I feel ya @nonameslefttouse.
A year or so ago my vote was worth 15c, ok not a lot but it was worth something, like you an artist I started to use my 15c on posts that I thought deserved that upvote.
I only tend to browse though the art section of the feeds as this is what interests me, I like to see what other people have done, normally pencil to paper as I am old school.
Things got a little strange, people started begin for up votes from me and been the soft hearted person I am I gave them to them.
The same people took the money and after a short spell they left the platform with 0 in their accounts.
Nearly 2 years I have been on here, I have met some great people on here and in person on steem promos and even meet ups and some of them have gone as well.
There needs to be a change, we talk about steem ink needing to do something to make this place better but I am also for us helping the eco system.
I try my best to help others, but at the moment my account seems to be getting weaker and it doesn't seem to matter how much I power up my account.
Gotta do everything we can to support the community builders, and those could be anyone willing to stake instead of take.
I'm facing the same problems. I'm spread thin, can't do much with the vote any more, and there's fewer and fewer people around with actual SP to use to help pick up the slack. Just a vicious spiral downwards and most are doing it just to earn a token they're clearly helping decrease the value of due to their behavior. It makes no sense whatsoever, it's been said a million different ways, two million different ways is too late.
I'm all about powering up, I have no intention of powering down.
I came to the steem blockchain with nothing and the tokens I have in it will stay in it for as long as steem is a viable currency.
One of the things I would like to see is more people stay and keep their currency in steem, just because it goes up to $10 doesn't mean we should sell.
I can't see the point in blogging for two years to waste it on powering down for a couple of hundred. to me it is a waste of time to be putting in to the platform to loose my stake.
I have invested my own money in to steem, I have bought some a couple of times, with been unemployed it is kind of hard to save enough to buy, I do try but sometimes we find it hard to feed our family and that has to come first.
I have been wanting to get a takeaway off the ground in my local area, we put down a deposit on it, we as me and my business partner wanted to accept steem as one of the payment types.
Unfortunately we have had to postpone the opening due to structural damage and the landlord wont let us trade until it is safe to do so.
Once that is up and running I am hoping to sink more into steem, as I love this place I have made friends with a lot of people, some have gone now due to their own reasons, but I am still here and I don't plan on leaving.
One post a day normally, sometimes two and I have been known to go a week to 10 days with out posting due to holidays and things like that.
Some people just go and don't even explain their reason, this makes me a little sad as you think you know someone and then up they go.
If more folks powered up and only sold small amounts when the value peaks, people would be earning more. So many cash out, then expect everyone else to vote, then complain when they don't earn. They're not running their blog like a business and it kicks them in the ass.
I take lengthy breaks. I often leave the internet for a few months, completely. Just to rest and get other things done. Life happens.
I once powered down, the only reason was to get some printing done and that was for steem, I used the money from steem to have some 8 foot banners printed up and I placed them over main roads near where I live.
I agree with you, if you hold the price of steem will rise as there will be less in circulation just like sbd, when steem drops below a certain price then they stop prducing sbd, hence why sbd is at nearly a dollar each.
I'm still going to power up as much as I can, I just don't know how long steem can keep going with how low it keeps dropping. I just hope that it doesn't come to an end as that would be gutting.
I was doing this for seven cent steem. There's a lot of potential here and I'm going to keep working and keep pushing that potential, as best I can.
I never saw it as low as that, When I joined 2 years in august I can't remember what the value was but I know my upvote was worthless, I met @tumutanzi and he change that by been my one and only supporter for a long time. he made me see steem for what it was, not just with upvotes but with talking to me in person too.
I still chat to him every now and again via whatsapp as he has gone back home to china.
I couldn't thank him enough tbh, he is a great guy. he spread the love and introduced me to what the blockchain stood for to him. and it made sense to me too.
I would like to have more voting power then I could possibly pay it back to others like he did to me, but until my power increases my 2c upvote is all I can do.