It's one stupid mistake you must correct if you want to beat the bots and whales.
2 days ago I was one of the first 15 people to vote on @chicana's lovely cake post. I was really happy and hoping this would get my Steem career off on the right foot. Then I got the payout:
And I had to figure out why it was so little. Being early is awesome right? Wrong!
Voting in the first 20 minutes is not better, it's worse. Way worse
When people vote early, the fee is given to the author ... those who vote in the critical window will earn high profits from curation and only if they correctly move first without moving too fast.
How fast is too fast? Here's the hard facts about how much you lose when you vote within 30 minutes:
curation_reward_weight = standard_weight * [(now - post_create_time) / 30_minutes)]^2
So you should always wait at least 20 minutes to vote!
The one caveat to this is if a post is so hot so early that the majority of the rewards (think $1000 or more) has already been awarded within 20 minutes. Then go ahead and vote early.
Why did Steem implement this?
It's about the bots:
We thought it would ideal if bots could “pay” to be first. This would eliminate the race and give us more information about the expected value. The more a bot is willing to pay, the higher the probability that there will be many votes that follow. In other words, a bot will only pay to be first if the value of being first outweighs the price they pay.
Bonus tip - To get started earning curation rewards, double up your STEEM Power with a deposit
@dantheman explained why you should do this recently:
We want there to be a greater incentive to combine the balances of two small accounts into one larger account ... but the benefit from increasing your stake decreases as your stake gets larger. In other words, increasing your account balance from $5 to $100 will have much more impact than going from $50,000 to $100,000.
Check out my post on how to deposit STEEM Power and get the most for your money