This was an informative read @lukestokes - I never actually knew that you technically earn based on your Steem Power and I strongly suspect that a lot of people don't know about this either. Seems to be a no-brainer to me that you throw every bit of STEEM you at at powering up your account, because not only are self-votes on your posts worth more, but you'll be earning the more Steem Power you have. I love this platform.
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Please, don't self vote. I understand the desire, especially when you're just starting out, but so many here are just self voting to maximize their personal returns instead of thinking long-term about the value of the whole ecosystem. Our voting power is a gift to be given away in order to bring focus to the content we like most as part of the "Proof of Brain" system outlined in the white paper.
I don't self vote and haven't for months because my vote power is too valuable to me for building relationships, helping others, and feeling good about promoting content I like to increase the overall value of my tokens.
Everything that I read when starting out on Steemit seemed to suggest and promote that self-voting your posts was an accepted practice (especially when you're starting out), just not self-voting comments (which are oddly enough also posts in the context of the Steem blockchain). You are correct in that voting is meant to be distributed to align with the whitepaper, but the information out there is very misleading in that it promotes the exact opposite.
I have only been a member of Steemit for 4 months now and while I wouldn't say that self-voting my posts has offered anything substantially valuable, I regularly upvote those who comment on my posts and desperately try my hardest to find other posts to upvote. The problem is most of the content I encounter on Steemit is just plain garbage, especially a lot of the posts that end up on the trending sections. I rarely, if ever, upvote anything on the trending page.
I think up until a certain point that self-upvoting is harmless because votes, in the beginning, are not worth anything, they're sadly just dust. But once you reach the upper echelons of Steemit, that self-voting becomes more about making money and greed than it does benefit the platform.
I can see why in your situation you wouldn't self-upvote, your SP is almost 72k plus the little over 6k you have been delegated. A vote from you at 100% is worth approximately $14.26, that is quite an influential vote right now, so it's admirable you choose not to self-upvote. If I had even 25% of the Steem Power that you had, I most certainly wouldn't self-vote either.
I am no longer going to self-vote either, even though a vote from me is worth nothing anyway, you're right in that it's more beneficial for the platform. I do however believe that the Steem platform has bigger issues that need to be solved, namely users like Haejin who are just making a mockery of this site and taking more than they deserve.
The platform needs more people like you, because honestly, I have struggled the past four months and although content quality is subjective, I like to think that I am contributing to this platform by publishing mostly decent content I am proud of.
There is nothing more painful than starting out on a platform, to see people uploading crappy photos of flowers and food, earning hundreds of dollars whilst those of us who invest time and effort into writing, researching and checking our content for spelling/grammatical and formatting errors waste away earning cents if we're lucky.
I still remember the excitement of earning my first $1, it was only a month or so ago. And I still remember the excitement the first time a high powered Steemit user upvoted a comment I wrote and I earned $12 from it, you don't see that happening too much. Most power users seem to vote with small votes as low as 1% voting power, so it was a great feeling.
I have fortunately been accepted into numerous curation groups who have recognised the quality of my writing and while I don't make a lot of money from it, I'm slowly working my way up the ladder. I want to help others and hope one day to get to the point where I have enough Steem Power to adopt and foster a new breed of Steemit authors who want to write quality content, and not upload the sheer garbage that dominates 95% of this platform currently, it's a travesty.
I think one thing we can agree on is, most of those who have broke into the high reputation and Steem Power ranks are not giving back as much as they should. There is still a huge imbalance on this site and I hope that Ned and Steemit Inc are working on solutions to penalise power users who don't give back as much as they should or perhaps even just incentivising participation.
Gave you a follow as well, because you're one of the good guys and your content is solid.