@smooth Quote from Smooth above: I don't know how to do the quote thing in comments. "I consider that directly harmful to my investment and I will apply my votes accordingly."
Per usual, I appreciate your direct communication style, and I agree you can vote and flag according to your power and preferences .
I fully understand your perception that posting about how votes are used ultimately hurts the platform, but I don't understand the lack of willingness to also acknowledge, what David is posting about isn't a secret and that behavior is also hurting the platform.
If you could step away from your whaleness for a minute and put yourself in the fins of a minnow who is... Unconnected. Not an aspiring Author, but a decent writer. The message from yourself and others is "write better content". When really what is creating votes isn't content, but rather networking. (not a bad thing on a social network, so let's acknowledge it)
I don't know how to say it any clearer than new users feel like they could write Shakespear and it likely won't get any of the Steem pool, because the steem pool is already allocated to the whales, witnesses and friends or sock-puppets of the whales. <---- If I knew how I would bold that last paragraph.
Thank you for taking the time to read and interact with the users, and I agree with your stated reasons 1-4 on barriers to user adoption.
Yeah, I can do that and I imagine it sucks. But unfortunately whether @kushed (along with others) supports the writers he recruits to the platform by using his SP as he deems worthy or not, the life of an unknown minnow trying to make it is still going to suck. So again, this comes down to not trying to actually make things better for anyone to any meaningful degree, but negativity and trolling rooted in jealousy (of others who are better connected, have more resources, etc. and generally have it easier).
I don't know how to fix that, other than the usual advice of hard work, self-promotion, networking, trying to find mentors and sponsors, etc. (as you correctly pointed out).
I appreciate your often critical but nevertheless thoughtful feedback.
BTW, search google for "steemit markdown tutorial". They will teach you how to quote and format.
@smooth, I agree with you regarding @kushed supporting who he wants. You just acknowledged the sucky experience of a new user. Don't we need them? As a team, can we focus on how to make it better for them? Tired of arguing and ready to look for solutions.
Oh and thanks, I will learn how to use the SteemIt markdown tool. ;)