Good points.
We must remember that our actions TODAY become the permanent "advertisement" for recruiting new Steemit members 5, 7, 10 years from now. Is the action you take now in alignment with what you want to tell a potential newcomer Steemit "is about," 5 years from now?
I personally don't agree with the logic people high up on Steem has about self-voting being a way to help "get yourself noticed". At the same time, there is a limitation that can't prevent self-voting since someone can just create another account and delegate to that account and upvote their own posts. It's almost like a catch 22.
It's up to the community and also the large stakeholders to determine what is the good "etiquette" to change this type of behavior.
I think a lot of people over look that this is a capitalist platform since it is Delegated Proof Of Stake.
With that said, I have come to view self-voting neither good or bad for the time being. I believe over time as the user base grows and with community tokens, each community can create what behavior is accepted within those communities.
Thanks @bitcoinparadise!
I'm definitely looking forward to see how "Communities" play out, when they finally come to market. I feel hopeful that they might encourage at least "pockets" of the community where the conduct is a little less self-oriented.
I don't see anything inherently evil about selfishness and capitalism-- the problem here is "short sightedness." Sometimes if all you focus on are maximum rewards NOW, you don't get to have much of anything in the future. I also recognize that this is "new territory" to many of the people high up on the Steem chain... they suddenly have $500,000 in assets, "just like that." That's exciting! But it also can go away again, JUST AS FAST as it arrived, as a result of poor choices.
Yes, I believe "communities" can encourage "pockets" of the community to do this.
I agree in some aspect of the "short-sidedness." However, the way this platform is designed, it's a race to get as much STEEM as possible. At the same time yes, poor choices can have quite an effect.
I think the way the system was designed it will be a difficult for those high up to power down to lose their influencing power on the platform and the "capital" to continue earning more. I think the community tokens will change things for the better.
I do remain quite hopeful about "Communities," as well as hopeful that we'll see something concrete from the development team fairly soon... as I recall, the estimated "delivery date" was 2nd Quarter for that.