A Morning Rant: @haejin isn't Doing Anything Most of You Wouldn't Do

I haven't been controversial in a while, and it's time to change that. I fully expect flags and whatever.

I've been following the Hive account@haejin drama for a while now and have to stick my spoon in it, too, since the abhorrent hypocrisy of it all fails to escape me. I was initially on the bandwagon with everyone else, but closer inspection has made change my mind somewhat.

First off, I've never read a single Hive account@haejin post, and probably never will. It's my understanding that he does TA, but I don't trust other people's TA to begin with and especially wouldn't look to Steemit for my TA if I were to search for it.

If his TA is purposefully scammy and leading people astray, that's a dick thing to do, but it's hardly different from millions of other charlatans occupying crypto and the stock world.

But the drama isn't really about whether or not his TA is legitimate, is it? No, the drama is about the fact that he spams a gazillion posts a day and milks the rewards because he either A) has a whale friend, or B) the whale account is, in fact, his own.

Of course it's obvious that it's done for the money. No question about that. Just like most all Steemit posts, his posts are just an excuse to rake in money from the reward pool.

But.

Why do you post on Steemit? Why are you here? What brought you here?

The intuitive user interface? Insightful, intelligent, inspiring discussions about the latest trends and the more obscure, hidden dangers of sword swallowing that you can engage in with the millions of bots running around?

No, you came here because of the promise of making money; the fantasy that you all have of leaving your job and simply blogging online from the comfort of your own home to make a living.

That's why you're here.

A fantasy that Hive account@haejin seems to be making a reality. And that's ultimately what is pissing you off.

To make it clear: I'm not really for or against the guy; I'm apathetic. I'm just amused by the drama surrounding him right now.

My point is simply this: if given the choice of whether or not to make free money, the only rational decision one can make is say yes. It's just a fact. There's not an area of life which having more money makes more difficult or more unpleasant. More money is always better, it always improves your quality of life.

Given the fortunate position he is in, Hive account@haejin is making the only rational choice. He has the opportunity to make an infinite amount of free money, so he's taking advantage of that. Why wouldn't he? What possible, rational reason would he have to say no to free money?

All he has to do is write a few lines about cryptos, press post and money is printed to his bank account.

I'm not saying there aren't reasons not to do what he is doing, however. Personally, I look at spammers like that and always get the impression that it's pretty embarrassing someone has nothing else going on than spamming on Steemit every two hours. I care about my image and wouldn't sacrifice a sense of personal dignity in order to milk dry a site that seems to be populated by people with no other money making avenues available.

But, with that being said, I'm just making it a point to say that if we strip away things like the above, the only purely rational thing to for someone like Hive account@haejin to do is to take the free money that is being offered to him on a silver platter.

Most all of you would do the exact same thing in his position if you were able to swallow your pride and dignity like he is.

I also have a problem with the "stealing" rhetoric that's being thrown around. No, you can not steal from the Steemit reward pool. This is because of the simple reason that no one owns the reward pool. It does not belong to anyone, and just because you post on Steemit, doesn't mean you're entitled to anything. This may come as a shock to you, but it's actually entirely possible that you never receive upvotes because your content sucks. Trust me, it's possible. It's depressing, but so is life.

From where I stand, Hive account@haejin isn't really breaking any rules. No, he is working well within the system. He gets X amount of support for his content and spams to high heaven because of the guaranteed money he is going to make every single time.

Now, be that is it may.

Is this a problem?

Depends on your perspective. If one hopes for Steemit to one day become something more than an ATM for the bums of the world, and evolve into an actual vibrant social media site, then yes I'd say so. Seeing stuff like this will probably deter intelligent people checking out the site, and Steemit will be doomed to remain as it is today.

But is it Hive account@haejin's fault? No.

Like I said, Hive account@haejin is simply doing what makes sense for him to be doing in the environment he's in.

The environment is not shaped by him; the environment is shaped by the voting behavior of the whales, the lack of downvoting, and the disastrous algorithms that Steemit, INC. has been creating hardfork after hardfork, all but abandoning the original Whitepaper.

There were checks in place to prevent things like this in the original Whitepaper, but a certain CEO deemed them evil and decided to go with the model we're all enjoying today. Enjoying being said in a sarcastic tone.

I view this sort of like corporate subsidies.

Yes, they suck and shouldn't exist. The market should be free and failing corporations should be allowed to fail, instead of using taxpayer money to put keep them on life support, resulting in an unfair playing field that benefits those who already benefit.

But should the corporations be blamed for accepting these subsidies?

No.

They are simply doing what makes sense for them to do in the environment they're in.

Blaming corporations for the fact that they're receiving corporate subsidies is barking the wrong tree. They are actors in the environment that the government and politicians have created and continue to create for them. It would be noble for a company to refuse them in the name of being a good sport, but nobility is an extremely rare virtue, and no economic system should ever be built on that. The vast, vast majority of actors in any economic system look out for number one. That's a fact of life. If you don't look out for number one, no one else will.

This is why I find it futile to blame Hive account@haejin for taking advantage of a situation presented to him. If people have a problem with it, they should blame the environment, not the actors within the environment. People simply adapt to their surroundings, in any given situation.

I'm not letting Hive account@haejin completely off the hook here, however. His outburst against the downvotes he received was childish with shades of a certain krnelol from a not so distant past. I made an entire post about how downvotes are not, and should not be, personal, so I don't want to repeat myself here, but here's the key point I made:

The final rewards of a post are the result of a community consensus, consisting of both upvotes and downvotes. They are not personal. In a stake based system, each stakeholder has a say regarding the value of a given post, and they can exercise their right to vote based on what they deem that value to be. If they feel a post is undervalued, they upvote; if they feel a post is overvalued, they downvote.

That's it.

But it's not like Hive account@haejin exists in a vacuum. All you need to do is take a look at what the delegation feature has created since it started. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it's a rare breed of man that can escape that fact. It's pretty much only those of us autistic enough to not be affected by shit like this.

For what it's worth, I think all Steemit posts are way, way, way, waaaay overvalued. The highest paid posts on Steemit should be valued at around a dollar or two at the most, if you ask me. This includes my posts, by the way.

NO ONE here is creating value worth noting since the highest views posts on Steemit only generate around a few thousand clicks. I've seen non-commentated shitty speedruns of Mega Man 2 generate that on YouTube. None of those are making anything near what even the average Steemit post is raking in.

Not that it bothers me, or anything, I'm just pointing it out. Steemit is a unique beast that plays by its own rules.

And since I'm on a roll, I'd like to point something else out, as well.

I've been following Hive account@smooth's Burn Post experiment, and I have even supported it a few times. I also made a burn post of my own to show support for the initiative.

I do, however, slightly disagree with the premise of the experiment, which is something I've disagreed ever since joining Steemit in the summer of 2016.

The premise goes to vilify those who cash out their Steemit earnings. As if people should be obligated to never cash out what they make. Hive account@haejin has also been blamed for this.

Of course, it would benefit the STEEM economy if people were to hold on to their earnings, but it's not anyone's duty to not cash out due to the goodness of their hearts.

No, it's Steemit INC's job to create an incentive to stay powered up. Right now, such an incentive is lacking. Yes, you get more power, but the power you get simply by posting is so minuscule that one really has no reason to even bother.

I actually think it's a bit silly for someone to choose their e-penis over actual, real money that can buy them actual, real things in the real world.

As a STEEM holder, I'm all for finding reasons for people to stay powered up and hold on to their STEEM, but as things stand right now, how can anyone blame people for cashing out?

The platform needs to be one to make it a good idea to stay powered up. If we insist that people never cash out just be one of the good guys, that's how a cult operates.

Even if you work at a hospital, you don't go to work out of the goodness of your heart, you go to work because you get paid to do so. There's an incentive for you to go to work. Both parties benefit.

We're almost two years in Steemit still has very little to offer outside of the money.

Why is it that people don't need to be bribed to join Facebook? Twitter? Reddit? YouTube? What is it that makes them join and engage in those communities free willingly, spending their time building communities for free? Because it's fun. Take the money aspect away from Steemit and 99%, or dare I say 100%, of the userbase ups and leaves.

That's not a guarantee, that's a guaran-damn-tee.

Things don't have to be the way they are, but it's how things are right now. I wish things were different, but I'm not optimistic.

These are the questions Steemit INC really should be asking themselves, but I doubt they are.

That's it for today's #pipebomb, please feel free to spread hate and call me names in the comment section below.

Thanks.