@tolkatore, I am really focused on what you have to say. I understand your concerns and I think I have a solution that may improve the future.
I don't like bots either. I experimented with the upvote bot and really felt dirty. The other bot accounts that go around and fish for votes really don't make an impact. I don't feel like bots create a threat. They are more like parasites. STEEM Inc is working on a mechanism that devalues bot usage and a plan to enlist oracles to discover bots. The other concern is whales owning the supply. I'm not sure what there is to complain about. 20% to 50% ROI over a year's time is very doable here. One can invest on MinnowBooster and get at least 20% returns and do absolutely nothing to get those returns. That is a pretty good deal to me. I've never been able to get those kinds of returns on the stock market with my retirement account. You are lucky if you get 10% or just not going negative.
All social media platforms had crap content when they start out. I had the idea for YouTube long before it was invented. I remember that there was all kinds of stupid cartoons and videos. Most all crap. In fact, I recall one video was about a superhero was propelled through the air by crap coming out of his but. It was literally that bad. Despite that, I still felt that social media was the future. When YouTube eventually came out there was terrible content. It eventually got better, but there will always be crap. These people are not professionals. That is the nature of social media.
If you are really inspired to make a difference, I am pooling a bunch of Witness voting power to persuade witnesses to accomplish tasks that we want them to do. My first challenge for witness is to get STEEM or SBD on a major exchange. That will help provide access of STEEM to more people and strengthen the currency. Will you join me? If I get enough people to do this, then this could be the future of how witnesses operate. The do the work of the consensus of the people rather than what they feel is good for the community (likely themselves). What do you say? A witness vote doesn't take away from your earnings or cost anything. You have a bunch of unused votes.
If this task is completed, then I will find a new task for the witnesses. We will keep doing that until we clean this place up. All you have to do is promise to vote for the witness that gets the job done. It is just that easy.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@socky/witness-reward-bounty-180-102-464-vests
Come on man, you know as well as I do that Witnesses don't do shit. They all hang out in Discord and bullshit about how much Steem they make from running a node. Most of them don't give a shit either, so long as they can turn their Steem into dollars at the end of the day.
How many witnesses do you know? I know a witness that lives near me. His node cost him more than he earns (Way More). You don't see people voting for him. You see people voting for the same old witnesses that make all the money. If you don't participate, you can't expect to make a difference. You might as well be part of the problem and let bots take control.
@tolkatore, I went and looked at your profile and discovered that you have a real distaste for SBD. I'm trying to understand your point of view. I think that bottom line is you really don't like the fact that SBD doesn't hold the peg. I get it. I would prefer that SBD to hold itself against the US dollar. Us Americans have a difficult time understanding different currency prices. This is because we grew up with a single stable currency system. It is really difficult for us to wrap our heads around change.
I think you misunderstand economics. You wrote:
You can't just write into code a value of currency. You can try printing new SBD and flooding the market with SBD to lower it, but that will backfire and force high interest payments which will come from STEEM. That would hurt the Steemit economy. The problem is not the code or the peg mechanisms. The real reason SBD is not holding to the peg is that there isn't enough of it. Other coins started out with a massive supply and everyone just buys the supply at a set price. SBD didn't start out with a supply. The only way to create SBD is to generate it through rewards. We only have 14.8 Million SBD created so far. That is an incredibly tiny supply. Compare that to another coin with an incredibly tiny supply (Bitcoin of 17 Million supply). Bitcoin value is at $7500. Since we are no where near $7500, I'd say that our system is doing a hell of a good job holding SBD to the peg.
My point is that all the manipulation in the world is not going to peg SBD when the real factor is supply.
Removing SBD wold be a terrible thing to do. Getting rid of SBD would remove a huge source of growth for Steemit. SBD plays a key role in growth by creating an avenue for investors to essentially pay Steemians for the work that they do. The price above the peg is caused by demand. Demand is good. Whey people buy up our SBD, they are putting money in our pockets. That incentivizes growth on Steemit. Getting rid of SBD would be a huge blow to our economy. It would also never give SBD a chance to build up a supply large enough to allow the peg mechanisms to work.
Either way, I'm done with it, until they figure this mess out.