Are the upper rank whales just a bunch of scammers? I got involved in a debate yesterday with a user who believes they are.
Let me break down just why he thinks they are, and how easy it is to assume this when following his logic.
Statement 1: Having multiple accounts is considered scammy.
"Big whales have created many alt accounts to suck the rewards away from the system"
In fact, having multiple accounts was a requirement in the beginning of Steem. Way before the majority of us even knew what steem was. Most of the upper ranks have multiple accounts for obvious reasons; A witness account, a miner account, a blog account, and maybe some more accounts for whatever purposes.
Did they create multiple accounts for fraudulent purposes? Simply put: No.
Statement 2: Stealing rewards from the platform.
"Upvoting your own alt account with super whale powers is stealing money from steemit"
We need to stop for a moment and look at what makes someone a whale. Those users are the very same users who invested their own time, money and resources in making steemit as we know today. Their investment is what most of us are chasing, the monetary reward by their huge balances. There is no such thing as stealing on steemit. Most of us joined here to make some rewards, just like the early investors did. Sure, having millions of SP on your account may be impressive, but it won't pay your bills.
Yet we assume whales are only here to share the rewards with any john doe making some introduction on steemit, however, if they upvote themselves, we start screaming it has to be a scam! Don't we all check the 'upvote post' check box upon submitting? Don't we all pray for a big whale to vote our content?
How do you justify the expectation of those guys investing everything they had, pouring money in a new platform, sharing everything with us, yet not receiving anything in return themselves but greed and envy? If some day, an anonymous person builds you a castle, just like that, for free, would you close the door on him if he asks you to have a coffee with you ?
From my perspective, if a whale upvotes his own alt account, they are only rewarding themselves instead of you.
Statement 3: Voting patterns reveal scammy accounts.
"Account X upvotes a post and within seconds 40 others do! SCAAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!"
Steem is a wonderful platform and blockchain. It even has this cool thing called "proxified voting." Let me explain you some of the basics.
Every user can authorize another user to cast votes using his keys. We have a main curator, lets just call him @maincurator. All that @maincurator does, is scan steemit for new and good content. Now i don't have the time to scan 24/7 on new potential trending content, for whatever reasons. But i really like what @maincurator is doing, and his upvotes are mostly inline with what i like. I can authorize @maincurator to vote with my account using nothing but our own blockchain. Nothing scammy, no hocus-pocus. Just code.
Now let's extend this, and 50 other users love what @maincurator does. This would mean, by every vote @maincurator makes, a total of 50 other users will cast their vote within the same second. What if @maincurator follows me, loves my posts, and upvotes every single post I make? It would show that all my posts are getting the same votes within the same time span.
Does this imply my account is a 'fake, scammy' account? No. Does this mean many of those accounts got created just to suck away rewards and upvoting my own posts? No.
It is my belief this community is being poisoned by greed, hatred and envy from the new userbase towards the old userbase.
People are actually accusing and investigating such simple actions like proxified voting because they rather believe in conspiracy theories and assumptions than taking a look at steemd and acting with knowledge. Even worse is that those users are assuming they have the knowledge.
At a slow pace, we'll see the intellect and childish behavior of bitcointalk appearing on steemit.
If anyone ever has doubts about anything, talk to this community instead of spreading rumors around.
Maybe this analogy will help the complainers:
I have a business. Through my hard work, effort and brains the business takes off and I have to employ people, many of whom who have never been employed and it is their first chance at earning an income. They see me buying a new expensive car with the proceeds of my hard work, and decide to strike as they do not have enough money to buy the same car.
I joined this platform 5 weeks ago. I have no knowledge of computer programming or cryptocurrency. All that is expected of me is to blog and network. I am rewarded for my efforts. I am happy. Why would I expect to earn the same rewards as the founders (hard work and brains)?
The petty jealousy defies all common sense, but money is involved, and money makes many people lose their minds!
I agree with @onetree: I have no knowledge of computer programming, little experience with cryptocurrency. All I do is write and curate and help build up the community. And I get paid for it! I am rewarded for my efforts. I am happy. I'm not going to expect to earn the same rewards as the founders. Neither should anyone else.
HOWEVER, people coming on here DON'T KNOW that the majority of the trending posts are essentially founder-written and/or founder-curated. It's a raw deal if you think about it that way. It's all about expectations.
Maybe a little shifting of those expectations would help mitigate some of the sour grapes going on.
This goes well beyond mere "jealousy." And it isn't just a problem with the vote timing. Steve appears to be arguing about something that he is completely unaware of. There is a pattern of what seem to be sock puppet accounts (plural) created by whales, voted by the same whales, curated by their other sock puppet accounts, sharing similar features and styles, etc.
There's no reason to assume that someone noticing these things is "jealous." It represents a serious problem for the platform if the system can be abused this way - especially by the most influential people on it. The issues with @mrron and @msgivings are only two examples (there are others) and we will likely learn about new ones soon enough. Please don't dismiss the questions or criticisms so easily. There is legitimacy to the concerns.
This analogy...... it's centralized employment. People get upset I think largely because it is promoted as decentralized... open... all of that. I am sure a lot are upset by the money part, it's easy to be.
I think a good portion of the others are upset though because it seems to take away from growing the site. Direct the rewards where you want sure.... absolutely. It's just how it can appear at times, not saying that is what it is.
Biggest part though is the decentralized theme and having it not represented as easily or visually. Everyone wants the site to grow, but to a new user seeing a founder post about the status of the site who is making $1500 for reporting the status of the site. It looks and feels off, I understand currently there is no other way to make the post visible without trending it.
They could do like the MySpace guy and @dan and the crew are everybody's first feed I guess?
There is nothing much to add ! I agree with you 100% @onetree I would not be here without those investors and I plan to keep my little bit of steempower I collect with very hard work , I do enjoy. Sometimes I feel to quit but why would I give up on myself and my efforts to contribute. I have learnt NOT to look for approval but so grateful for recognition. Your #namesinlight post about me yesterday still makes me smile and wanna make me stay for longer and see where this project leads up to. I wish it will survive and for more fairness and balancing in voting! I'm a bit worried about the upcoming hard fork because I still do not understand much to be honest.
This is clearly a subject that invokes strong emotions. Steemit is first and foremost, an experiment, and we should be able to voice our opinions as we, as the users have a vested (ha!) interest in the continuation of the platform Clearly there is going to be abuse of the system, as it is too young for it to have a pre-solution for every issue that occurs.
It is our responsibility, as members with an interest in the continuation of this platform, that we address the often complex matters that arise in a cool, calm reasonable manner. The amount of whining here at the moment is off-putting.
I agree with @ats-david that this a decentralized platform, but it started from a centralized point, and it is only natural that the income will be concentrated there, initially, but may spread over TIME!
Clearly the "whales" (I actually loathe the ecosystem terms) will have a vested (another ha!) interest in growing Steemit, considering time and money they spent. Perhaps we need a forum to discuss issues in a MATURE way.
^ yup. Lot's of envy and jealousy over what the first-timers have that the rest of us don't, and then it breeds into expectations and demands to take what they have. Lots of socialist communist psychosis going on.
Or just bad design with little or no decentralized governance ... oligarchs are not good stewards.
This is a good post but let me add a few amplifications and one minor correction:
In addition to what @steve-walschot wrote, the system is carefully designed so that having multiple accounts does not give you any advatange. This is different from other systems like reddit where having a bunch of sock puppet accounts means you can manipulate the voting and with upvotes and downvotes. When you see someone voting with 100 accounts because he was or is a miner and has stake split up across accounts (which can't be combined for two years), realize that those votes have no more influence (and in some ways slightly less) then if the same SP were combined into a single account.
Authors are allowed (even encouraged!) to upvote their own posts. There is an option in the UI to automatically do it. One of the benefits to owning SP is influence over the posts (including your own) that get visibility and rewards, and this is supposed to be one of the reasons for people to buy SP! Do you (not you, @steve-walschot, the ones criticizing it) really want to advocate a position that means people have no reason to buy SP because it doesn't give them any influence they are allowed to use without being called manipulators or scammers or thieves? If so, what good is it? Why should it trade for more than zero? If you think it matters whether this is done with the same account or some number of different accounts, see #1 above.
Technically speaking the proxy voting feature works only for witness votes, but generally speaking the point is still valid and there is even a service that will do this trail voting for you. It doesn't indicate anything improper. People are allowed to use their votes as they see fit including copying how someone else votes. If you think the number of accounts you see voting matters, see #1 above.
@smooth
What is your take on accounts like @msgivings (or @mrron), where it was created and hit the trending page from day one, because of the influence of whales? Their votes created the popularity of that account, which was a sock puppet. The only reason it isn't active today is due to the fact that whoever ran that account screwed up and directly copy-pasted some content, which then drew over one hundred flags.
Now, what if this was happening across numerous sock puppet accounts, all being run by the same person/people, who happen to be a whale/whales? Would that not be a problem? Isn't that distinctly different from proxy votes? In that case, we're talking about both author and curation rewards going to the same person/people and the only reason they're getting those rewards is because the creators of the accounts are whales and can vote for them out of the gate. Multiple accounts, multiple rewards - all being influenced and paid out from the limited daily pool.
This was a really well-written article. I fully agree it's THEIR investment, their sweat, their idea, their money, their platform. They should do with it what they will. What they do to come up with a way to entice new users to increase its growth is up to them. Not us.
They can bot-vote whatever they want. If they think a user is consistent in producing great content, this scenario you have painted is worthwhile.
HOWEVER--I think it's a bit candy coated, don't you think?
Let me give YOU a scenario. Let's say @maincurator invents a blog account, uses a bot to write it, sometimes plagiarizes the material, dupes the public into thinking it is a real person, puts out mediocre content at best, encourages (and allows for) 10 automated fellow whale votes into the curation so it instantly trends, and repeatedly makes $1,500 to $2,500 on every single post, regardless of whether the content had any quality to it.
Would it not be easy to assume that the initial coded upvotes had little (or nothing) to do with content or appreciation for the content, or trust for the curator's choices in material, and had everything to do with the fact that there was money to be made, and the post was guaranteed a trend JUST BECAUSE of the votes that were banded together? Even if @maincurator upvoted a heap of dung, it would trend simply because they banded their votes together in a pseudo contract, if you will. So whales are not only whales now, but all of a sudden, they are giant, mega whales--the same way giant corporations merge.
And what if, for argument's sake, the platform was encouraging people to invest, giving them the impression that they, too, could trend just like this little account did?
And what if, again, for argument's sake, minnows came on board and dumped their bitcoin into the system, $10, $50, $500, $1,000 and so on, and they started noticing that they were not getting a return on their investment, despite writing great material. And they started noticing that not only do articles sometimes trend for trend's sake, but that some posts trend in a certain pattern (as stated above), and a lot of them are bot-written or plagiarized?
For the sake of THIS argument, wouldn't it be a healthy response for a minnow to be a little disillusioned at the very least, if not completely irate?
The questions of ethicality come into play here. Is it something we can still chalk up to "oh well, they invented the platform, they can do with it what they will" or are there some issues of misleading marketing going on?
I think in general, the content on here is good, the users have integrity--we work hard and mean well, the comments are worthwhile, and the community is great! And what's to stop every dolphin and fish out there from forming their own sock-puppet account and pumping out content they have no attachment to or belief in, but they have a few dolphins whose bots will vote on it automatically every time--so it trends?
This is already the case. But hypothetically, if EVERY account were to do this, there would be nothing left to feed off of. This is why I take an Atlas Shrugged approach:
A platform will only have as much as integrity as the greatest stakeholders give it, or as the owners give the greatest stakeholders.
If this was the plan all along, then it's a really ingenious plan. My hats off to the owners and original investors of this clever system.
Perhaps there is nothing wrong with teaming up for up votes. Even if it is gaming the system. Again, that IS how it all started around here---I just think it should be more transparent, or it takes away integrity of the place. And it certainly disillusions the wee folk.
As for me? I'm going to keep putting out good material, networking with real people, and boycotting sock-puppets for now. I like to think I'll keep that attitude as I grow.
i like your last paragraph starting with 'As for me?' thanks.
Now, imagine if a whale did this...with multiple accounts. How would other users on the platform react if they were to find out it was actually happening? How would that affect the credibility of the platform amongst its own users? And do you think those users would encourage their friends and family members to join?
The concern is not that somebody is making more money than somebody else. The concern is that people with huge amounts of influence can create fake accounts in the first place and make them trend from their first post and each subsequent post - all for their own benefit, at the expense of actual, original content creators that are spending their time contributing to this platform and thinking that it's a fair playing field. It can do a lot of damage.
I'll tell you what, it's certainly curbed my enthusiasm to share it. That's for darn tootin'. I don't talk about it as much. I'm not as proud to. I had a few people I was recruiting who are exceptionally successful, intelligent, well educated, independent-thinking individuals who I thought would be a good fit here. My brother for one, who owns an IT company and also writes for his own blog, a close friend from college, for another, who is an anti-statist, supremely skilled developer, with copious amounts of knowledge about every subject matter that would do well here.....and now all I tell them is, "Well....I take that back. Here's how it REALLY is, and if you're up for that, then take a swing at it." I don't want them coming on here and being like, "Becky, you're an idiot. This is a scam." because that IS what they would say.
I'm up for it. I think it just depends on the type. It's not for everyone. It's either for highly skilled developers who would DEV regardless, or highly skilled writers who would write anyway. Or highly skilled idiots who like taking advantage and would do it anyway.
Very well written, and if you want investors, you have to give them something to invest in. I don't know everything, but I know there is a big school of whales, likely not bad people, who are giving the impression of Scamminess. It is now up to them, how to steer the ship away from that impression.
If anyone asks me my answer is always the same.
1.) I was paid to join!
2.) I'm having fun reading, learning, writing and earning!
3.) Where else do you have an opportunity like this? Facebook? No! Instagram? No! You spend time there too, their founders are super wealthy and you get nothing. Yet no complaining!
4.) I am determined to improve my writing and presentations, stay for the long term and see where it takes me.
@kus-knee (The Old Dog)
can you explain this please, 100 accounts with the same names upvote : http://imgur.com/pk3WLnI
Clearly proxified account.
this is why I have stop posting on steemit and come time to time to only read some posts
Those accounts are all me. They were mined, I bought them from the miner. Both were happy with the deal. It cost me a lot to buy those accounts. Because of the rules of the blockchain I can't combine them for 2 years. Maybe if enough people worry about the appearance, then the Steem developers will find a way to allow us to combine accounts more quickly, like 30 days.
I figure by voting with all of them and getting people such as yourself to voice "concerns", the founders will do something about combining accounts.
http://screencloud.net/v/hQW5
Did you even read the article? Knowledge above assumptions. It's a proxified account. It's all there on the blockchain.
If I am an investor, I don't really care what work the founders of the company have done before I come in. I care about my ability to either A. Make Money, or B. A great Social Media site.
I don't care how or why the whales have the power they do, and I am all about people making money.
When you can't find a win/win situation, everyone loses. If the whales eat the whole pie, they will be eating it alone.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatsup/fighting-over-that-big-steemy-piece-of-pie-while-the-new-users-and-steem-prices-die
This "When you can't find a win/win situation, everyone loses. If the whales eat the whole pie, they will be eating it alone." is my whole 40minute rant in one sentence.
Here, here.
While the small fry ranting where ours upvote ? Sorry they all went to their own bosses lol
Ok we are jealus of you all that you earn money :),but i havent seen any of you earn anyting you just keep writting here in the hope the whales give you a penny.
Dont worry the good whales will pity you and give you some money...
yes ..for this to continue we have to just shut up, keep putting out our beggar signs appeasing and glorifying the STEEMIT gods, in hopes that one day they grace us with their attention.
Fuck that I say! First thing they need to do to remedy the situation is make the smallest vote of those with min decent reputation, worth more than ZERO CENTS. People with good reps and average SP when they vote, it does not even make 1 cent of difference.
The whales making their friends n family rich does absolutely nothing for the vast majority of us ..no matter how much perverted stats the wannabes are posting. The value of SP is dropping because the nouveau riche are cashing it all out ..we see this and are NOT BUIYING
ok you are discussing about if whale are scamming while being yourself some sort of a whale... Sorry that's totally irrelevant.
You just sound like a bad chill account lol
And quite frankly all these discussion concerning only the top 50 users (while there are now 100k users) shouldn't even be posted on steemit (and kept to the chat).
This is exactly that kind of discussion which makes you looks like scammer as it is mostly whales upvoting for support other whales (and getting out with 1000$ with a no effort/no interest post, while the user base try to write stories...)
So ban all these non sense post, and may-be people won't look at whale like scammers or see the platform as a little scammy...
I'm just a new user and started with 20SP not even 2 months ago. Everything i did so far, i achieved it by myself. We all have the same chances in this game. I'm merely a small baby dolphin. So no, i'm not a sort of whale.
The real problem we are dealing with is jealousy. Instead of people being happy with a few dollars they'v made, that unless they are incredibly famous elsewhere is more than they've made on all other social media accounts, they complain that others are making too much money.
Steemit doesn't even need to be monetized to be better than most other social media sites. It's great that @ned and @dan are sharing anything at all.
We are happy with the nice car we have until we see that someone else has a flashy new convertible. Instead of working to get that car most have come to the assumption that it's just not fair and that they should be entitled to their own flashy car.
The problem is not steemit at all. The problem is people's perception of "fairness." Notice that minnows that see the value of continued hard work tend to be far more successful than those who have early success and then instead of ramping up their content, keep it the same.
Hopefully people understand that hard work needs to be put in at some point, whether on steemit or another site to gain a following. Great content by itself will only be found slowly here. You are the brand and you need to advertise yourself.
Steemit is not get rich quick, it allows you to get rewarded for the amount of work you put in. I came in with no blogging experience, 0 followers on social media, few facebook friends and no idea how steemit worked.
All people have to do is get to know other people here and slowly craft unique content that engages people in some way. Repeat those steps and respond to comments and you will see success sooner or later.
People forget that some of the whales helped Steemit get started by investing. Of course they profit when the price goes up, but some will currently be on a loss. It's still early days, so we all stand to do well in the long run if it does succeed.
That said, I'm not in favour of voting just for profit. It should be about rewarding quality posts and I hope that is being done.
WELL DONE!
You win today's "Protecting the Masters" prize!
The multiple accounts to suck rewards accusation had nothing to do with pre-launch or early-days multiple accounts, the individual that floated that was talking about what happened since, and what is happening now.
I too have been puzzled by the bitter sense of entitlement I've occasionally encountered here. I mean, even if the system is unfairly rigged to favor whales, so what? It's not like they're stealing preexisting resources. They invented the platform and the payment system and the currency. We choose to participate because we see a potential personal benefit, a benefit that didn't exist prior to a few months ago. It would seem more productive to figure out how it works and how to make it work for us. If it's not going to work for you, just move on to something that will.
With that said, sometimes complaining about it is a way to benefit, especially if the complaining post gets upvotes...
Whatever the debate is, there is no denying the fact that whales wield strong voting power. We minnows have very little influence which is very frustrating. #minnowsunite
if you are talking about me you should give my links my friend so that people read themselves what you are talking about
https://steemit.com/scam/@stell/why-i-think-steemit-is-a-scam-2
https://steemit.com/steem/@stell/why-i-think-steemit-is-a-scam
While the statements you've responded to were in need of addressing, I think some of the mistrust is coming from accounts like @mrron. From the comments on that account's posts, it's obvious the community smells something fishy, but the posts trend anyway without seeming to have the content or support to justify it. When members can tell something isn't right and yet can't find explanation and don't know who to ask, it can snowball into crazy theories.
I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, but I think that @steemship's call for a communications specialist will help a lot in making members feel they have someone they can ask. Trust is key right now. Recognize that "spreading rumors around" is what it looks like when people who are upset are trying to" talk to this community." The "accusing and investigating" are emotionally loaded attempts to self-inform. They are a good thing, I think. Much better than members leaving in a huff and spreading misinformation outside of Steemit. With someone caring and experienced with Steemit to look into things and explain in non-jargon, members will come to feel they have a voice and won't get so shrill.
great post.....so trueI have seen this too !
I think you meant to say whale not wale throughout your article.
Shiat yes! Seems like grammar check changed all whales with wale :D Thx for pointing out
Thanks for the information. It seems that Steemit is a great platform...not perfect as nothing is. Let's not wound our own!
I laughed away too much with the 3rd statement lol.
Good sum up, makes perfect sense.
Did anybody notice the lack of solid arguments from the author of this post? How is that someone stating "knowledge is king" (?) is not throwing a single logic/technical/whatever argument? @steve-walschot this posts is totally subjective. You are just missing the point of the matter, may be because you are so busy joking. Lots of people are smelling something. Being it true or not, it wasn't here before. Could you explain without teasing or mocking how knowledge-is-the-king is related to distributedness, or better said, decentralization?. Im seeing little features of those published in the awesome Steem Whitepaper. Steem still has a lot of future anyway. But theres no need to be arrogant.
And please double check with yourlogicalfallacyis.com just in case.
great post
thanks for covering this
Who taught you how to spell 'whale'?
Well I come here to write, I'm actually getting more experienced, I also come to read what other people post, there are some posts I find great and I up vote them and sometimes comment, there are some other posts which I find not so good, so after I read them I just ignore them and do nothing more, and there are some I don't agree with, sometimes I comment about why I disagree.
Do I want to make some money here, of course I do, everyone wants to make money regardless of what they say, that's why we are writing here, if not we could comment on Facebook.
As for the whales I couldn't care less about what they do, they were here first, they invested heavily so I am in no position to complain about them. In any case there is nothing I can do about them so why worry? Just try to have a good time and just maybe write an article that will be a hit and you get a good reward.
Steemit is not a scam. I am glad you cleared this up! :) KNOWLEDGE IS KING ;)