It is no secret that inequality of rewards has become a major problem on Steem. It seems like the whales and dolphins are getting richer and richer, while the minnows and plankton fight for the scraps at the bottom of the ocean. It is much like this in the real world, with and OECD report on inequality suggesting that:

The average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10%

What are some mechanisms in place in the real world and could these be tested in the Steemit economy?

Taxing the rich

I know because of the decentralised nature of Steem this would probably never happen, but it could have huge potential to swing the imbalanced reward pool. It could be a good idea to tax posts that pass $x amount in payouts, with the taxes going back to community driven projects such as the Minnow Support Project and Curie. Whales might argue that their post should be able to earn what the community votes it to be worth, which is true, but it gets to a certain point where some of that should be going back into helping grow Steem. Evidence is starting to suggest that larger accounts aren't always doing this themselves. Alot of the posts on trending have also been boosted by bid bots, so by introducing a tax on high payout posts we may make people think twice about using bidbots, as this would affect their profitability.

Along a similar train of thought, it could be argued that a ‘payout ceiling’ be introduced where anything extra is donated back to community projects. I think that with this the problem again becomes that larger accounts will argue they have earned their right to make larger rewards.

Taxing bidbots

It is no secret that the owners of the bots are in general making hefty profits - especially as Steemit grows and competition for attention becomes more fierce. I know some bot owners are community minded and give back a percentage of their profits to community projects, but should this be mandatory? Taxing the bots could be a way to help redistribute the wealth on Steem and use those funds to help fund community projects and help out new Steemians.

Conversely, a fee could be introduced for the purchaser of the upvote, and donated to community projects. This might make people think twice about buying upvotes for all their posts, as the profitability would decrease. The big downside to this is it would be punishing the smaller accounts rather than those with the wealth (the bots).

The biggest argument and reason that taxing in these ways probably won't happen is because of the decentralised nature of Steem. Although many may disagree with this option I think it could have extreme benefits and help encourage newer accounts to get started on the platform, and more evenly distribute the wealth on Steem.

Rethinking the voting system

With the current voting system, accounts have 10 full strength votes per day that they can allocate as they see fit. One suggestion to help out plankton and minnows would be to have a mandatory amount of votes pers day allocated to smaller accounts/low rep accounts or those with low SP. Although this could be tricky to implement, it could be a great way to encourage whales to at least do some manual curation and seek out some great and undervalued content. The downside of this could be that whales could just ignore this and those votes might go to waste.

Similarly there could be a allocated amount of voting power to go towards voting on comments - I see alot of great comments that often have no upvotes. Commenting is a great way for Steemians to communicate new ideas and network, and by allocating more voting power to this we might be able to help out more accounts. Another bonus of this is it could reduce spam, as people would realise the incentive for making great comments is higher.

No more self upvoting

At the moment users can upvote their own posts and comments. It seems like it is relatively acceptable to upvote one's own posts, while many (including me) frown upon those upvoting their own comments. I often see people with upvotes worth anywhere from a few cent to a few dollars writing often vague and unrelated comments and then upvoting their comments to gain the rewards. This is just pure greed and shouldn’t be aloud in any way!

The problem with being able to upvote ones posts is that it is exponentially better for higher amount than for minnows - a minnows upvote is worth a fraction of a cent while whales upvotes can be worth 100s of dollars. Whales might argue that they have earnt the right to upvote their own posts, which they work hard on - and there is some merit to this argument. However, for the health of Steems long term growth I think self upvotes should be abolished.

Having a more balanced economy with less inequality is going to make Steemit flourish in the long run - and it is in the best interests of everyone for this to happen. Providing ways to encourage whales and larger accounts to interact with and reward underrated content is going to help. The way Steem has been designed means that accounts with higher SP have more power, but they need to remember:

With great power comes great responsibility

Thanks for reading, and as normal I welcome comments and healthy debate!

Reference:
http://www.oecd.org/social/inequality.htm