My last two posts were set up as "Decline Payout", which means I didn't participate in any way in the reward pool. I asked my readers to just send me Steem or SBD if they find the content useful, out of their own pockets. Here are the results:
| Post | Potential rewards from the pool | Rewards form followers |
|---|---|---|
| Steemit and the "Crab Mentality" | $9 | 3SBD/10Steem |
| 30 Days into Intermittent Fasting - First Conclusions | $9 | 3.15SBD/16.79 Steem |
If you do the math, you'll see that this is almost the exact amount I would receive if I would take rewards from the reward pool. You should take out whatever I give to curators, obviously. This is very interesting and it motivated me to start my own experiment.
By the way, I sent back to all contributors whatever they sent me + 10% premium. My experiment is based on the fact that "giving is receiving". You can test all this by looking on the blockchain, it's all there.
Motivation
Whatever money we generate right now in Steemit by upvoting or receiving votes is coming from the reward pool. This reward pool literally "mints" or "prints" around 43000 tokens every day (there is more than that, but that's the part the goes to the reward pool after witnesses are getting their cut).
This money doesn't technically belong to anybody, until a certain time window passes. The first time window is 24 hours, and the second is 30 days. At the end of these time windows, whatever was generated by the votes and their corresponding influence, is deposited into the beneficiary wallet.
The problem with this "money for nothing and the chicks for free" approach is that every action to direct money to a certain post is subject to a counter-action. It's the (in)famous flagging which drove people away constantly during the last 2 months. I won't go into details about why this started, I think this is irrelevant now, and there's already a lot of ink on this topic.
My understanding is that if people will put "some skin in the game" by actually giving some money from their own pocket, things will look very differently. Why?
Well, first of all, this action shouldn't be opposable by a downvote. If the money I send is mine, then you can't play with it, the same way you play with money which doesn't have an owner yet.
Second, this will shift the actions from "influence" to "stake". Having a certain amount of SP accounts for having influence, but unless you actually use or give away some of your accumulated value, we can't talk about a stake. Influence is passive and amounts to the number of "shares" (or, simpler, Steem Power) you bought / generated, while stake should be -at least in my opinion - active, meaning it should actively participate in the game, by being transferred from one owner to another. Stake is actually stake only when it moves and it should influence whatever we have in a reward pool only when it's active.
There are many situations in which people who accumulated large amounts of influence are driving "nobody's money" from the reward pool in arbitrary ways, which have no link whatsoever with the perceived quality of the content, nor with what a majority of people (with much less influence, but with some stake) decides.
I already sketched my proposal for an improvement of the voting mechanism in Steemit back when I was still a witness (which I'm not anymore, since I don't want to support the platform in its current state). You can read the initial proposal here. I am actively working on a refined and revised version of this, which will solve many - if not all - of the initial problems.
So this experiment aims at understanding if my approach is correct in regard with the modifications to that proposal. At the end of the experiment I will publish my conclusions and the revised proposal.
Methodology
The experiment will last for 30 days, starting now. It will include 12 posts, on the following dates:
- Announcement - March 21st (this one, obviously)
- The Fuckup Files - Episode One - March 24th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Two - March 27th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Three - March 30th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Four - April 2nd
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Five - April 5th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Six - April 8th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Seven - April 11th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Eight - April 14th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Nine - April 17th
- The Fuckup Files - Episode Ten - April 20th
- The Experiment Conclusions and The Revised YAVAP Rules - April 23rd
The topic of all these posts will be related to entrepreneurial mistakes. I've been willing for a long time to do a series on that, not only because I have a very rich history of blunders myself, but also because there is this penchant towards "smiling, successful entrepreneurs who are just getting it", which I think it's very toxic. Before becoming famous each and every successful entrepreneur made quite a few mistakes, some of them very, very relevant. It's true that the successful ones had the ability to learn from them.
So, I think this topic, on this exact moment in time when Steemit / Steem looks to be on the verge of a significant blunder itself, seems very appropriate.
All the posts will be set up as "Decline Payout" and I will only take direct payments from readers, either Steem or SBD. Money will be sent voluntarily, only if people like the post or if they think it was useful and it will represent only what they want to give away. Each post will have a specific memo key, so I can track the payments.
At the end of the 24ish time window, I will keep 20% of all the proceedings and then I will redistribute all the rewards equally to all contributors.
So, if I had 7 contributors, with a total of 10 SBD, I will keep 2 SBD and the rest of the 8 SBD will be redistributed to all the 7 contributors, who will receive each 1.14 SBD.
The minimum amount will be 1SBD or 10 Steem. This will prevent people who want to trick the system by sending 0.001 Steem to participate in the redistribution of the remaining 80% (see below the paragraph about the potential "unfairness" of the redistribution process).
As you can see, I'm designing some sort of a manual reward pool here, only there are no downvotes involved. Just the willing to give, which will translate in receiving.
Some may objectify that if one contributor pays 5SBD and another one just 1SBD, the second one will have an advantage when the money is redistributed. This is true and it's by design. I'm interested more in testing the willingness of contributing in a deterministic way, as opposed to the completely non-deterministic way we have right now, even if the redistribution may seem "unfair". The final proposal of YAVAP will not follow these lines, by the way, it will be different.
Measurement
I will make a report each day containing money received and money redistributed.
At the end of the experiment I will measure:
- total amount of money transferred in this experiment
- total number of contributors
- total number of contributors for each post
- average amount per post, average contributors per post
- trends (up or down)
- average redistribution per contributor
Based on these metrics I will decide if the revised proposal for YAVAP will make sense. I will publish the proposal even if the results will indicate it won't be a reliable path, just for the sake of transparency.
So, if you like the experiment, if you think it will bring value, you can start participating in it right now, by sending me Steem or SBD using the following memo: "fuckup files announcement". All Steem and SBD will be used according to the rules: I will retain 20% for myself and the rest I will redistribute equally among all contributors.
To quote another famous experimenter on Steemit: "let's see how this will play out".
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
