An Argument for Long-Term Rational Self-Interest Versus Short-Term Irrational Value Extraction

In this video, I want to explore the problems with short-term thinking related to the STEEM rewards pool as it relates to self-voting, bot-voting, and purchasing votes.

Let's start with the video and go from there (it's about 15 minutes long):

Before you think I'm some an altruistic idealist, I want to be clear that I've personally participated in multiple voting bot systems to get a feel for what it's like to earn rewards through those systems. I want experiential knowledge here so when I ask someone to act a certain way because I think it will benefit us all, I know what I'm asking because I've done it myself.

I used Hive account@minnowbooster for just a little while, and 3 of the 4 people I delegated to via their marketplace immediately started spamming the network and self-upvoting useless comment spam to extract value from the rewards pool. Unfortunately, I didn't know at the time that such abuse should be reported to their discord channel. I quickly ended those delegations, and it reinforced my perspective that voting bots are mostly being abused. I then tried the smartsteem bot because I like how it uses a whitelist to exclude bad actors from just extracting value from the rewards pool. Here's my payout results for 1 month of 2,000 Steem Power delegation to Hive account@smartsteem:

2018-04-01 22:42:51 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.880 SBD
2018-03-31 22:37:45 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.977 STEEM
2018-03-31 22:37:39 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.252 SBD
2018-03-30 21:31:18 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.509 SBD
2018-03-29 20:46:36 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.549 STEEM
2018-03-29 20:46:30 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.722 SBD
2018-03-28 19:36:12 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.672 STEEM
2018-03-28 19:36:03 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.830 SBD
2018-03-27 17:46:21 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.474 SBD
2018-03-26 16:48:36 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.654 STEEM
2018-03-26 16:48:30 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.038 SBD
2018-03-25 15:58:42 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.909 SBD
2018-03-24 15:26:51 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 4.140 SBD
2018-03-23 12:36:42 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.571 STEEM
2018-03-23 12:36:39 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.156 SBD
2018-03-22 12:43:48 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.073 SBD
2018-03-21 12:55:48 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.010 SBD
2018-03-20 12:59:12 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.681 STEEM
2018-03-20 12:59:09 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.629 SBD
2018-03-19 13:08:06 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.035 SBD
2018-03-18 13:22:24 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.565 STEEM
2018-03-18 13:22:18 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.495 SBD
2018-03-17 13:28:48 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.940 SBD
2018-03-16 13:32:39 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.726 STEEM
2018-03-16 13:32:36 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.502 SBD
2018-03-15 13:44:21 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.651 STEEM
2018-03-15 13:44:18 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.617 SBD
2018-03-14 13:49:09 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.196 SBD
2018-03-13 13:57:15 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.884 STEEM
2018-03-13 13:57:12 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.014 SBD
2018-03-12 14:11:00 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 4.049 SBD
2018-03-11 14:10:45 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.753 STEEM
2018-03-11 14:10:42 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.368 SBD
2018-03-10 14:28:51 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.442 SBD
2018-03-09 14:43:09 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.791 STEEM
2018-03-09 14:43:06 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 4.357 SBD
2018-03-08 14:49:18 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.518 SBD
2018-03-07 14:22:39 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.668 STEEM
2018-03-07 14:22:33 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 3.718 SBD
2018-03-06 15:20:30 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 4.079 SBD
2018-03-05 14:46:36 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.632 STEEM
2018-03-05 14:46:33 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 2.580 SBD
2018-03-04 13:10:06 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.808 SBD
2018-03-03 12:12:09 UTC smartsteem  lukestokes.mhth 0.647 SBD

Making 9.774 STEEM and 90.987 SBD for a USD value (at today's prices) of $278 is real money. I get this. For me to suggest people shouldn't be enjoying this return is a difficult argument to make.

Here's how I'll try to make it:

At the current prices, 2,000 Steem Power is worth $6,520 so $278 represents a 4.26% return in just one month. I know that's a lot, but for context, take a look at the cryptocurrency market prices just 2 years ago:

Now look at the markets today:

Notice how STEEM is no longer on the list and many tokens had huge exponential growth.

4% returns aren't as valuable as whether or not a coin lives, dies, or has 10x+ increase in value. If we extract value up front with short-term thinking and that is our only focus, then it's quite possible we're losing out on much higher gains we might have enjoyed if we instead focused on using our Steem Power to support projects and individuals who add value to the overall ecosystem.

If we want to live in a voluntary world, we have to step up our personal responsibility to protect what we value. We have to act like adults. As mentioned in the video, that may include more downvoting to ensure those reward pool funds are available for other content which could potentially bring in more users, more engagement, and (importantly for investors) more people buying STEEM. It may also mean losing out on some curation rewards. It may mean supporting projects which don't provide financial kickbacks but do increase the value for the system. Some examples I'm delegating to from my witness account include:

You can find even more great things to delegate to via https://solicitingpower.com/ created by Hive account@roelandp.

Some of the accounts I want to highlight:

Hive account@mack-bot
Hive account@spaminator
Hive account@broombot

These accounts are working to keep this blockchain free of spam content. Their actions increase the value perception of Steemit which directly impacts the price of the STEEM token. You can also use automating voting systems like Hive account@steemvoter to support accounts like Hive account@steemcleaners with upvotes on their posts.

There are also a bunch of great community projects you could support. If you have additional projects than what are mentioned here, please include them in the comments for others to learn about. The purpose of the STEEM blockchain isn't charity, but some charity to help communities that really need it (countries with destroyed national currencies, for example) can eventually help us all.

The more we support each other, the more we ultimately increase value for ourselves.

We just have to have the right mindset of long-term, rational self-interest.

What do you think?

Some posts for further study:

• Consider Buying Steem. Be an Owner, not a Renter.
• Psychological Egoism: Selfishly Improving the World Around You
• Self-Voting: Scammy Behavior, Rational ROI, or Something Else?
• Introducing: SolicitingPower.com - a gallery of Steem projects worth supporting (with your delegations)
• Operation Clean Trending
• Separate downvoting power pool concept visualized.

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Luke Stokes is a father, husband, programmer, STEEM witness, DAC launcher, and voluntaryist who wants to help create a world we all want to live in. Learn about cryptocurrency at UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com

_{I'm a Witness! Please vote for @lukestokes.mhth}