Last night I read of the whale experiment. My first thought was probably like others. What does this mean? When I read the comments under @abit's post it seemed to make sense. But... I don't think I totally realised how good this was.
So after reading, it was rather late and I was a little quiet on here at the weekend and I went to bed. However this morning I woke up and as normal racked up some coffee and started reading some Steemit posts. I saw a great post by @merej99. I voted it BANG 16 cents of an uptuck to quote the great klye!
I read on. Voted a post by juanmiguelsalas, BOOM six cents. What the heck? Thought I. My votes are actually worth something.
It made me think. Normally my behaviour, like others (I think) is to vote a lot and not really consider my voting power. After all if it hardly counts then who really cares.
But suddenly I am finding that my vote carries weight
I can influence other people's payouts!
This is what having steempower is meant to be about! Voting for quality content and having that vote actually count for something.
I am very impressed. Already I have been a little more sparing of my vote. I don't want to waste them but at the same time I want to share the wealth for all of the good content posts. It got me thinking. My current voting power is at 70 odd percent. Now if I am a little more prudent I can build it back up to full power and for all of the great content I see I can actually do something with my vote instead of wondering if this vote will help it tick over by a cent.
This experiment already means a lot to me. All of us dolphins and almost dolphins can make a difference.
Will the experiment last? Who knows. I hope it does. This might be the thing that levels the playing field for Steemit. Haven't we all lamented on how our votes are essentially worthless and that throwing a post up on steemit is essentially a lottery where you hope that a whale will pass by and bless it with some lovely whale water.
Now, or at least for the moment, we all have a chance of influencing a posts rewards.
Now to the downside. I can imagine the people who earn a lot of rewards thanks to whale votes being upset by a partial downvote. But think about it. If we can spread the joy of rewards more equally, isn't that the potential that Steemit promised?
The thing that drew us to the platform. Now if we have steempower we can make a difference. After all, if steempower doesn't matter then what is to stop everyone from just cashing it out into steem then selling it. This is the main reason the steem price is decreasing because there is too much being sold and not enough buyers. Having influence takes us back to the tenets of steemit.
Influence tokens which give you more control over post payouts
There is a bigger picture here and I for one am glad that there are things afoot to improve this platform.
We are in beta. This is the time to experiment and see what makes it work better and what we can potentially keep. Why should we scratch about hoping for a few singular votes to make our posts valued? Why not embrace the fact that suddenly a majority of users have been gifted some influence?
Bring it on that's what I say.
In fact HUZZAH! We can all be whales for fifteen minutes
Of course, I welcome comments. That's what steemit is about. Lets get that discussion going!
:O)