I got your 2 cents :) actually I feel that commenting has dropped off since people aren't being as heavily rewarded for comments as they once were. I see the value from having people value my input and follow me just as much as a large payout on a single whale vote, but I don't see as much engagement as there was a while back.
To me, comments are sometimes more valuable than the actual blog post. Especially if that post is asking for input from comments.
If the target votes per day were set at ten (or a low number) if I were a whale, there is no question that I would curate far more voting on a blog post than a comment so if I am limited to a certain number of 100% upvoted 9/10 would likely be blog posts.
I'm not sure how this can be addressed, but if comments become less important, some creative minds will cease tospend time crafting well thought out responses and opt for simple "bot like" responses.
A simple comment of "great post" really does very little for either the original poster or the commenter. If a bot that cannot read the article can make the same comment, I have to say it might as well be left unsaid.
I try to make my comments unique and meaningful as often as possible. Occasionally I'll make a brief comment on a picture or give someone a short encouragement, but I see how useless most comments are on things like twitter and YouTube, that I would hate to see the comment section cease to be useful.
Maybe some sort of "Comment Curie" curation team could be made to give rewards to the best ten comments or so of the week.
But that being said, 2 cents is more than I made on any other social media site, so the fact that you are able to share that makes everything worth it.
The more people realize that working together is the best way to keep steemit the better.
Steemfest is something that I believe will be an absolute game changer as some of the most dedicated creative minds will all be in one place. Nobody who isn't serious about steemit will attend so it will be a great experience.
Hope you can make it. I understand people have families, jobs, bills and other things preventing them from taking a 3 day trip to Amsterdam, but I'm quite excited to network and meet the faces behind many that I know solely by their username.
While the feature will most likely be added to change a profile picture, it's kind of nice to not see or judge anyone based on appearance unless they wish to be quite public.
Enough of my comment rambling. Glad you appreciated my comment.
Fuck it, I'll buy my ticket now :).
I've been debating it like mad.
Purchased.