I like things the way they are, a lot of thought and energy went into getting this platform just right, hasty changes are likely to harm more than help.
(lower inflation and faster powerdowns, have done nothing to increase the bottom line)
The problem as I see it is the class snobbery that is controlling too much of the rewards pool.
This is supposed to be a platform for the masses, and I feel compelled to point out that most of the masses are unwashed.
If the high sp accounts spent their time upvoting the zero payout posts at https://steemit.com/cashout rather than plotting how to squeeze more minnows off the end of the tail to the benefit of the 'non-controversial' authors and posts, that would help.
If you introduce only negative voting for the high sp holders the animosity towards them is only going to increase.
The way I see it, self control within the present rules, and lower expectations of insiders making 'middle class wages' for doing what we can crowd source for free, will increase the reasons for new people to put in the effort of learning the platform, and perhaps investing some cash.
They have done a lot to improve the design but there are still a lot of things to improve.
This is not scalable, you need every users to curate to handle all the posts.
Animosity towards them is caused by the huge influence disparity, give minnows power and the animosity will go away.
In order,...
Those two features appealed to me, I could see lowering the rate, but watching my sp go up when I refreshed the window was nice.
Powerdowns, imo, should have been 10% a month, take it 'all' out in 10 months.
Making this less can only increase sell pressure, and violated the original concept of hold until we are wealthy.
Imo, the whales should vote however they want, but when they empower 'insider' groups that then gouge the rest of us for 'deserving' pay, that is an issue.
The community can decide what they support just fine without gurus.
If one needs more views, then one should interact with more folks.
I'm not having any problems finding followers, and I'm controversial.
Animosity will go down when more influence is left in the hands of the masses.
That can easily be done by the whales voting in person and not banding into groups for purposes of self enrichment at the expense of the little guys.
I don't know enough about the curation rewards to speak on if that is a pool that the whales should leave for the masses, too.
I get that they should get their curation awards, too.
Curation rewards are, to me, like interest for holding sp, and therefore, legitimate.
I just ask that they get them for personally voting their conscience and not for creating manpower pools/bots.
Changing things so that whales only downvote is, to me, a horrible idea, but all the marbles don't belong to me.