Agreed entirely. Ned happens to be a public figure in the world of Steemit, so all he has to do is simply STAND THERE and the rotten tomatoes and simpering sycophants appear in spades.
"Blah, blah, blah, this and that is wrong with Steemit, and why doesn't @ned DO something and blah, blah, blah...."
Translation: "I was talked into creating a Steemit account to make money and it's turning out to be a LOT harder than I thought and I need someone to BLAME because I don't have a new Lambo yet, boo-hoo-hoo..."
I think a lot of people get their jollies simply from watching the activities of large stake holders and then complaining about their actions. Sure, Ned is a "principal" of Steemit. Such people get watched a lot... and usually get judged unfairly.
But Ned doesn't "owe" anyone — least of all a whiny minnow — anything. He's just as free to do with his stake as anyone else...
Holy fuck you're blind.. Open your damn eyes.
Ned is nothing but a used car salesman who has done NOTHING here but make empty promises. And you don't think he deserves to be a target? He's running whatever this is into the ground and obviously making some external plays because he's well aware of what he's not doing.
Bernie, I may well be fucking blind, and I also have no idea what it actually entails to run a gig like Steemit as a decentralized venue; since you run a witness, you know more about that than I.
What I observe is that everything here seems to take 10x longer to implement than anyone thinks it should. I have no idea who to "blame" for that. Ned? The dev team? Or is "working by consensus" simply more time consuming than a conventional structure?
You're no stranger to being a target. For every person thinking "Thank God for @berniesanders, he'll save Steemit!" there's another who thinks "That @berniesanders is an asshole who will DESTROY this platform!" You're a public figure with influence in this ecosystem; that makes you a target. Is that "fair?" Does it matter? Maybe not. But is it accurate to make you the target for a bunch of flying shit? Nope.
So what does Ned stand to gain from running Steemit into the ground? Or is he just a blind "Dan Fanboy" getting ready for Steemit 2.0? Those are sincere questions...
I do know software development and I assure you, what they have done over the past 2 years is laughable and those kids will have absolutely nothing to show on their resume for their time spent with STINC. Most of them probably aren't even trained developers, that's just a guess though.
Ned is at the top, he is the ONLY one to blame for lack of development.
I catch a lot of flying shit, it's just part of the gig.
I don't think he's doing it intentionally, I think he's just ignorant and inexperienced. Not his fault, but he absolutely is running Steemit and Steem into the ground. Is he a Dan "fanboy"? Highly doubtful given what I know.
Appreciate the response.
I guess for the time being, all we can do is pop popcorn and watch the show unfold. And hope others with significant skin the game can help mitigate the disasters...
This site borders on being a ponzi scheme, the only reason that isn't being determined to be true or not is because crypto's are not regulated. If this had been a company and What'sup cry for the upper tier a couple weeks ago to stick together and let the lower tier faulter she/he would have been sued into oblivion by the lower tier if they'd sunk and lost everything.
Sure, it certainly has elements that bring Ponzis to mind; but without an actual "product" and a "required buy-in" it's basically nothing. You're not under contract to anyone, and there are zero promises that you'll "get" anything... your "getting" is based on people's voluntary actions.
Sorry, spent many years researching and writing exposés on sketchy network marketing. Whereas the Steemit structure may be a bit dodgy, there's little here to pin a Ponzi on...
There are marketing plans out there that don't require a initial product buy in. Regardless of that debate what Steemit will surely be held to if it hits regulations is the ability of anyone to flag anybodies account down to zero. That's going to be a huge regulatory no no. That person earned that money and no one has a right to take it from them.
Agreed, that's one that's going to be tricky and sticky. Because you're not being offered MONEY, just a TOKEN. And just like getting paid in common stock by a public corporation, getting a token doesn't come with a promise that it has a specific value. So when someone flags someone else, they're not taking away money. At least that's how the sharkster lawyers will defend it.
WhatsUP might want to read the part where a exchange shut down or did not open and investors lost money....the investors said they did it deliberately to save their own investment but the company said there was something wrong with their program. Any "insider" mention where one group bans together at the detriment of the rest of the group or manipulation to stop the flow of currency to part of the group would be considered a violation.
No one is asking you to invest or stay or participate. If you think it is a ponzi scheme surely you would like to avoid it.
Well I guess YOU missed the release by the SEC chairman on Cypto currency. Don't worry though for I did find it for you. Here's what he said:
Merely calling a token a "utility" token or structuring it to provide some utility does not prevent the token from being a security.[15] Tokens and offerings that incorporate features and marketing efforts that emphasize the potential for profits based on the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others continue to contain the hallmarks of a security under U.S. law. It is especially troubling when the promoters of these offerings emphasize the secondary market trading potential of these tokens, i.e., the ability to sell them on an exchange at a profit. In short, prospective purchasers are being sold on the potential for tokens to increase in value – with the ability to lock in those increases by reselling the tokens on a secondary market – or to otherwise profit from the tokens based on the efforts of others. These are key hallmarks of a security and a securities offering.
So a TOKEN is considered MONEY
He also said this:
As I have stated previously, these market participants should treat payments and other transactions made in cryptocurrency as if cash were being handed from one party to the other.
I also took this to mean you CANNOT just take someone else's investment out of THEIR wallet:
There should be no misunderstanding about the law. When investors are offered and sold securities – which to date ICOs have largely been –they are entitled to the benefits of state and federal securities laws and sellers and other market participants must follow these laws.
If you'd like to read the whole statement released please feel free to do so:
https://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/testimony-virtual-currencies-oversight-role-us-securities-and-exchange-commission
By the end of it you will fully understand that innovations have occurred throughout history....and they've all ended up coming under the same regulations that old innovations have and that the SEC does not tend to take likely violations and have already went to bat for some losses of crypto funds.
OK, I'll bite. What do you believe the solution might be? Or what should happen?
If we do away with flags, there's no longer ANY disincentive for someone to come in here and do something "scammy" to fill their pockets, haejin style.
If we say "Steemit needs to ban scammy accounts" then the whole freedom, and non-censorship and — for that matter — the idea of decentralization goes right down the toilet... Steemit basically become "Farcebook with tokens."
But this seems to have wandered a bit from the original discussion of Steemit as a Ponzi.
I think you are way off calling out the minnows, some of them have worked rather hard to get up there quite a bit. In doing such they've held their investment to their advantage, if things were going to fall through the floor at least they deserve adequate time to withdraw that to which they have worked very hard to accomplish thus far.
If I were "calling out minnows," I'd also be calling out myself, FWIW.
What I'm calling out are the pervasive voices of many who come here, post a couple of dozen times and then start to look for "someone to blame" when there's not $100's rolling in from their posts.
I'm calling out all the people who thought it was "a good idea" to go all over the place and tell people to "Come to Steemit!" while using Jeff Berwick's now infamous $30,000 post as a "fishing lure." That's as dumb/misleading as pointing at Bill Gates' billions as a good reason why you should work for Microsoft.
Is Ned up to some sketchy things? Who knows... Is he serving his own interests? Hells to the yeah. Is he going to act in a way to render his stake worth zero? Not unless he's clinically insane, I'm going to guess. Am I an apologist for Ned? Nope. I just remember back when I worked at Dell, Michael (Dell) got blamed for everything from a broken coffeemaker to faulty code...was that a "right" thing? Not really... but perhaps the basics of human nature.
....not to mention your comment about minnows reeks of arrogance.
No offense meant, and I wasn't calling you out; I was calling out "relative newcomers who are all butthurt because Steemit hasn't turned out to be a money-for-nothing cash grab."
I see your posts all over the place, so clearly you're not part of that group...
I've seen newcomers come here after I joined going gangbusters on here....nope most are not putting out quality content they are gaming the system. They've just found the loop holes and happen to be computer savvy. I think that's what frustrates a lot of the new comers who want to play somewhat by the rules. I didn't have any high hopes or ambitions when I got talked into coming here so it's a little hard to be frustrated with something
you weren't expecting anyway. My motto was if it sounded to good to be true
it probably was....and it turned out exactly that. Basically because the rules aren't spelled out like they should be, that's another regulatory no no they'll get hit with if crypto's get regulated. They'll have to explain to people exactly what one vote is worth, that if your votes don't add up to one whole cents they get dusted and any post that don't make ten cents gets burned. Like any business where money is transacted people have a right to know exactly how it operates.
Haha, so true. I really felt mad reading the comments.