Thanks for such a great response and clarifying some of these issues. Yes I think a more detailed profile page is pretty much inevitable.
Witnesses are NOT employees of Steemit inc. but employees of Steem the blockchain......By witnesses not being employees of Steemit inc. the blockchain remains decentralized.
Exactly. It is important to make this distinction since people will cry collusion and scam otherwise.
Witnesses are paid in SP (SteemPower) which means a promise of future pay, in return they have to be available almost 24/7 to perform their job.
This needs to be made clear too. I think most people think that being a witness is basically a job with no work and massive payouts. Like most cursory assumptions this is completely wrong. It is a specialised job which requires a huge commitment and is likely pretty damn stressful.
That is what the compensation is for but unlike a job in real life they don't get payed in liquid currency so they are taking an extra risk because of this.
I could possibly become a witness, but
a) I wouldn't be doing it for the money, I'd be doing it to help the network.
b) My server is good but my internet is not. If my connection goes offline, how badly does that "hurt" other users? I would hate to cause a bottleneck or make people's lives difficult.
Get a virtual server see this post :) https://steemit.com/witness-category/@jerrybanfield/steem-witness-basic-training