So we sacrifice a coherent overall system and the actual social aspects of “social media” because some people complain about “unfairness?”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news then, but people who don’t earn as much as they’d like will always complain about “unfairness.” Since this platform has the money element included, those complaints are inescapable. The idea is to make the system actually work and work for the most people by a coherent set of rules/protocols, not to cater to those with absurd/mismanaged expectations and misguided “feelings.”
The largest problem with any of the previous rules was the result of the initial distribution - and I have yet to see anyone willing to address that. If this place was flawed from the beginning, as Ned suggested in another comment (below), then why pretend that any amount of code tinkering can make things “more fair?” All that happens is that a different set of problems emerge...but the origin has always been the same.
Personally, like the terribly evil hyperinflation, awfully implemented trickle up rewards and other crap engineering from the onset of Steem, I hope we never see N2 again. - Ned
Overtime many of the root problems caused by initial over-engineering and other evils/flaws I won’t go into detail about have been mitigated, cleansed or eliminated - this place is a lot better than it was before our 19 hardforks but still it’s not perfect! It never will be and I love that. Though we will get to see lots and lots of imperfect solutions balance themselves out for the most possibly perfect combined solution through SMTs
I largely agree with @ned's points here, including that while it isn't perfect it is indeed a lot better. There's still some early over- (and especially overly-eager) engineering like the 30-minute reverse auction and lousy reputation system.