Okay, then given that you explicitly "don't intend to" give the impression that steemsports or steemvoter are a conspiracy, how about dropping the whole witch hunt which implicitly does do exactly, whether you claim to intend it or otherwise? If and when there is an actual instance of such abuse, I'm interested in hearing about it. Innuendo and smear tactics, along with discussion of you would engage in a hypothetical (and obvious) exploitative scheme that is different from how steemsports and steemvoter actually work , I'm not interested in hearing about.
Yeah, youre right. Where do i get off? Here I am annoying SS with with rocket-chat popups and sending them cryptic private messages, and all they want to do is mind their own business and just do their own thing. Im such an asshat.
Someone who doesnt want to be the subject of a witch hunt should not ride around on a broom, wear a conical hat and turn people into toads.
That said, my disclaimer was merely because of the use of the word consipracy, which has negative connotations that were not my intention.
I take it as a given that steemsports and SV would attempt to incentivize their larger voters. Because SS and SV are business. And the correct strategy for a business would be to provide such incentives. I don't believe this is evil (as the word conspiracy would imply to many), but it is exploitative. The nature of all business is exploitation.
You want a specific example?
To me the timing of this and the subsequent changes to the SS post format seems to indicate that, at least in the mind of SS, there was a degree of quid pro quo.
Do i believe that that quid pro quo was the reason for whales votes? No. I believe that the whales who vote/voted for it do so because they believe its a good idea.
But i believe that it was (an ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to sweeten the pot for their largest voters. From a GT perspective, that pot sweetner is really all that seperates the one model from the other.
So yes, my hypothetical is different from the above. But its only different in that I would go out of pocket more to offer better incentives to my best customers. Because thats how you run a business.