The Blurt Experiment

I came across an interesting article here on Blurt, early this morning while I had some down time at work. It's not uncommon for me to read articles while at work, giving me an idea of what those I follow are up to as well as possible responses I may have.

One of the great minds of Blurt, rycharde, posted this article on voting and downvoting. I won't regurgitate his entire post as it is there for you to (hopefully) read for yourself.

I wanted to touch instead on one facet of his observations, and then more so on a comment by another I hold in high regard here from his comment section.

Before we begin, I'm embedding a video that has absolutely nothing to do with this post, since pictures still aren't working and I don't use Steemit. it's a great video by a band I was fortunate to see myself.

Towards the end of his article, rycharde mentions that

So, as I mentioned in this previous post, voting is no longer any measure of quality, but an economic game using every available weapon. The aim of the game is to maximise earnings. Everything else is secondary - everything else is sacrificed.

Along the lines of the same train of thought, afrog expands on his views of the greed infesting the graphene social experiment chains. His observations on the tensions that exist between the investors and bloggers quite excellent as he observes that pure investors can and often are very shortsighted.

Out of curiosity I backtracked through his comments and discovered much more on the lack of quality being produced here, not by the large investor base but from those seeking quick payouts by utilizing as little effort as possible.

While I sympathize and align with much of the sentiment expressed by afrog, I wish to place some context on the two edged sword that exists once one places a monetary value on what we do here. Context from my own views and beliefs.

So I will address the idea of self voting first.

I think it is fair to say that while there are some purists that frown on any form of self voting, many do not. I myself align with those in the latter mindset. Having said that, I will be the first to admit I do look into how much a person is self voting as I evaluate them as one to curate.

I myself do self upvote. I don't believe in any sense one could view myself as a milker. I post two to three times per week. Not a day as many, but week. I also would invite anyone of the mindset that self voting is milking to examine my history before coming to the Blurt chain. You will find (if you care to look) that I've quietly given away a decent percentage of my overall rewards to a charity program that was run there that helped families in need that were targeted by the government. These families often needed help with food and diapers and utilities and such.

I never boasted of the years I donated and spent a good amount of my upvotes to their members and project. I didn't do any of it for accolades. Using the christian idea of praying in secret, I did as much as I could while keeping my own counsel. There was no need to share what I was doing for others. I did it for myself and those who needed help.

I mention it now to point out the fact that one can often have an incomplete picture of anothers intent based on surface views.

I did it because despite the greed that manifest, as mentioned by rycharde and more personally by afrog, because along with the greed these systems by default have to permit, it also allows someone of modest means who struggled themselves, like me, to be able to reach across the world through this computer and help even when I worry about my own life challenges with eating and bills.

After I bought into Steem, I watched the price drop from over 3.00 each all the way down to some crap like .12 each. It didn't take long for me to understand it would probably never rise again to the valuations it held when I came into the program.

I didn't stick around for that though. Didn't stick around for some slim chance one day it would moon and make me able to finally breathe financially.

I stuck around because it still enabled me to help others as I got to know them and understand the many good people across the world while doing so. Rewarded with small crumbs in fact for doing so.

In this same vain, it was those who were assholes coming behind with flags erasing my help that made me leave those systems. Flagging my rewards back into the pool where it suddenly got shifted somewhat into their own claims.

This chain solved that for me.

I hold no illusions that the odds are likely for Blurt to ever make me breathe easily concerning my own bills. Especially when I realize that we will never have a large exchange list us.

I hold no illusions that Splash will allow me to breathe easier either, as my understanding of the structure is a tax nightmare for the country (U.S.) I live in.

I shifted my meager holdings here, and still do as my meager payouts wrap up because of what this allows me to do for others.

And after saying all of that, I hold no shame that I upvote my own writing. I've never cashed out any of the 400+ dollars I originally sunk into Steem. I've never cashed out any of my three years of rewards. I would write posts there that sometimes took days of research, and at the end of the day after three years of doing this my 400.00 became worth 6-700.00. No one who understand that bottom line, or cares to examine my conduct transactionally to understand how much I've actually donated. It would be ludicrous for anyone to take a cursory look and see I self vote and believe I'm greedy and here to milk.

Let's be real, odds are better than not I'm throwing away my entire crypto portfolio (small as it is) for the honor of participating here with those of good heart and mind. Donating those holdings and my time to write these exceptionally long pieces I'm prone to writing for this privilege.

One simply can't know the motivations from one data point such as self voting.

In many ways I find I align closely with afrog's ideas on quality.

I find myself sighing when I see the same folks posting:

• selfies. Oh look, here are my boobs pushed together as I pretend to show you this landmark, or my dinner or my art.

• actifit

• constant to the moon for the chain posts that have no basis in reality. Don't even get me started on Taraz from the other chain and his focus on how everything was great as things continued their descent.

• articles that look copy pasted on the most general of subjects. There is a reason these non fiction books overall fail on Amazon and Kobo etc. The world just doesn't need the millionth book (in our case post) on easing an upset stomach, or tips to lose weight, or this herb might help with such and such ailment.

I could go on, but the fact is most all of the posts I mention and the many more I don't all have one common theme.

They lack substance. They lack the personality of the person sharing. We circle back to the original quote by rycharde, one shared by both myself and afrog and many others I suspect.

So, as I mentioned in this previous post, voting is no longer any measure of quality, but an economic game using every available weapon. The aim of the game is to maximise earnings. Everything else is secondary - everything else is sacrificed.

They post not to share who they are. It's a chore performed in order for the faucet to drip out for them.

I've thought a large part of the reason for lack of adoption (the largest being assholes flagging imo) were these cold impersonal posts that no one cares about, not even the writer.

Circling back now to the tension between investor and blogger.

The sad fact is that once this is monetized, it will only hold value if folks invest and hold. Many who participate don't. I used to get shocked at the amount of folks complaining with one breath on low values, in the next quite proud they never invested themselves. They can go f*** off. I understand that most who participate seem to be drawn because they lack money and this offers it.

But this doesn't help a lot with supply and demand, that necessary function for value to exist and rise.

Investors are necessary. You think Blurt value sucks right now, if there were no investors (the ones who have no interest in blogging) here now, who knows how low this coin would be worth. 5 for a penny? 20 for a penny?

I've always found it disingenuous that investors were enticed into graphene ecosystems under the mathematical promise that this action will return a certain amount. Then when they invest and go to perfrom those functions for their return, mobs form using ludicrous terms like the reward pool is raped as they test if they can lift those mathematical promised rewards right back out of the hands of the investor.

Either the pool offers the return or not. If not, then better to quit lying. This chases off investors. Much needed investors if one ever hopes to see a valuation on this token.

Right now certain people I upvote view my votes as not inconsequential, despite the VERY low valuation. Let the investors leave and even they will find the votes inconsequential.

There simply must be a place in this scheme for those who simply want to invest and get a return to do so. And those who softly wish to do this, who do post and upvote themselves to the max. If they draw a lot in rewards, it means they tied up a lot in stake keeping the over saturated market from being even more over saturated.

As we speak, there are way more folks who need to extract than can put in. And as long as that dynamic holds, we should be grateful for every investor who comes and helps prop up the low value we already see.

I've put in almost all I can put in for the foreseeable future. I self vote. And every time I self vote, I give myself back the tiniest crumbs that can each day see me able to spread it around even more with those votes. Rycharde has changed the math on the reward pool, doing away with any possibility of ludicrous rape charges. But even if he hadn't stake is stake and either represents a pull or doesn't.

I think with all the tensions involved regarding motivations, we need be careful on chasing away those whose conduct doesn't align with our own.

There are many reasons to come here. Many that will not align with others. This is how real communities function. So many differences and approaches. We support what we care about and hope that enough do as well so that what we want gets subsidized enough to grow. And ignore that which we don't care for as long as it doesn't harm what we do care for. I've left two graphene communities now out of disagreement. So I do understand sometimes one doesn't just suck it up and deal with it.

I think that overall, the team here are addressing the things that can be addressed. Investors can't be seen as the problem, despite the tensions that exist for those really blogging and not solely making this a faucet with no care for others in the community.