less than $500. I spend more time on Narrative now. Several other Steemians have jumped ship for Narrative, as well.
@chekohler(76)· 2616d
Thanks for the tag! I appreciate you putting your argument in numbers and I can understand your point on why you are worried but we also cannot account for all the widespread behavioural changes that will go along with it it won't be a simple case of A and now its B.
- Yes people will get less for posting
- Yes people won't earn that much from curation
But STEEM is starting to outgrow the one use case, which is blogging, there are plenty of ways to earn steem now as well as tokens that can now supplement your efforts.
- What if your rewards go down but the value of steem goes up? Does that offset the change?
- What if those who aren't bloggers and want to be passive consumers of content can now have more of a place and say in the system? Is that such a bad thing?
We all know the system isn't perfect and no matter how you slice it the haves will always benefit over the have nots. I just see it as the harder it is to earn the more you value it the less likely to sell, the more pressure to HODL and the better the scarcity which is good for the community.

As a tech entrepreneur myself, I side on to take a chance, fail fast and learn from it, making a decision has never been a bad move, not making one has always been a bad move. Take a step back, take step to the side or take a step forward all creates momentum, but taking no steps will see you quickly see you fade into obscurity.

As someone who makes their living on the internet, I know exactly how hard it is to generate an income and I've diversified into various streams both in business and personal income streams to mitigate any risk. Which is why I strongly feel people shouldn't make this one platform there be an end-all for rewards.

If this HF is truly the end of steem, I will have lost some money but have fond memories of my time here. I know hardly anyone feels this way but yeah I still believe we're in a position to become something better. Call me an eternal optimist
@gduran(68)· 2616d
The premise behind the 50/50 rewards is that with the 100% increase in rewards curators will now look for the best articles to curate. This has always struck me as basically dumb, just think, why would a big old whale whose vote is worth $20.00 right now and is giving out 10 100% votes a day (it doesn't matter if he curates manually but randomly, actually reads posts or has a voting bot or delegates to bid bots) and is earning $50.00 in curation rewards , change his voting habits because now he is going to make $100.00 a day?
@senstless(74)· 2616d
How much of those author rewards are from voting bots. If they are bought votes as a means to grow SP over time vs just a straight power up, won't the impact be less as the ROI calculations will adjust to the new curations %?

Side note, I wonder if we will see a shortage of vote availble on vote buying markets after the HF...

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@tipu(68)· 2616d
This post is supported by $2.77 @tipU upvote funded by @penderis :)
@tipU voting service: instant, profitable upvotes + profit sharing tokens | For investors.
@swiftcash(64)· 2616d
This post has received a 20.00% complementary upvote from @swiftcash 🤑
@victorholyo(60)· 2616d
I have a question. Curating means Resteeming? Sorry for the stupid question. I am still lost.

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@bengy(79)· 2616d
Although I don't say that this won't happen... I think the analysis is a little bit too simple. From what I see, you have just doubled the curation rewards and taken a third from the author rewards. Yes, definitely in the short term this is what will happen... but there will be a new equilibrium point for the system to settle into. I'm not saying that end point will be like this or not, but I don't think it is quite correct to assume the start and end conditions and assumptions to be exactly the same... I think two states will be different. ...

... but that isn't to say that it will be better... just different!
@enginewitty(78)· 2616d
Rich getting richer. That's decentralized, right? That's helping people progress, right? That's the giving spirit! I am so in love with this! Why didn't I think of it before? I would totally be voting for this if I was top 20 and it fattened my wallet and it's what I was told to do so I could stay in the top 20. I totally get it now.
@improv(73)· 2616d
I'd love a list of witnesses who would vote against these changes. I'd like to vote for them.

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