A Proposal to Make Promoted Posts Worth the Price Without Spamming Up SteemIt.com

The promoted posts feature is a step in the right direction, but I think the fact that one has to click on the promoted link to see them makes them much less effective than they "should" (or could) be. I had noticed that many promoted posts weren't profitable, and apparently others, including @bitcalm, have verified this.

Here's my proposed solution.

Show one promoted post at a time at the top of post 'list' pages (home page, feed, category/tag pages).

On each page load, this post should be chosen in a way that more highly promoted posts are more likely to be shown.

Here's a simple example. Imagine that in the photography category

Alice promotes post A with 50 steem dollars.
Bob promotes post B with 30 Steem Dollars.
Charlie promotes post C with 10 Steem Dollars.
Doug promotes post D with 9 Steem Dollars.
Evan promotes post E with 1 Steem Dollar.

Then, Zed decides to browse the trending page of the photography category. There would be a 50% chance that he would see post A, a 30% chance that he would see post B, and so on. One out of every hundred times, Zed would see Evan's post. Sure, there is not much chance that Zed will see Evan's post - but if a hundred people are viewing the Photography trending (or hot or ...) page, one of them will see Evan's post. This seems like a fair way to show only one ad while still rewarding those who pay more with more views. It also fits in with the "casino" philosophy discussed in the white paper (in spirit at least).

Thoughts?

[image source: Wikipedia - Creative Commons]

Bryan Gmyrek [verification post] lives in sunny Arizona with his wife, three sons, and two golden puppies. He earned a Ph.D. in physics for his work at Fermilab and also enjoys computers, nature photography and blockchains.

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