Greetings all!
Do you know what one of the greatest "Site Killers" or "Community Killers" in the world of the social web is?
You might think it's spam, or plagiarism, or abuse, or automation... but, in truth, it's a lack of communication between community leaders and the general user.
Roses in our garden...
Fees, and Such...
So I have learned that it now costs liquid Blurt tokens to "do" things... from logging in (I presume) to voting to posting, to whatever else one might do.
I have no issue with that; in fact it might help reduce spam. And that's a good thing.
What's NOT a good thing is that I learned this from someone else's post, who learned it from another post, who learned it from a Discord message.... yadda, yadda.
What I have an ISSUE with is that there's no "pinned" post from the developer team clearly stating "As of this and that time, the following transaction costs are in effect."
Communication, people! Communication!
Apologists might say something like "Yeah, but you can check the Discord, or even Github!" I have to say — as I have many times before — your typical end user is NOT a developer, and most likely doesn't even know what Github is, let alone would they see any sense in checking somewhere NOT the social site itself, to see what's going on with the social site.
Assume you have to explain it to your grandma!
Lavender and salvia
The "Cost" of Things...
Anyway, I know that I had 23.200 Blurt when I logged in to check things, but then I claimed my rewards, and that "cost" 0.002 Blurt.
Then I followed someone I know from Hive, and that "cost" 0.002 Blurt.
Then I upvoted her post with 100%, which added 0.01 to the rewards, and that "cost" 0.002 Blurt.
Then I left a comment (68 words/356 characters) on my friend's post, and that "cost" 0.006 Blurt, so now we're starting to look at some variation.
I will add my two photos (because I am NOT going to post without photos!), publish this post and then we'll see what that "costs."
Edited to add: This post (485 words/2685 characters/2 images) "cost" 0.035 Blurt to create, so it's not horribly costly.
Then I'll edit the post a second time, to add the cost of the edit. That — at least — establishes some sort of very basic baseline.
Edited to add: To edit the post to add information ended up "costing" 0.020 Blurt.
And that concludes the experiment!
What do YOU think about a social sharing venue like this that CHARGES a fee for all activities? Is that a fair way to combat spam and abuses? Will it discourage users? Or are the fees small enough that it doesn't matter? Alternately, will it ENCOURAGE activity, in expectation of the posts and comments being valuable enough to offset the fees? Any other thoughts you'd like to share?
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Sequence: 007 Timestamp: 2020.07.14 - 16:10 PDT
Every time you make writes to the Blurt blockchain, there is a cost:
the cost varies based on what the witnesses have set.
Thanks for the information @jacobgadikian, appreciate the feedback!
I was mostly trying to put the information into a format that "makes sense" to non-technological, non-developer users for whom those numbers perhaps don't mean much, in a practical sense.
In time, I am sure things will find an equilibrium level.
Since we now know that there IS a usage cost, are there plans to open up the 50/50 liquid/staked rewards option, so people can actually use their rewards to cover the cost of participation? Otherwise, it seems to me it opens the possibility that Blurt just ends up putting a lot of money into the pockets of crypto exchanges, in the form of fees...
Well, it doesn't happen often, but I have nothing to add to that 😜
My issue is my posts earned nothing, but I spent for it to be posted.
You pay but you dont earn? This is new kind of blockchain.
This move would make spammers think twice in posting their nonsensical comments at least! With APPICS there is a 10% cut to all of our earned upvotes from our posts so this is definitely just right for the platform to earn.
I'm good with this and with the #BlurtPH team, we are all ok with it.
If they are going to continue with the fees, (taxes), then it needs to be equatable. As I posted what is fair about it costing me who has 2000 BP the same as someone that has 200.000 blurt power? Would that 200,000 Blurt power account have a different thought about fees if they had to pay 5.00 Liquid Blurt for everything they did. (the 5.00 is based on the 0.050 fee from a few days ago).
I think a different tune would be sung if the large accounts had to pay the same percentage fee as the smaller accounts. use 100 BP as the start point, then a 10% increase at 1,000 BP, then a 10% increase over the 1,000 fee for those at 10,000 BP and so on up the chain by tens. I doubt it was the fees that stopped the spamming, he probably felt as if he had made his point.
Anyone that thinks a 0.001 Liquid blurt is going to stop spam has not looked very hard at the amount of wallet spam and that cost a small fee which does nothing to curtail the wallet spam on Hive or Steem. Even coupled with the bandwidth tax it is really not going to prevent any disgruntled large account from spamming and self voting his spam to make a buck or a point.
You won't be surprised if I tell you I'm not comfortable with that solution 😉😂😛🤪
No I wouldn't. It is always and has always been easier to tax the middle class than the lower or upper class. No one likes the idea of a flat percentage fee. Yet look at the actions of spam accounts, they are the ones that have the power to spam, a tiny fee is not going to stop them from spamming if they want.
If the individuals behind Blurt really want it to become a social network, then they need to treat it as one. I honestly do not think at this point in time that Blurt will have much growth potential. I can see most of the images being used as being from on line sources, there is no method of control or prevent plagiarism.
Right now all Blurt is, is a crypto mining platform for the people that have enough blurt power to over come the transaction fees and to make some blurt.
Makes it awfully fukn hard to onboard anyone if they can't do anything. This is turning into a pay to play platform real quick. Not attractive to noobs.
Yup, pretty much impossible. There's something about this whole project that smells of "we're really disillusioned with Steem and Hive, so we'll create our OWN blockchain..." without much of a greater roadmap or even a clear idea of what the purpose of that is, aside from venting some rage...
please kind sir upvote this comment so i can be reimbursed for making this pointless comment lol
I don't really care if fees are charged as long as it is worked out in a way that works. Might even be a really cool thing
I'm happy to @michealb, my paltry 0.01 might just about help you break even...
I have no objection to the fees, either... it might be even better for the entire project and the overall "preservation/creation of value" if all the fees from transactions automatically went to the @null account to be burned.