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.