The problems with Rewarded Blogging Platforms
With the rise of cryptocurrencies and the current bull market, there has been an influx of users into the popular blogging platforms such as Steem, Hive and LEO in recent months with users looking for their content to be rewarded.
Lots of great content being produced and read by lots of users but there is also a lot of auto-voting happening so users can get a return from their investment and gains. It makes it a difficult topic to talk about.
What is the altruistic reason to be on these blogging platforms?
This should really be to produce great content and provide an avenue for people to access information and opinion pieces without any censor of content. These great pieces, in theory, should then get the biggest payouts and exposure, but in reality this is not the case...... Why?
Well it brings it back to the real reason why these platforms are here and that is to return a profit to users and investors, much like most other cryptocurrencies. Auto-voting authors who regularly produce great content is the easiest way to get a return on your investment and circle-jerking other large token holders also seems to be the easiest way to get a return on your investment.
Is this the best way to grow these platforms? I sometimes think that mass adoption hasn't occurred because you see so many authors in the trending posts regularly and not many new faces.
LEO seems to bucking that trend somewhat and I know the account of @onealfa.leo and the @leo.voter account look for great content and upvotes that with a strong vote. I think this is the admiral qualities that will hopefully set @LeoFinance apart from the other platforms. Steem, Hive, Blurt and most of the other Hive-Engine tokens have a lot of circle-jerking happening and a lot of users trying to add tags to get rewards across all of the tokens, regardless of the content. WeedCash seems to be focussing on down-voting non-related content and rewarding new users to the platform as well.
How do we grow these platforms by rewarding new users and also get a return on investment?
Circle-jerking is by far the biggest deterrent to new users. Just peeking at Steem after not being there for many months reveals that the trending page is filled with the same authors. One account with 10 Million SP is upvoting these authors and no other. I remember this being a real downer when I first started there but luckily I was supported by MSP and @ausbitbank to encourage me to stay and invest. How can we continue to do this on LEO and the other platforms.
Now I am not sprouting this from my high-horse as a little digging will reveal that I too have a few alt-accounts dedicated to the various Hive-Engine tokens and platforms. Do I use auto-voting, YES..... It's hard to keep on top of all the tokens and everyone else is doing it. Do I circle-jerk.... NO. I will manually read, upvote and comment where I feel necessary as well. Now I can hear you say, 'But you don't have a large stake and you would circle-jerk if you could'. On some of those other tokens that are heavily jerked I probably would, but on LEO and WeedCash where I think there is great potential, I wouldn't because 'jerking' is to the detriment of the platform.
How do we stop the jerking? Well that's pretty much impossible and it depends on the user to look at whether they have the token at heart or are just looking to take $$$ and profits over community. I get that profits need to be taken, but enough can be made off curation rather than being part of a circle-jerk for the good of the platform. I am looking forward to seeing LEO continue to build and innovate and work against the circle-jerk. Curation for large LP holders is a gold-mine anyway!
Comment away below. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the topic.
Thanks for reading.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
