I support what @sqamemal says. I said it many times myself: Steemit is not a magic tool to make people rich. The only major improvement it does to the blogging industry is that it shortens the path to the money, by creating a token. But all the other stuff, like creating and maintaining an audience, promoting your post, being consistent, etc, still has to be done. And this was always a tedious, time consuming task. I blog for almost 10 years, and it took me 6 months since start to actually create a viral post. I started to make some money after 1-2 years. Now in Steemit you can make a few cents per article even if you are completely unknown.
There's obviously an "early adopter" advantage, but that's in every niche. I think it would be unfair to judge Steemit only through this lens.
I know it's not a magic tool to make people rich, although if you had a lot of money to start with, the model dictates that you could make a massive return, but it should be a fair society of equals, but it really isn't.
Anyway, apologies. Your informative post isn't the time or place for this discussion but I still see HF20 as favouring the whales, dolphins and witnesses financially...and hitting plankton and minnows unfairly hard......but that 'create good content' mantra really grinds.....
Steemit is not fair. Nor is life.
People say "life's not fair" as though it were the universal law of physics. There are things we can do to make it more fair. We can't dictate who gets hit by a tornado, but we can house and feed and clothe people. That society chooses not to is not a rule, it's just shitty.
It's true that life is often not fair, but there are pockets of fairness humans have created. Steemit could at least strive to be one.
What constitutes fair, exactly? In the context of Steemit, what is fair in your mind? Last I checked, the only barrier to entry is an internet connection. Otherwise, there is no opportunity that is barred from anyone here in any capacity. You are as free as me, or a brand new user, to engage in any of the activities that anyone else does on this blockchain.
Actually I'm more free than anyone who can't buy STEEM, at least in terms of being free to earn on here. I personally don't consider that "fair," because to me fairness requires people have their success determined only by the quality and volume of their output.
But I can write the exact same posts as someone from a poor country (or poor household in a rich country) and do much better on this platform just from being able to buy SP.
Not just due to upvoting myself, which I self regulate to be around 25% (an arbitrary idea of "fair" to me), but also because my larger upvotes to others gets me more attention, more comments, and more return upvotes.
I know that it can't be a platform that is completely fair, because having more SP is going to have to mean something, and not everyone can afford to buy the same amount (nor faces the same per coin prices, depending on when they are buying). So perfect fairness isn't going to happen, and that's okay. But I do think it quite reasonable, and desirable, to strive for greater fairness instead of moving toward new policies that make things even less of a level playing field than we already have.
...I disagree about being "more free," but I'll table that.
What do you propose?
Doesn't make it right though lol ;-)