Lately most of my posts have been a reaction to the stuff i read others write about.
Last post i wrote was a reaction post to a post @glory7 wrote where i wanted to expand on some of the concerns he raised.
This post, in the same manner, is motivated by the @liberosist rant and @whatsup list of top 30 payed accounts last 30 days and ill basically expand on my comments on their posts.
First of all i want to tackle what Libero said.
For the guys that dont know who this guy is ill give you a short explanation.
Hes one of the whales that banded together, what is decades ago in blockchain terms, to create Curie.
His account along with @hendrikdegrote was the punching power behind Curie for a long time.
When supporting quality wasnt "cool", he did it.
He powered down a while ago but he still hangs around and atm hes probably the plankton with the most engagement on the whole platform. Lol.
Im not one to give props but hes one of the few i can say i agree with in most of the points he makes.
Even though i will say that, his current stance is pretty defeatist.
I can acknowledge the corruption here, the politics, the asskissing, the pure hypocrisy of some people, the lack of variety in content but i have to say... "Well, its a bit better then what we had before".
Still....The fact of the matter is that Proof Of Brain cannot save us if the mentality of the crowd doesnt change.
Steem in its core is a loosely plutocratic system. That sucks for a few reasons (many times your voice is as worth as the size of your wallet) but thats what we signed up for.
You wouldnt walk into a gay bar called "The Manhole" and say:
Goddammit, whys everyone here homosexual?!
When you walked into #Steem with your hard earned cash you should have been aware that this is how this shit works.
The wealthy determine what is seen and what gets payed.
In that regard Steem aint very different from the real world.
But really, you have to acknowledge one thing. This situation right now is a bit better then what we had before.
Proof of brain is good even when the "brain is that of an idiot".
Im the first to call out the lack of variety and im aware people will fight to protect this current status quo because those that profited the most from the partial elimination of bots are those that posted frequently in the past years and got seen.
That is important to state... They got seen.
Their content might be junk and nothing to showcase on a platform that "wants to change the world" but they are seen, noticed and their existance acknowledged by people with influence and a fat wallet.
To @liberosist all i can say is that im aware that stuff is shitty but id rather get shit on by a pidgeon then a cow.
We need to appreciate the change but not for a second be happy with the current situation.
Always strive to reach a goal and this aint it yet.
People are fast to concede and proclaim victory when it suits them.
That brings me to @whatsup and her post about top 30 payed authors.
The change there is evident. We went from absolute abuse of the reward pool by selfvoters, bot abusers and circlejerkers to "Well, at least its not that."
Theres still a lot of shit to go around. Circlejerks galore.
But thats not why i bring up that list.
Why i bring it up is because, and ill bold this, NOT A SINGLE PERSON ON THIS LIST IS SOMEONE I WOULD POINT TO AND SAY:
Look World! Look at what we have here!
Not a single person on that list is anyone to point to and share with the world. Not a single person on that list i see as having any broad appeal. Not a single person there is someone i would say could potentially compete with any quality, succesful content creator on any major mainstream content platform.
That is sad and that is our reality.
Does that mean something to you? It should.
When i tried out various platforms like Minds, Narrative and seeing the top creators there talk about their platform all the damn time.... all i said to myself is:
Fuck that.
When a platform is completely or to an extremely high degree focused on posts about their own platform and rewards them the most, in the case of steem the most rewarded people are those that know the wealthiest people or have been here a million years.... that shows me that the platform in question isnt one that is "world changing", but rather that its in its infancy.
Infancy of mentality and extremely far from achieving anything great.
Im not saying that Steem related content shouldnt be rewarded (I wouldnt want that) but when it is rewarded in such degree and consistency then you get the effect i talked about above and thats not good.
A few days ago i commented how whales should come to a agreement to each pick up a major tag to support in a percentage of their VP. Thats not ideal but it would act as a boost to content variety. Just do it guys. I know you saw the pings.
When a tag, a community doesnt get major support it withers away and all youre left with is Steem content and people saying:
"Well theres nothing else of quality to support".
How about you ask yourself why that happened?
And it has happened many times.
Steem is Steem and whales are indeed those that mold what the platform will turn into.
Its not minnows. Minnows didnt clear the Trending of Bots.
Right now its easier to organize a few whales with a couple mil SP then a 1000 small accounts with 500 SP to vote fairly.
Most of the small accounts think that its them that deserves the votes but whales can be convinced to do whats best for the platform much more easily.
To conclude this... Stuff isnt great and if for a second you think it is, youre a deluded fool.
But its getting better and bots dying is the first step towards the goal.
Consider steem in the Steemit.inc graph of task completion.
Wer still at the first dot.
Ill see ya.