RE: DEBATE: Is posting on the STEEM blockchain via micro-blog/social interfaces cheating?

Great points; I totally agree with you.

I think that most people who have actually invested in or made a decent amount of STEEM/VESTS/SP will also agree that if you don't think content like a zappl or a funny meme posted to steepshot is deserving of a reward on par with say, someones short film.

The problem arises when newer users, those who haven't put in the work yet, see the front page/trending and try to copy that expecting similar results. They bust their ass on a post, making sure its #original-content, learning markup to make it beautiful and finally after spending over an hour they submit their first "crypto-journalist" post. 20 minutes go by and they have a single upvote. its their own. They write another. It too may get a few votes, but ultimately doesn't break out.

They decided to read a few more posts. Maybe some on "Hot" or "Promoted". They then see a meme reposted, directly off of the front page of reddit, maybe slightly manipulated so it isn't exactly "stealing". $45.20 after 2 hours?!

↑ The discouraging scenario above had happened to me a few times when I started a few months ago, and I'm sure tons of others. I think part of the issue is with 'self voting' (not just your own ↑vote, but rather buying upvotes from booster services and bid bots.) They see super low effort posts get huge numbers. Spammers, or people who are blatantly content thieves have post rewards that are launched to the moon within minutes of posting and they feel that the system is broken. They see their quality content die while cheaper, low effort content is making the money and they follow suite.

Pretty soon the site no longer caters towards "Proof of Brain" but rather who can post the most "jokes/memes" or repost /r/cryptomarkets hot threads the fastest. I think encouraging manual curation while discouraging self-voting and paid voiting services is the only real solution. That way the "newbie" who tries Steemit and quits it the same week, who may be a huge influencer on other platforms, isn't so turned off.

My first ever post on Steemit [an older, throwaway account] made $10 a little over a year and a quarter ago. I was charmed. I want the same experience for newer steemians.