I have been on Steemit for nearly a year putting a lot of time and effort into growing my blog and my overall post earnings. My longer term vision and intention has always been to have a blog that helps me to stay sharp and allows me to earn some monthly income while having an enjoyable social experience.
While I am not going to complain, it has been quite the challenge also because what I generally post about (Sports Betting) is quite the niche subject not everyone is interested in. My main frustration as a dolphin is that is is very hard to outperform the 10x self upvote amount in a way that makes it actually worth all the time and effort.
Getting the earnings on my daily post to a point where they reach a 10x self upvote amount mainly relies on a Self-upvoting it, Upvotes for Upvotes, Group Initiatives that need delegation and daily upvotes and selling some of my own upvotes to pay for upvotes in return. (I still do quite some selfless upvoting on posts and comments to support the community without asking anything in return. See Monthly Curatuon, ... )
The smaller "Guaranteed" Daily Upvotes have made a world of difference to me and growing those is what I slowly try to do. I am highly grateful for all the projects that are out there (@qurator |@make-a-whale | @steembasicincome | ...) but at the same time also a bit disappointed since they lost a lot of their value compared to when I joined an now even seem to have become a losing proposition.
There are several models for support groups that give daily upvotes. While it is not my intention to criticize them and I do see them all having great aspects, I can't help to see some issues when it comes down to returns, scalability and sustainability.
@Qurator
This project that is run with good intentions aims to support members who bring quality content to steemit with daily upvotes. They have done a great job in that but could use some help and delegation from the devs to better support their members. The registration fee increased over time (they do give higher upvotes the first month which pays back part of it) and added an option for a monthly paid model since many members gave them minimum support. The old way of upvoting their posts 7 times each week while delegating some SP no longer provides any real value, this could be temporarly because they heavily rely on delegation which has taken a hit with the low steem price.Current Upvote Tier 5 = 0.41$ (~0.31$ After Curation)
Price = Upvote qurator Daily Post for 0.038$ (after curation)+ 300SP delegation (0.32$ daily self-upvote worth)Daily Upvote Received = 0.31$
Daily Upvote Cost =0.358$Adding the fact you need to set your auto-vote to at least 0.06$ not to drop below the minimum and the times you miss getting an upvote when not making a daily post, the numbers are even a bit worse without counting the subscription price that was paid. (again I hope this is a temporary thing which will get fixed when the price of Steem increases)
@make-a-whale
This is a closed group of steemians who make quality posts and have at least 500SP. I highly enjoyed being part of their project but the value also seems to have dropped below a 10x self-upvote. Getting a 0.36$ daily upvote (0.27$ after curation) in return of delegating 300SP and upvoting their daily posts also goes below a 10x self-upvote right now.Make-a-whale upvote = 0.36$ (0.27$ after curation) (in return 300SP delegation + upvote the make-a-whale post each day)300SP self upvote alone = 0.32$ ...
@steembasicincome
I absolutely love the social idea behind this project that allows you to sponsor other steemians. I do have a lot of questions when it comes down to the fundamental numbers and returns though. Money that comes in is used to buy delegation that has to support an ever growing amount of members. The fact that many of them don't make a daily post makes it all hold up for now. Purely as an investment this is a terrible deal, as a way to give something away and support someone it's very much suited. The 1 STEEM that is paid for each SBI share (+sponsorship) itself can somewhat be considered lost even though I believe it can be transferred or recovered partially.I now have 21 steembasicincome shares which gives a daily 2% upvote good for a 0.07$ daily upvote.
(Please let me know if I am drastically wrong about the above numbers and I will be happy to apologise and change them !)
The idea behind upvoteshares is to take all the good aspects of the above projects and combine them in a way that is scalable and very transparent.
+ @qurator = Minimum quality requirements
+ @make-a-whale = Minimum SP Requirements + Limited Spots
+ @steembasicincome = Sponsorship & No Post Upvote Requirements
The idea is to have an account that always has at least 10% more SP compared to the STEEM that has been sent to it. (Imagine Steembasicincome where the received Steem get permanently Powered Up instead of used to buy delegation and 10% extra SP is being added for each share.) The system works in levels that always increase in price based on the SP in the account. This makes everyone who steps in get the same minimum return while it always increases for existing shareholders. Once a certain SP level is reached, a limited amount of shares in the program become available. The numbers are all predetermined so what you get can be calculated at any given time. Every share will also come along with the ability to support a minnow without this overly having an influence on the return.
The basic idea is that each level opens up once the account reaches a certain SP amount and makes 50 shares available. There will be multiple mechanics to increase the value of the account and slowly give everyone an ever increasing minimum return. The money to give it value will come from my own investment (I get slightly increased curation in return) and the members that give up on Steemit. Shareholders will remain owner of the STEEM their shares represent and they can always be sold on the market.
(These numbers will be explained in detail in a later post!)
For as far as I can see there is one main vulnerability in the entire setup which is the single point of failure it brings along with the one who holds the private key. I have no intention whatsoever to scam anyone and this project will always stay rather small scale. I will always make this potential problem very clear to everyone who gets involved.