ominous music
cue rainfall
march 3, 2023
5 years had passed since the last known manual curator went under. At every corner, vendors of quick and sure upvotes stood, waiting for a weary traveler to visit. For the right price, you could get a small but significant touch up to keep you running for another 7days. "The big five had all but abandoned us, now engaged in bid wars and supremacy battles for the highest amount of power," steem power" they called it. The whales, sitted at the high tables feed of the big 5. Developers became merchants, witnesses cared only for the mined steem, and god(@ned) had left us - the weary steemian
do not take this post as anything other than a discussion ground, it doesnt reflect the future or anything, just my opinions
hello world!
So in case you didnt know, the above fictional write up perfectly sums up what I wanna talk about today. First of, i must state that this post is simply to discuss a few things that had been on my mind for a while.
I never really had an issue with bid bots, infact I use them, i see them as a way to help out those with low earnings and boost the moral or should I say, encourage small earners to continue using the platform. We all know how tough steemit can be and like many now say amd me too have come to realize, your input may not necessarily = your output at times. You pour your heart and soul into a long and amazingly researched post, only to find out that you get nothing in return.
Now i do not have that problem, but seeing my community members complain on a daily fills my eyes with tears. If only i could have a place to store and utilize these teardrops.......... 😉
The chaos and a theory
image source
Im a long standing believer of chaos theory and fractals about them on here before, and for those who dont know, it all boils down to the saying that "if something has the tendency to go wrong, it will go wrong and in a spectacular way" it deals of unpredictability and the favt that circumstances cannot be predicted. In certain complex situations.
Think the stock, forex or crypto, these sre all very complex structures, having input from bots and humans alike, chaos theory tells us that no matter what you may think or say, the outcome of a certain days event cannot be predicted.
I first heard about chaos theory while reading jurassic park, and since then I have been fascinated by it. Another part of chaos theory is the event of fractals, now for those who do graphic design, you probably recognize fractals as patterns or art that consist of one repeting pattern, no matter how far or nesr you zoom in. Fractals are real world phenomenon which states that big complex events, or shapes or structures or whatever, are simply repetitions of. The same pattern, all bunched up together in a never ending chaotic pattern;
A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of Chaos.
fractals
for further study on chaos theory and fractals, check the links below
The steem And the chaos
Now I dont know about yall but I see steemit as a complex system, a system compromised of bots and human actions, a system that has a market, a system interconnected by nodes to several computers all around the world, some full nodes, others, not so full.
Having heard so much complaints about bots from literally almost everyone on steemit, I decided to check just whay the buzz was about.
Turms out we have over 60 voting bots now in place on steemit, as compared to the few we had just 3 months ago. This ordinarily shouldnt bea problem, until you realize that manual curstion over the same period of time has significantly dropped, leaving many people now to pay a service for upvotes when the initial marketing strategy was and is still is for many people "come your voice is worth something, its absolutely free".
It may not matter now, but to an outside observer, it would seem the platform actively encourages the use of these bots. Granted there has been some form of control thanks to grumpy cat, but still, like any complex system, every possibility cannot be checked. Even if all voting bots should write an algorithm that identifies plagiarized content, chaos theory tells us that the outcome would pretty much still be the same, youll only have succeded in making tkhe plagarist smarter, the small fry olagirist would fall, and the smart chronic ones would rise, almost like killing all bacteria with aggressive agents, only to have an increase in super bugs that are stronger, smarter, more deadly.
While there are services that encourage manual curation, that support initiatives that grow the community, sndbox, adsactly, curie, dapps(dsound, dtube, dmania, dlive) etc, these services have their problems as well, and when compared to the 10m SP invested in the top 5 voting bots(not even talking about the rest 50+ bots), is simply not enough.
Steemit is a decentralized system and as such the community makes the rules, it may be the first of its kind but jjst like myspace, a lot of things need to be fixed. Consolidation of power into the hands of 5 accounts, purely for the sake of profit making isnt the best image we can offer to the outside world.
While it may bring monetary value to the owners, it does seem to be detrimental to the health of the system in the long run. This is just the beginning however. Without any voice from anyone, it will only continue to get bad, that is what chaos theory says. More and more bots will come in just for the sake of profit making, and more and more whales will delegate.
The age of the manual curator will be over, and a new age of the bots will arise..
Lol
Ok ok, enough of the gloom and doom, while i do feel the need to get mlre regulations when it comes to voting bots, i feel right now is a phase, i am hoping the top people do something about it, or more support comes frlm mister delegation. Its going tk be wonderful having two systems at play. A system where you can buy votes via bidding bots or manually curated based on your work. The incentive of cause should be that manual curation pays higher because it sets a higher standard. Im really suprised curie hasnt gotten a massive delegation yet, it is a system thst has helped a lot of people and really, if youve ever gotten a curie vote, you need to actually appreciate them, the people behind it all are serious community builders, major respect to @donkeypong, @kevinwong and the rest.
The voting bots have a potential if they can spare a little of their power towards helping a cause, there is no harm in giving a free 20% vote to something that could potentially help the system. It doesnt have to be all about profit. Support a meetup freely, support a project freely, heck, give out one or two random curation in a day, its all good, youll still bresk even, you know that.
Thanks!
short Horror story writing contest
So its been a while since I actually did a contest. I have been so busy that i forgot to do what i lkved to do the mkst, helping out and having fun at the same time!
So heres hoe its gonna go
In no more than 50 words, write, in the comment below, a sort horror story that blows the mind.
Something like in the above picture.
rules!
- must be in the comments of this post
- must upvote this post
- must be totally awesome as an individual
- must resteem.
- ends on Wednesday
Good luck and get scary!