I recently was called up on re posting on my blog by steem cleaners. Now at first glance I was a bit shocked and like most of us who are told we are doing something wrong when we don't think we are my knee jerk reaction was one of irritation. At the time I was trying to get a contest going for other Steemers to find an old post that they created and re- post them to give it a chance to gain more exposure, and I had reposted myself that day so I was confused by the definition of an original work as spam. It wasn't plagiarized, I had worked hard on it, and rather than see the calling up on re posting for what it was I impulsively saw it as an affront to the post. In this I was wrong. I still didn't and don't see original works or resubmitting them as spam but I get the overall mission of set ups like steem cleaners on Steemit and their role in maintaining the health of the platform. Right now the platform needs all the help it can get as it's starting to look like it could become massively unhealthy. Let me explain.
Manipulation of the reward pool through bots, abusive up voting, and spam are massive issues on Steemit from minnow to whale. But recently I have noticed another huge problem that I observe, but never directly get involved in. Whales warring and flagging campaigns between disgruntled users. When I joined last year this was something that would be classed as rare if compared to its current frequency and it's alarming to say the least. Despite the fact that Steemit is democratic it's still a market place and in any free market place some have more wealth than others thus more influence. I am a minnow with very little therefore that is reflected in my vote, but what happens when you have the powerhouse users slamming into each other as a norm? Would the market place eventually become to fraught for commerce? What happens if the powerful merchants start to rip up the stones from the floor of the market that small merchants normally erect their stalls on?
This all seems to be happening with increasing frequency on Steemit at the moment. Whales and influential users abusing the reward pool, whales and influential users over riding other users votes through flagging and exercising their will on the platform over large numbers of votes voiced in a democratic fashion on a post, whales and influential users locked in flagging wars on each other and drawing lesser users into their conflict. As I stated, this used to be rare. Sadly it could be that we are being confronted with the reality that influence and prudence aren't the best of partners and that the more you have of one the less you have of the other. We usually see this in the temperament of any tantruming politician when they decide the will or well being of the many is irrelevant when compared to what they want. We could be seeing that here on Steemit.
I know that there is no ecosystem out there that exist in harmony without contraries. I see posts that don't appeal to me as often as I see post that do. If one that doesn't appeal to me has a large sum and large number of votes attached to it then great. I don't feel like that writer or artist or contribution is unfairly raping the rewards pool as it clearly appealed to the market. Same goes for clothes with stripes or quirky designs in the shops. I often think some things closely resemble a dish cloth but if someone is going to wear a dish cloth and pay a huge sum for it then great. More power to them. I like Steemit and I had always refused to use things like Facebook or Twitter because of how invasive they are in regards to data and privacy. I like Steemit because due to the fact that you choose your level of involvement, can market your efforts, be rewarded small or large, and it's all democratic. It's on online market place where the value of effort is supposed to be fairly voted on by taste or preference. But nowadays it seems that more than spammers, hackers, and crooks in general aren't the only threat to it. Some of its more influential users are.
But these are just my observations and concerns. I doubt that they have any impact either. I hope that flagging wars, whales and influential users setting to each other will mellow but I doubt it. It's worrying. I hope that those who have different tastes or disagreements with each other will behave prudently and let Steemit unfold and operate as a free democratic market place and platform. But I doubt it. Every market place in history has had it's merchants, craftsmen, thieves, and above all its oligarchs. Not many if any have had prudent oligarchs though so sadly I fear the worse here. Well guys, thanks for reading and I'd love to hear feed back from everyone else. I'm going to create a tag for this post called whalewars. I don't think one exist but if other users like myself who are minnows have thoughts on the topic then feel free to create a post and voice your thoughts there. I'd love to give them a read and perhaps vote and resteem. Many blessings and Steem on.
