Hey, @llfarms.
After reading your post and then the comments, there's all kinds of thoughts being generated from them in my mind that I'm not sure if my reply is going to be coherent or not.
It appears what I consider your reasonable call to check the folks out you've selected has caused a stir, I guess, rather than a simple, "Thanks! We'll check them out." Instead, there's all kinds of issues dredged up about supporting in general, who to support, etc.
I understand it. I know why people have those feelings. I guess they explain to some degree why folks in general, and maybe specifically these accounts, don't have much in the way of support yet.
Yet, this seems to be the way it always works on STEEM. There are times where the community comes together and steps up (GINAbot is one of those, thankfully), but the rest of the time is spent coming up with reasons why things aren't happening, or even why they shouldn't happen.
In my case, I look at who is producing the content that I feel is not only a good effort, good quality, etc., but that I have an interest in. I don't have the ability to read everything and reward everyone, nor should I. Together, collectively, we should be able to do this, though. And do it because we want to, because we see the value in it.
I'd say that people who want to follow these accounts because they like their content should. This post is helping those who weren't aware of these accounts to know about them, and they should go ahead and follow through if they so desire.
If the higher SP accounts, curation trails, etc., are feeling like they're not getting enough love, or ROI, to keep curating, than I don't know what to say. The money apparently is in self-voting, bots and maybe dapps. I'm not sure content creators are ever going to compete with that, even if they were ever to change the creator/curator rewards to something other than 75/25. I can only hope that they will continue to curate, and support as much as I can their efforts. There's only so much one account can do, even larger ones.
However, many accounts can do much more. As you've said, I've seen it happen, and I think it can continue.
Well I think that is because unfortunately for those wanting to make the most of their investment here, curation doesn’t pay. While that may be seen as selfish for one reason or another, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that Steem is a business for some, it’s an ivestment.. and in any successful business one must look at how to get the biggest return on their investment.. that’s just good business sense.
My goal here is to show those investors a way to not only get a return on investment, but to do so by supporting great content creators. I truly believe that investors and content creators can find middle ground and work together to make this place what we all know it can’t be.
I think that showing them that supporting content like this above can actually help to add value here while essentially producing free advertising to the outside world, is a good place to start. Many large account holders do choose to use their stake to curate content rather than get the highest ROI they can’t through self votes or bots.. and I tagged some of them here because I know they truly do care about this place and it’s future.
I think it’s selfish of us to expect or rather demand large stake holders essentially work for free.. its unfair and unrealistic. They earned their stake and they don’t owe anyone anything.. but, we can work with them to come up with a way that improves the long term ROI for all of us.. and investing in good content creators is one of the ways to do so.
If we can work together to add value to this place overall, we all win. But it will take a bit of patience and understanding from us all. Right now curation is broken, and we have to find a way to fix it.
Can't disagree here. STEEM is first and foremost an investment platform, and until more products and services appear on it, that's what it will continue to be. And those who do invest can do whatever they feel is best for them. If it weren't for them, STEEM wouldn't even be where it is.
So, this is a great call to action for those accounts you mention here to those high SP accounts that you know care about community. You say curation is broken (again, I'm in agreement). What kinds of things do you think need to happen in order to persuade these investors to do more curation? Or is pointing out that there are accounts here with very large followings elsewhere that should be supported so they can essentially be STEEM ambassadors to their other social media followers basically the fix?