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It's not even that they sell the votes that is the problem, it is the complete unwillingness to clean up or take any responsibility for the shit they upvote.

If they even showed a tiny bit of willingness I would consider them just a tool. and smartsteem shows up on everyone that is a problem.

I used to sell the occasional vote via them, but I can't do it anymore, because they don't self police at all.

I sell my votes and I have to review them on SmartSteem on regular basis.

Have actually found some scummy stuff through my experience.

Voting blindly could lead to plenty of people "promoting" a scam, then having to answer to authorities. People do time for promoting scams. Is a few dollars profit worth the risk? Not to me. Am I paranoid? No. I protect myself and that means I don't do stupid things that could potentially lead to a worst case scenario like the one stated above. I don't wear sandals to the construction site.

Yeah, I generally don't visit trending unless directed here.

I think @therealwolf allows pull requests for SmartSteem blacklists now. I haven't looked into it, but yeah, I get what you are saying.

I just wish they'd clean up their act. There's more money to be made with an honest approach. And I don't just mean @therealwolf. They've ignored it all though for two years so whatever. I'll get shit on for even talking about wanting things to be better around here.

If it makes you feel better, some of them are starting to see them as detrimental ventures.

2/8/2018

If everyone was forced to purchase $50 worth of rewards from these new tax collectors just to be able to remain competitive, that would make $50 worth of rewards the new $1.

Only now they're starting to see it?

Exactly what I said here:
https://steemit.com/life/@nonameslefttouse/how-to-cook-steemit-crack-and-destroy-the-neighborhood

Comparing the paid votes to crack cocaine and the effects crack has on a neighborhood. Drives down property values. I saw that from day one. I was right, and I said it all to help, so we wouldn't be here, in this situation we're in, and they fucking ignored me.

"If the value of the token was high, nobody would complain," they say recently. But I said all that shit, and more shit, during STEEM's all time high, because I didn't want to see the value plummet. So many these days are scratching their heads, wondering why STEEM isn't rising with bitcoin. They put the money in the wrong hands, and ignored all of us who would have done things to make this place lively and thriving. They took a huge shit on EVERY single quality content producer here. Called us names like circle jerkers... when all we did was produce content and HOPE for a goddamn vote, and since some liked our work, we got votes. I started with nothing, and worked up. How the hell can someone with 1000 SP like I had way back in the day be part of some elaborate scheme to share votes... when my vote wasn't worth SHIT! People just voted, organically, didn't care how much money I had. I wasn't alone either. There were thousands of us producing cool stuff and enjoying our time here. Nearly all of them are fucking GONE now. People move out when crack moves in and you're left with SHIT... and the property value drops. NEVER recovers.