What is intermittent reinforcement?
Intermittent reinforcement works on the concept of schedules of rewards which reinforce behaviors. In the case of Steemit the behavior the platform desires is high quality posts from a diverse group of entities and high quality curation.
How does intermittent reinforcement work?
Intermittent reinforcement is the secret behind stickiness. Slot machines work on a variable ratio schedule and this is why it's considered fun. To the people who play the slot machine there is no way for them to know how big of a reward they will get. The uncertainty of a slot machine is due to the fact that the payout comes after an average number of pulls but there isn't any way for the player to know when that will be or how big the payout will be.
The slot machine player is gambling with their money while on Steemit the content producer is gambling with their time. Because it's not possible for anyone to know what everyone else will think of their content in advance, there is always natural uncertainty involved for any blogger which can either be perceived as fun if at least some of the time they get a big payout, or not so fun if they feel they are always on the losing side.
The Casino Effect vs The Salary Effect
Fixed interval schedules represent the salary effect. Most people who go to a job, work for eight hours, to earn a predictable and fixed wage, are in a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement. The fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement would limited as well.
The casino effect comes from the variable ratio of reinforcement. The casino effect is the secret behind the success of Facebook, Twitter, and other technologies. Because these technologies use "likes" which are "psychic credits" instead of dollars, there isn't much anger if a post on Twitter or Facebook profile goes viral. This doesn't mean that the people posting are just posting, because they want to get likes, to go viral, to be famous, because it has some psychological reward.
The casino effect is much stronger psychologically than the effect of the salary. People who like working for a salary would choose to write and be rewarded a fixed rate per 1000 words. In fact, most writers on the Internet are either working for salary or freelance where they are paid a fixed rate per a fixed amount of words and many are happy with this.
The problem for Steemit is that if Steemit adopts something like this then it will no longer have any edge over salary work and professional writers might decide to write their own book, or Youtubers might decide to stay on Youtube, because at least on there they can be sure that if they do go viral there is no limit or cap on how much they can get paid.
Salary workers may find the appeal of the consistent and long term payouts. Most professional Youtubers are not salary workers and are used to an all or nothing mentality. To attract the most talented people from the creative or Youtuber mentality it is important in my opinion to keep the platform exciting, unpredictable, and sticky.
Steemit vs Devtome
Steemit is actually not the first attempt in crypto-space to provide a low barrier to entry on-ramp for creatives. Devtome provided a platform for creatives which had a slightly different economic model in that you didn't have "Blogging is the New Mining" but instead you have the perfect meritocracy that many on Steemit are currently asking for.
Devtome would work by allowing anyone to write about anything as long as it didn't plagiarize. Devtome paid everyone the same rate per 1000 words which could range anywhere between 7 or even as high as 200 dollars. In my opinion it's the casino effect which separates Steemit from every other "dollar per word" writing or blogging platform. Steemit provides a casino effect on both sides, both for curators who have no way to predict which blog posts will win big, and for the posters who also have no way to know which of their posts will win big.
Steemit has something which almost resembles a prediction market for curators. The curators are also using a similar model to what was originally designed for Peertracks. There is no reward cap on curators and no way for the bloggers to decide that curators are making too much, and in my opinion curators should not focus on how much the payouts will be in Steem Dollars but more on the quality of the post. If the post is of great quality then in my opinion there should be no cap on the reward because not having a cap on the reward is precisely what makes Steemit have the fun and sticky qualities which guarantee that people will always post.
The key is to reward quality posts. When there is no cap on the reward for quality posts then intermittent reinforcement studies show that this variable amount in the reward will keep posters engaged with Steemit as a platform. In my opinion this is a key to success of the platform and can help distinguish it into a niche which no other platform has. The only time when this environment existed before was when early Bitcoin miners could mine with CPUs and GPUs. If we want to recreate that environment for regular people then there should be no reward cap, and just as a Bitcoin could be worth anything long term, and just as a miner had no way to know if they'd get 50 Bitcoins or none, it's something people mined because it was considered fun.
Why Steemit could be the most sticky social media platform ever invented
Facebook uses intermittent reinforcement to capture the attention of it's users. Users are rewarded with praise (psychic credits) in the form of "likes". Facebook is one of the most sticky sites ever invented and Steemit can easily surpass this site based on the fact that Steemit likes are both praise (psychic credits) and instantly monetized as Steem Dollars. This allows participants on Steemit to survive off praise for the first time and has the potential to change how we think of work. In order for Steemit to compete with Facebook on stickiness it is required that it at least duplicate the same psychological mechanics of Facebook. Intermittent reinforcement is behind the success of Facebook and will be behind the success of Steemit if Steemit gets it right.
There is no guarantee that Steemit will adopt the necessary focus on building it's mechanics to be optimized for stickiness. In fact, because there is an amount of money payout for each post, it leads some people to look only at the amount of payouts and think posts are being over paid and from here a scarcity mindset can set in. In my opinion this scarcity mindset has to be resisted and this is only possible if we understand what Steemit is now, what it can be in the future, and have an honest discussion on how to keep Steemit fun (because some people don't want it to feel like a day job) while also figuring out how to let Steem Power distribute itself enough that even the small rewards from the swarm of minnows is enough for a sufficient payout for most participants.
What features can increase the stickiness of Steemit?
One of the missing components could be a timeline. This would be a UI feature but it might increase stickiness of Steemit. The data on how long a person is engaged on the Steemit site has already been revealed by another but perhaps a goal should be to try to build on that? Other features could be continuous alerts similar to Facebook which are under development now as plugins, and gamification of Steemit which has not yet been developed but which may have a dramatic impact on the funness and as a result the stickiness.
Does anyone have ideas for features which could increase the stickiness of Steemit?
References
Delin, C. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (1994). Praise: More than just social reinforcement. Journal for the theory of social behaviour, 24(3), 219-241.
Grimes, M. (2011). Operant Conditioning in MMORPGs. Retrieved July, 2016, from http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/975/operant_conditioning_in_.php
Thorens, G., Wullschleger, A., Khan, R., Achab, S., & Zullino, D. F. (2012). What is Addictive in Internet?. Open Addiction Journal, 5(1), 14-19.
The Psychology Easel. (2012, April 22). Retrieved Summer, 2016, from https://taradeliberto.blogspot.com/2012/04/keep-them-coming-back-for-more_22.html