I used to ask why, rather than purchasing votes, why don't these folks just flag my work into oblivion, for free, because the end result is the same.
Me publishing a post that includes art is much like putting up a display behind my shop windows. People are to walk by and notice it, then maybe step into my blog and browse around. Unfortunately, since they started selling votes, I put my work up behind the windows, and some asshole comes along and plasters shit posters and advertisements all over the glass, meaning people can no longer see what I've done.
I went from working my ass off, starting with nothing, working up to having the odd organic trending post from time to time... to nearly losing it all. That was all due to the people being paid to look away, and those offering the incentive to earn by looking away. What is any form of art and entertainment without the eyes and ears looking and listening? The views come first, then the money. That's the only way this business works, and thousands of years of history prove that, but somehow these folks who don't really know much about the arts and entertainment or its potential to generate billions yearly concluded it would be better to earn a few hundred or maybe a few thousands measly dollars selling votes. Blame the platform, blame those in charge... but let's not forget about the actions of the people as well. I'm looking at a lot of those folks who are getting paid to look away, and they're not even here to see me staring at them. An attention economy.. LOL! And these folks pay people to look away. Common sense says that's sabotage.
You are making a lot of sense. I won't lie I just passed my first year on steem. I have grown my account with the use of bots and vote services due to the clear fact that they looked like they worked. But only once a week so I go around looking at posts. I spend all my time running my blog and working with bots cause it was the best way to grow it. I talk to the people that enter my stuff but that is about it. This change would cause me to want to pull back my delegated steem. To start to look for content I like to vote for. The only issue I see is moving it to 50% won't work well with the rule that the biggest account to vote for it first gets the biggest cut. I really wish they would address that to just the biggest cut of the pie, not no one who votes after gets any of my pie. I never really understood why that was here.
I started out here years ago, with nothing. I've made a little over 1500 STEEM by manually curating content. It would have been more had a not been inactive for a total of about ten months, spread out over nearly three years. For me, with 50/50, I get a raise. I never tried to maximize curation rewards either. Simply voted whenever. I'm a content producer first though; that's the main reason I'm here. I'll benefit either way. If my post values drop at first, I could just make that up with curation rewards.