To be clear: I have no real doubt that one or more sources of inflation will be used for funding.
But with available tools, it's hard to tell which sources the community wants to use, and in what proportion.
I don't want to be the one making the "final decision", which is what would have to happen with the available polling methods. Once the Steem.DAO is operational, it will make the decisions automatically, based on the votes.
How do we avoid manipulation by large whales? We already see some whales and large stakeholders display actions that benefit them at the detriment of the overall ecosystem
thats how it works, the more stake you have the more to say you have
Stake weighted voting has both pros and cons.
I reckon such will inevitably be attempted. There will be observable consequences to those initiatives. If decidedly negative consequences result, the markets will react accordingly.
Fools all too often do themselves harm. Fortunately, not all in the Steem community are fools, and folks intent on increasing their stakes will be extremely likely to oppose foolishness with diligence.
We have a fragile user base. Retention is awful now. If it gets worse because of profiteering, users will vanish, and Steem value will collapse. Lessons will be learned, hopefully before existential and terminal consequences eventuate.
The right proposals being funded, effected by appropriate personnel, and producing growth and gains in Steem value are the purpose of this initiative. If growth and gains are inadequate, or worse, stakeholders are going to act to intervene quickly - or lose their stakes.
That's what we got. Let's make sure we use what we got well.
Thanks!
All of the profiteering and wrecking of perception has happened big time year over year @valued-customer, but I am not here to whine about that, it's done and over with. We can learn from it or keep sticking the fork in the light socket and see what happens next or find some very truly revolutionary ideas that bring competitive advantage to a highly dynamic platform in comparison to so much else you see on the coinmarketcap top 100. I would go as far as re-vesting voting shares (somewhat/somehow) to allow for fresher voices to intermingle with those that have heavy stakes and encourage those that may not even be here yet and those that have been ignored during the wholesale departure due to prior failed planning.
While we can't go back in time and not do things that were done, none of the things done are cast in stone. As we gain better grasp of the issues and dynamics of Steem, we can do things that best grow it's value, including changing or undoing things that were done in the past.
I do advocate changing some things, but the changes I advocate are not supported by the folks whose profiteering drain on growth those changes would reduce. Odd that. Anyway, there is tension between investors, who seek to grow the value of the investment vehicle, Steem, and produce capital gains, and profiteers, who seek to extract value from the investment vehicle, Steem, and hoard it in their own accounts.
Since Steem wasn't founded by seasoned investors, but cryptokiddies, the investment cadre isn't particularly robust. Either profiteers will learn by their mistakes, or they will keep making them, and Steem will not increase in value as a result of sound investment improvements if they remain dominant.
Time will tell.