I'm not at all excited about the hard fork tomorrow. I think there have been and continue to be too many changes to the economics of the platform and that these changes come in packages that are too large.
I see no point in changing the vote target from 40 to 10, as it doesn't appear to address any problem or flaw in the system or curb any identified abuse. I think the unintended consequences from this change could be far more detrimental to the economics of the platform and the behavior of users than just leaving the vote target alone.
I also don't think that a completely linear algorithm for rewards was necessary, but I'm not as opposed to that change. I have advocated a more linear curve for some time now.
What effect will it have on prices? I can't really say. But if a lot of whales or dolphins don't find it beneficial to be as active as they have been, we could see them dumping a lot of their accumulated STEEM. I happen to think that a lot of larger accounts will simply return to voting with their full weight and crowd out a large portion of the user base, just as we had seen prior to "the experiment." So, the net effect of this "equality" hard fork (which is a BS term if I've ever seen one) will likely be less influence for minnows, not more, even with the 4x voting power scheme.
Reduction from 40 to 10 is very damaging for the little ones .... Too many changes on a platform that is already complex, not a good thing, I agree with you ... @ats-david But I want to be positive! We hope well...