There were quite a few phonies back then using those paid votes to mislead people. It's good people chose to take corrective action when we did. Whole thing was on the brink of imploding back then.
Those influencer types never did will here. The transparency rips their masks off. Tens of thousands of fake followers for instance that anyone can research, while there's no action under their posts. They needed those paid votes because they created the illusion of popularity. That's how they operate, then steer people over the cliff, for their own gains, which are never close to what they boast about.
This platform is more for genuine people with some kind of actual talent that others genuinely enjoy. And I've been pushing to get people to notice the consumer perks that come standard. I find it fascinating someone that wants to support content with tips can simply stake tokens and tip forever, at no real cost, since they still own their stake. These days consumers and supporters are throwing billions at content creators and now it's turning into a problem where they can't afford it. The reward pool is a tool that solves that issue but it's very difficult to onboard consumers. If actual content creators with large and even small markets came and brought actual pay consumers to take advantage of this system, instead of encouraging them to pay a greedy middleman, we'd give the entire entertainment industry on "web2" a run for its money.
Decentralized platform though. Best I can do at this point is sit back and watch.
And I'm not sure what traf is up to these days. Still around but very quiet on Hive.