Do the people with voting power really think that we are going to stick around and work on this platform for $0.12 / hour while sock puppet accounts are upvoted consistently?
As long as the whales can continue to power down and make thousands of dollars each week doing so, then they probably don't care if anyone else sticks around. They may not care even if Steem becomes completely worthless. They've already made a lot of money in the past six months. They can probably easily move on to the next project.
What we need are actual long-term investors who actually care about the success of the platform and the success of content creators - and who also care about the reputation of Steemit as a social media and content creation community. Right now, I'm not seeing many investors who want to touch this. They really don't have a reason to. Something will need to change soon and it won't come at the hands of the few thousand active users who have no influence.
I have said over and over again that I came here to invest. As in real money. I am still investing time, but I just can't find a reason to purchase Steem. To improve my voting power would take too big of an investment for the return.
I love to write, but I don't have an awesome story every day. I think to date I have made a few cents from curation, because I try to avoid voting for the exact accounts which have been referenced.
I don't care that people are talking about Doom and Gloom, I do care the curation motivations are very low.
Those who have talked about the "issues" get flagged and chewed out by whales.
I was an early adopter of Facebook, back when Mark Z. was your first friend. He wasn't rich and powerful yet either. There was a lot of talk and comparisons to MySpace.com. You didn't see mark running around and telling everyone to stop saying anything bad. In fact he interviewed people who were negative and built their suggestions into the platform.
We shall see what the future of Steem/Steemit holds.
Yeah, I don't like thinking of it as a job or anything serious like that. When you have something to contribute, just go for it and don't worry about the pay. Likewise, when you read something you like, go ahead and upvote it but don't feel obligated to vote on a certain number of posts per day or anything like that. Unless it's fun, it'll die.
I have thought about it from that standpoint as well. I asked myself. How much would it take for people to "Whale UP?" The number is too great for sure to make their vote worth anything. I have been here for over 3 months cranking out content and my vote is worth $0.01. I can only earn about 5 Steem Power each week from curation. So let's say I don't have the money to Whale UP the question is would others?
The answer seems to be just like what you are saying. The investment is too big for the return at this point. And it is too big of a risk. The investment could just erode away as the biggest accounts continue to power down.
You are so right about the correct course of action being to interview people who have been on this platform to really figure out how to address some of the issues.
To be fair some of the feedback has been taken into consideration for sure. Hopefully somehow some way we can save Steem / Steemit.
Several guys from this group https://steemit.chat/group/steeminvestors (me included) hold exactly the same thinking.
Actually when I read this I thought it was written by me:
It says there's no such group as "steeminvestors" when I click on the link.
Contact@twinner (by private message) - tell him you are a perfect candidate "per my estimation" especially if you do not meet the general criteria - which is "SP less than 50% of author rewards."
Actually I did that for you. Just if your chat handle is not 'ats-david' in the chat, tell him what it actually is.